Cotton & Water

Dr. Barnes is Senior Director of Agricultural and Environmental Research at Cotton Incorporated where for the last twenty years he has managed agricultural engineering related projects, including programs on: precision farming, ginning, irrigation management, conservation tillage, and cotton harvest systems. He has also served as a team member in documenting cotton’s progress in reducing its environmental footprint while at the same time increasing productivity and currently serves on the Science Advisory Council of Field to Market, The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture.  Most recently he has been leading efforts to increase the automation of cotton production systems.

Prior to Cotton Incorporated Dr. Barnes spent seven years conducting research on crop water management with remotely sensed data for the USDA-Agricultural Research Service at the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Biological and Agricultural Engineers (ASABE) and currently serves on their Board of Trustees.  He received his BS and MS in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from NC State University and PhD in Biosystems Engineering from Oklahoma State University.