The scenery changes south of campus.

High-rise dormitories and herds of people give way to rolling green rows of crops and massive mooing cows.

The senses are relieved from car exhaust fumes and pervaded with scents of fresh grass and cow manure.

The tiny one-way turns of campus and traffic circles straighten out and turn into long stretches of rural roads that wind through MSU’s 5,000 acres of farmland.

But the roads find their way back to central campus.

The research conducted at the expansive farms south of central campus ekes its way back into classrooms, into computers, into the minds and departments of the people at MSU.

Mark Collins manages one of the many farms at MSU - the Hancock Turfgrass Research Center, which grows, cultivates and researches thousands of types of grass.

“We work to find the ones that fit Michigan best,” Collins said.

“We work with grass to give athletes safer playing conditions - and make healthy grass for homeowners that’s more aesthetically pleasing.”

The new grass in Spartan Stadium that now graces the footsteps of quarterback Jeff Smoker cost more than $2.5 million and took 18 months of work, Collins said.

Workers plant the grass during the fall, since it thrives in cooler temperatures, but researchers work year-round.

The turf management farm, with small greens and neatly mowed fields that require daily upkeep, doesn’t look like most of MSU’s farms.

The dairy and sheep farms south of campus seem more like the farms students might be used to seeing.

At these farms, the animals raised there are used for research, as professors and students work together to find more efficient ways to raise and distribute animals.

The countless rows of corn and soybeans at the crop and soil science research farm also have a more familiar look.

Kurt Thelen, a professor with crop and soil sciences, said he spends most of his summertime days at the farm.

At different seasons, he and the other workers work in the fields, planting and harvesting.

“A lot of times we’re in the field doing crop maintenance and data analysis,” he said.

Thelen and other researchers work on the thousands of plots at the farm trying to improve crop production.

One recent project searches for a way to get more greenhouse gases out of the air and into the soil.

Technology on the farm “runs the whole gamut,” Thelen said.

“Everything from a shovel to advanced computer equipment.”

And what does the professor prefer?

“Depends on what day it is,” he said. “They both have their frustrations and benefits.”

The farm uses advanced equipment to measure light interception, soil moisture and other factors, research technician Bill Widdicomb said. Sometimes the technician runs 15-hour days, trying to collect and disseminate data.

Widdicomb and other technicians work with graduate students such as Mark Bernards, who came across the country from Utah to work at the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences.

Bernards is conducting research for his thesis on irrigating soybeans in Michigan.

He spends most of his days with a clipboard in hand, collecting data with Widdicomb.

And the research technician congratulated Bernards on all the work he has done as a graduate student.

“He’s come a long way,” Widdicomb said.

Whether its dairy cows, sheep, soybeans or turf grass, the vast and peaceful farmland south of main campus contrasts sharply with the noise of the dormitories, the rush of buses on Grand River Avenue and the stress of exams.

But somehow the two worlds are still linked - by research, by proximity, and maybe more importantly, by a common Spartan identity.