A retirement reception for Jim Specht, Francis and Dorothy Haskins and Charles E Bessey Professor of Agronomy and Horticulture, is 3 to 5 p.m. May 30 in the East Union’s Arbor Suite. The reception is open to students, faculty and staff.

Specht joined the university faculty in 1974 as a soybean physiologist and geneticist to study soybean yield response to drought and water irrigation.

Early in his career, he helped Nebraska soybean growers by sharing information about proper irrigation for optimized crop yield and how irrigated soybean production could be more productive and more profitable.

He has also served on research teams funded by the United Soybean Board that led to better understanding of the soybean plant and how genetics may be used to make plants more tolerant of drought.