In the summer of 2001, the Department of Ornamental Horticulture and Landscape Design (OHLD) joined with the plant sciences portion of the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences (PSS) to form a new department named the Department of Plant Sciences and Landscape Systems (PSLS). Most PSS soils personnel, as instructed by Institute administration, joined the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (ABE), which changed its name to the department of Biosystems Engineering and Environmental Science (BEES) and then to the current Department of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Sciences (BESS). On July 1, 2003, our new and official name became the Department of Plant Sciences.
Prior to the above mentioned merger, Plant and Soil Sciences had merged in 2000 with Plant and Soil Sciences Extension to form a single department. The Agronomy department had been renamed Plant and Soil Sciences in 1972 and at that time fruit and vegetables were included in the Plant and Soil Sciences umbrella. OHLD was formed from the Department of Horticulture in 1971.
The Plant and Soil Sciences department relocated from Morgan Hall to the Ellington Plant Sciences Building on the UT Agriculture campus when it opened in 1967. The then OHLD department was in charge of the landscaping around the new building. In 2024, the new Agriculture and Natural Resources Building was built and the old Ellington Plant Sciences Building was torn down. The department currently occupies part of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Building and the Plant Biotechnology Building, which opened in August 2003.
The Plant Sciences Department and its legacy departments have been an integral part of the Herbert College of Agriculture at the University of Tennessee. Horace C. Smith, a retired, now deceased professor in the Plant and Soil Sciences department, wrote a history of CASNR, the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources, which is now the Herbert College of Agriculture, in 1999 titled “An Honored Calling”. For the full book, click here.