Proceedings Library

The list of exotic weeds that have started out as hedges is horrendous, and there is a continuous battle to eradicate them. The use of native plants for hedging can only be recommended both for shelter and ornamentation in gardens. The ecological advantages for the environment are many fold — home and fruits for birds, lizards, insects, and soil enrichment.

The selection of New Zealand native plants has for some time been practiced in other countries — flax in Tristan de Cunha, Metrosideros in South Africa, Pittosporum in the United Kingdom and Europe, and I?m sure many other countries where most have become weeds.

Background Details on Wallum Nurseries. Wallum Nurseries is located 15 km from Brisbane’s central business district in the bay side suburb of Gumdale. The nursery was established by my parents in 1999, and is now one of Australia’s largest and leading wholesale nurseries specializing in Australian native flora for revegetation. Wallum Nurseries is a tube-stock grower of bushland flora, coastal flora, rainforest species, grasses, and wetland species.

Wallum Nurseries has been an Nursery Industry Accreditation Scheme, Australia accredited nursery since its establishment. We are also Eco-Hort Accredited and are now undertaking BioSecure (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) accredita?tion. This ensures the quality of stock our customers have come to expect from us. In 2005 Wallum Nurseries won the best Medium-Sized Production Nursery Award from the Australian Garden Industry.

The commercial forestry industry in South Africa has a large positive effect on the country’s economy. The forestry industry is one of the larger providers of rural em?ployment in South Africa and workers in the plantation sector number over 75,000. The forest products sector is the fourth largest manufacturing division in the country and the forestry sector, as a whole, provides employment to approximately half a million South Africans, a figure that is expected to increase as South Africa moves deeper into the 21st century (Jones, 1994; Tewari, 2001).

Approximately 1.1% of South Africa’s total surface area is made up of commercial plantations, comprised mostly of exotic species and covering an area of over 1.28 million ha. However this area is decreasing, whilst processing capacity contin?ues to grow (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, 2003; Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, 2007).

My nursery is situated in Amberley, 50 km from Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand. The rainfall is about 22 in. (55 cm) per year. My water right is limited to a shallow aquifer with deep water not really an option, as the neighbors drilled down 250 m and got nothing. We are only 3 km from the sea and at an altitude of about 30 m. Originally when I set up the nursery I did it with recycling in mind. The nursery was developed with a 1 in 200 gradient. In retrospect 1 in 100 would have been a lot better. All the water ran to a central drain and out into the paddock, and boy was that green. Initially when I started on this article it was all about recycling nutrients and the practicalities I have encountered in doing it. Unfortunately any lecture preparation seemed to only point out just what you don’t know. This is frustrating and seems to require an enormous effort to fix unless you just tell your story and don?t pretend to be an expert. That’s me, no expert.

In 1980 we bought a glasshouse tomato business at Granton, a suburb 20 min. north west of Hobart. There was just under an acre of glasshouses.

We had the typical glasshouse found in Australia at that time; only about 2 m high at the walls and possibly 3-1/2 m at the ridge (Fig. 1). We were growing tomatoes in soil and steam sterilised annually to destroy soil and root diseases.

Growers in Tasmania were only producing one crop a year in the 1980s and picking normally commenced early November and went through to the end of February. Financial necessity made us experiment at growing two crops a year and this is what we did for 28 years until January 2008. We would plant out in July and picked from November to the end of January with the second crop planted 1st week Febru?ary and picked from April to June.

August 2005 saw the opening of the Tasmanian Seed Conservation Centre (TSCC) a seed banking facility located in a purpose-built laboratory at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens.

The seed bank is a product of the Joint Tasmanian-Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP), a project resulting from collaboration of the following:

• The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens
• The Tasmanian Herbarium
• The Resource Management and Conservation Division of DPIW
• The Seed Conservation Department of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (U.K.)

Biological control is often the only answer that is available for many pest plant species where chemical control has proven to be too risky or ineffective. Biocontrol is self sustainable and an extremely selective form of pest plant control.

In a complete biological control of weeds programme the first stage is deciding if the pest plant is appropriate for biocontrol. This means we need to have a plant that is widespread, invasive, and unable to be controlled by other methods.

For thousands of years, before the advent of modern allopathic medicine, indigenous people on all the continents on earth practiced traditional medicine. Each ethnic grouping developed a system of healing in which they interwove the natural resources, plants, animals, and geology existing in their area with their cultures and belief systems.

Collectively we now refer to these historic systems of healing as "Traditional and Indigenous Medicine."

For a while it seemed as if the genesis of modern, western medicine was leading to the demise of many of these systems of healing. The West with its commitment to scientific methodology, considered traditional healing simple superstition.

However, given the movement towards natural living that has been taking place in recent years, a new feverish interest in the art of traditional and alternative healing has developed. Traditional healing systems all over the globe are now being studied with great interest by western scientists.

Over the years I have been associated with the manufacture of, and involvement with, a wide range of mixes and growers. It didn’t take long to realise that many variables, unique situations, and management systems existed. I became increasingly aware that mixes needed to be tailored to suit each situation and that a regular and in depth dialogue was needed between supplier and grower. Observation and communication between both became critical.

In some instances in the past, growers would change supplier in an attempt to rectify a problem with a mix or with plant growth. Each change really only meant going back to square one whereas observation, discussion, and adjustment were really all that was needed. Working together has great benefits for both supplier and grower and our industry as a whole.

The successful root development and establishment of cuttings can be increased by the incorporation of low to moderate levels of controlled release-fertiliser (CRF) in the propagation media prior to sticking (Hartmann et al., 1997) or at root estab?lishment (Janick, 2001). However, the technique of including CRF in propagation media or applying CRF to the tops of their trays or cells after root initiation even though detailed in industry standard text books on growing media (Handreck and Black, 1984), is still not widespread standard practice within New Zealand or Aus?tralia. There is still a belief that nutrition in propagation media is not desirable and could be a hindrance to root development and/or will encourage more top growth than root growth (as indicated in a strawpole taken by a show of hands at the start of this presentation at the IPPS Conference, Hobart, 2009, unpublished data). It was therefore decided to re-evaluate the benefits (or not) of CRF incorporation into propagation media for four species and where possible look at the effect on top growth versus root growth.

I have long been enamoured with a favourite food of the endangered kakapo par?rot. Dracophyllum, with their often bizarre habit of growth that hints of ancient lineage, these ericas of the south, can be large trees to tiny alpine mats. There are in fact three closely related genera within Australia and Tasmania, Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Chatham Island, Stewart Island, Auckland Island, and Campbell Island.

The genus includes about 60 species in three subgenera.

The Cost of Weeds to Australia. If there were no more weeds, incomes of Australian agricultural producers would rise, giving 20% of the benefits to food consumers and a saving of $112 million in government expenditure: "Last year Australian bio-control science turned a $4 million investment into a $95 million return…and did the same the year before, and the year before that, effectively all the way back for 100 years. An average benefit-cost ratio of 23 : 1 over that time period is simply a brilliant investment" [The Hon. John Kerin, former federal Minister for Primary Industries, Jan 2006 (Cruttwell McFadyen, 2007)].

The genus Correa belongs to the family Rutaceae. It occurs naturally in eastern Australia from near the Queensland border through New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia. There are 11 species ranging from prostrate groundcovers to 4-m-tall shrubs. They mostly flower from late summer through autumn and winter and are pollinated by birds and bees. The four petals are fused into a corolla or bell and may come in a wide range of colours from green, red, pink, white, orange, and yellow or a combination of these colours (Fig. 1). They are easily propagated and make ideal garden or pot plants.

As water reforms impact catchment areas, water users are now required to detail how efficiently they are using this limited resource. For many, water use efficiency is an area often neglected as the initial design and implementation of a system is all they have to demonstrate the theoretical performance rather than documented irrigation performance post system installation.

To meet water reform requirements, it is important for nurseries to carry out regular water audits so the information required is at hand and any shortcomings can be rectified. An audit not only considers the physical elements but how water is managed within a nursery.

This paper looks at how an irrigation system could be audited to determine its water usage.

Background. The unmet market demand in Japan for strawberries during the Japanese summer period (Months of May-October) is estimated to be approximately 100,000 tonnes per annum. Currently approximately 5,000 tonnes of poorly regarded strawberry cultivars are imported into Japan during the Japanese summer, primarily from the U.S.A. and New Zealand. The production of Japanese strawberry cultivars during the Tasmanian winter (Japanese summer) represented a unique opportunity to supply the Japanese counter seasonal market.

As a result of demand from Japan for out-of-season product, Japanese company New Agri-Network came to Tasmania to explore the possibility of establishing a production site in the state. New Agri-Network established its first greenhouse at Cambridge in 1999, primarily as a model to display the unique style of strawberry production used in Japan. Typically Japanese strawberry production occurs throughout the cooler months of the year in greenhouses. Summer production is limited because of Japans warm humid climate during the summer months.

Many vegetable field crops such as tomato, melon, and lettuce are grown in plug trays under greenhouse conditions prior to transplanting into the field. The development of a large, robust root system is essential for early plant establishment and allows young seedlings to withstand any number of transplant stresses.

Seaweed extracts have been shown in bioassay, greenhouse, and field studies to improve root and shoot development of various agricultural plants as well as to alleviate some symptoms typically associated with biotic and abiotic stresses (Khan et al, 2009). Greenhouse experiments at Acadian Agritech’s^® research center in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, were designed to test the effects of Acadian seaweed extracts (a derivative from the marine algae Ascophyllum nodosum) on root development in lettuce, watermelon, mung bean, pansy, and cosmos. Lettuce and strawberry were also examined in field studies comparing growth effects of Acadian A. nodosum extract to standard grower programs for these crops.

For facade greening self-clinging and twining climbers are widely used (Dunnet and Kingsbury, 2008). These climbers, such as ivy (Hedera sp.), are propagated mainly by cuttings.

During the growing production process in the nursery some of the elongating shoots touch each other or bend down and touch the container medium surface of neighboring pots because the pots of rooted cuttings are closely placed in a tray. Then the shoots will twine around each other or the aerial roots will grow into the container medium. The resulting plants will be difficult to lift from the tray in perfect condition for shipping if not tied up (Fig. 1). In this study, we investigated the possibility of avoiding the problems mentioned above by using a ground stake (prop) in Hedera pot-plant production.

Nursery plants of mango are usually produced by grafting using rootstocks of the Taiwan native strain in Japan. Cutting propagation is profitable for production of nursery plants by reason of disuse of rootstocks and shortening of the growth period of the nursery plants. But mango is a difficult fruit tree to root from cutting. The objective of the present study is to present the production technique of own-rooted nursery plants of mango by air layering in order to shorten the growth period of the nursery plants and establish the container planting cultivation of mango using own-rooted plants.

Willows (Salix species) are a fast-growing species for effective forest biomass production. They are widely distributed in the world but occur most abundantly in the cooler parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Among many willow species, S. pet-susu Kimura is one of the fastest growing species in the Hokkaido Island of Japan. For multiuse of all components of wood, components like hemicellulose or lignin in addition to cellulose can also be used for many functional materials. We have attempted to assess the plant growth regulatory function of xylooligosaccharides produced from the hemicellulose of hardwoods like Salix. In the course of study, we established an in vitro culture system of S. pet-susu for in vitro assessing of regulatory products and molecular tree breeding.

Primula kisoana Miq. is a hardy perennial distributed in a part of Shikoku province. This species has wide variation, especially in diameter and color of the flow?er. For example, ‘White Flower’, ‘Lyo-beni’, and ‘Birodo’ were on the market as garden cultivars.

We obtained a number of variations through breeding and selected some superior clones (Fig. 1), and are planning to propagate by root segment culture and micropropagation. However, the culture methodology and conditions have not been established for obtaining plantlets from the in vitro culture of this plant. We studied the effects of plant growth regulators and difference among individuals on flower bud and scape culture.

You will need a tray (plant pot saucer) to put foliage and pot flowers in a room. We also see many foliage plants and flowering plants in hospitals and large office buildings; however, sometimes they?re not in good condition.

Hanasaki-RAKUDA (In Japanese, ‘hana saku raku da’ means that it is easy to bloom flowers) is a planter for irrigating potted plant (JPN Patent Publication No.06-022650), which was developed to obtain a planter capable of simply inserting and exchanging a water-absorbing material for irrigation, surely leading rainwa?ter, etc., into the planter body and minimizing the growth of various microorganisms and algae in the planter body. Almost 20 years ago, Sato was a member of developmental team of Hanasaki-RAKUDA, and Hayashi has been involved in sales of this item for long time. Now, our company, Hanakaido Inc., continues to cooperate in both the sales and technological support of Hanasaki-RAKUDA.

The first visit was the 70-hectare Plant Breeding and Experiment Station of Takii Seed Company (http://www.takii.co.jp/english/) located southeast of Konan City. This station has been devoted to breeding new selections of both vegetables and ornamentals and their propagation since 1968.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It’s great to be among green-fingered people. My background: National Diplomain Horticulture, Bachelors of Technology in Environmental Management, owned a landscaping business for several years, before continuing my studies and completing a Masters of Science (MSc) in Conservation Ecology. I now focus my energy on addressing environmental issues (more specifically climate change-related) within the land-use-based sector.

What I’m offering you today is a holistic view of risks and opportunities (in relation to climate change) as I see it for this industry (a broad level approach), what they mean for your business, and how you can start addressing them.

Banksia belongs to the most famous southern hemisphere angiosperm family, Proteaceae. The family contains 73 genera, with Australia having 42 genera and South Africa 14. None of the South African genera occur in Australia. South America with 7 genera, shares 3 with Australia Gondwana continent connection. Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, sailing with Captain James Cook on the Endeavour, collected the first Banksia specimens in 1770 at Botany Bay, Sydney.

This unique Australian genus has fascinated botanists and plant people ever since. Currently there are 78 species with 61 species occuring in South West Australia. The tropical species grow in north western Australia and across Cape York in North East Queensland. There is one species in New Guinea; the 16 eastern species are spread down the eastern seaboard from North Queensland to Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia.

Pesticides and their residues result in risks to operators, workers, consumers, and the environment. Residues are found on plant material, in the air, water, and soil, and as growers in a green industry, it is very much in our power to limit these potential impacts.

Pesticide residues on plants can endanger the health of workers and consumers. In the case of ornamental crops (not intended for eating) withholding periods are often not considered important. Re-entry periods specified on pesticide labels are, however of paramount importance. Pesticide residues can accumulate in the human body, later resulting in diseases such as cancer which is difficult or impossible to trace back to chemical exposure.

Zantedeschia hybrids (coloured arum or calla lilly) is quite a difficult crop to grow due to its susceptibility to root rot. Primary infection by a complex of pathogens from the genera Phytophthora, Rhizoctonia, Fusarium, and Pythium often leads to secondary bacterial infection of Erwinia. While irrigation and environmental conditions play a very big role in disease management, the use of fungicides becomes a necessity and sometimes quite an extraordinary expense, while crop losses remain high.

Observation of wild as well as garden-grown coloured Zantedeschia indicates relatively good health and resistance to disease and even increased tuber production with minimal inputs as opposed to high intensity cultivation in "artificial" growth medium. Figure 1 shows two tubers both grown for two crop cycles, one in an intensive crop system with coir and bark as grow medium and under 40% shade; the second in a garden in Midrand, South Africa, on an east-facing wall.

Agrobacterium tumefaciens>/I> is a ubiquitous soilborne pathogen responsible for crown gall disease affecting over 600 types of plants, mainly monocotyledonous spe?cies, such as woody and herbaceous plants.

Agrobacterium tumefaciens enters the host through wounds or through the emergence of lateral roots. The bacterium migrates to the point of initial infection through the process of chemotaxis. Chemotaxis is the migration of a pathogen towards sugars and amino acids which accumulate around plant roots in the rhizosphere or to specific plant compounds released from wounds, such as acetosyringone and opines. Propagating techniques facilitate the infection process through wounding.

Nurserymen are our own worst enemies when it comes to putting a value on our plants/effort. I have never heard of a grower going broke because he put up his prices, but the trick is having good stock at the right time in the right market. After years of being in business and worrying about my prices, the penny dropped! I am in the market, not to sell plants, but I am selling time and should start charging accordingly — after doing this, we started to make more than a living!

REASONS WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS AND SKILLS REQUIRED

The following are some reasons we are in the nursery business:

• Because we love plants
• I wanted to be outside and not stuck in an office
• I inherited the business from my parents
• I could see an opportunity to make some money
• I like the lifestyle and the long hours
• It seemed to be a good idea at the time

Upon my arrival in Australia, I was kindly taken in by Greg and Lindy McPhee, who live in Lismore, New South Wales. Greg went to great lengths to make sure I see and experience as much as possible of the Australian Horticultural Industry during my stay in Lismore. Not only was I shown numerous advanced nurseries, but I was also given the opportunity to lend a hand in several nurseries, gaining valuable hands-on experience. This also provided me with an excellent opportunity to chat to employees and employers alike, about issues concerning the industry.

In the first instance with the Impatiens walleriana the fungus Plasmopara obducens created chaos the last few seasons. The plants are attacked by downy as soon as weather conditions were getting colder and wet. Downy mildew thrives under these conditions. Downy mildews are not true fungi but they are more closely related to algae and are also related to Phytophthora and Pythium.

It was about 2006 when I first saw downy mildew on a batch of impatiens in South Africa.

Sterilization protocols for the majority of woody plants require the use of mercuric chloride (HgCl₂), but this it is not an environmentally friendly option. Calcium hypochlorite [Ca(OCl)₂] can be used as an alternative but is not as effective. Using a sterilization protocol adapted from other woody plants, which includes the use of both calcium hypochlorite and sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) in an attempt to initiate Eucalyptus species into culture resulted in 100% contamination. After applying a technique on pre-sterilization storage for 48 h in the dark developed by Watt et al. (2003) explant contamination was reduced to 9%. Although the trials were conducted only on Eucalyptus it is a technique that has the potential for use in initiation of other woody species in tissue culture. The aim of this study was to assess the adaptability of a reported eucalypt-field-collection technique on the successful decontamination of eucalypt hybrid material.

PROBLEMS WITH COMPOSTED PINE BARK SUBSTRATE

The substrate we used, composted pine bark mixed with 10% vermiculite, gave inconsistent results. It was difficult to manage the pH and EC levels because:

• Quality of composted bark supplied was inconsistent.
• pH was very low, often below pH 5.5.
• Downward pH drift during cultivation.
• EC levels in packs and pots remained low, also after pre-enriching and adding fertilizer with each watering.
• Air-filled porosity varied a lot, often too many fines were resulting in poor oxygen availability in the root area.

In our efforts to find a solution to these problems we first reviewed the basics to ensure we understood what was happening. This knowledge also helped us to better evaluate other substrate possibilities. We decided to investigate the suitability of coir peat.

Arbutus unedo forms larger trees there than anywhere else in Europe. Mount Stewart on the Ards Penninsula has an almost sub-tropical flora.

Half of my business of Hortus Advising is in advising Danish nurseries how to produce and how to promote and sell plants. My customers are growing perennials, shrubs, conifers, trees for landscape, hedges, ornamental trees, fruit trees, and roses. The other half of my business is writing marketing material for a garden centre chain, marketing material aimed at consumers, and a year round magazine for the garden centre industry. I have been involved in IPPS since it began in Denmark 1992.

The Danish poet and writer Hans Christian Andersen lived from 1805?1875. One of his fairytales is called The Ugly Duckling and tells the story of the young swan that was raised amongst the ducks and therefore not accepted. When it grew up it turned to a beautiful swan.

I started my career in horticultural machinery as a service engineer but after nine months I was moved into the sales department — either I was a good salesman, or a terrible service engineer. Anyway, very early on in the trade, I had to visit a very reputable nursery in Lincolnshire. When I arrived, the nursery owner was standing working at the potting machine I was to repair. He was filling 9-cm liner pots and placing them into a tray, which he then placed on a free-standing piece of powered conveyor — the tray of pots travelled just 5 m down the conveyor to a man who took the trays off the conveyor and placed them onto a trailer.

I asked the grower why he was bothering with the conveyor — why not just carry the trays? He took great delight in telling me that he had done his sums and worked out that the conveyor saved him about 100 miles of walking every year. When I got home I did the sums for myself. Assuming the trays held 15 pots each, and the walk to the trailer was 5 m and then 5 m back to the potting machine, you would have walked 100 miles by the time you had potted 240,000 plants.

This paper presents a basic view of how certain sectors of the commercial horticul?ture industry (mainly the protected crops sectors) compare with other industries in terms of production and logistical processes.

The protected crop sectors currently benefit from various degrees of automation. Development in this area is continuing at a rapid pace, driven by today’s competitive global market. Several examples of current "state of the art" systems are detailed as practical references.

John Woods Nurseries produces more than 1.7 million plants per year, across 13 different product groups. Potting young plants into their final pot is one of the most intensive production processes on the nursery. Timing is vital in the potting processes to ensure the finished plant is ready when the customer needs it. We also recognised a need to increase productivity and reduce labour costs in the despatch process. This paper describes our search for more efficient systems to increase productivity and reduce labour costs, and our experience with the chosen systems.

At Lancaster Farms, our approach to innovation starts with the idea that if something does not add value to the product then it is waste. The innovation might be a faster, easier, or cheaper way of working but if quality or safety is compromised then it is waste.

Peat substitution in growing media has been continuously and sometimes hotly debated within U.K. horticulture since 1989 (Carlile, 2004; Alexander et al., 2008) with demands from pressure groups, notably the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, that peat use in horticulture be phased out. Peat taxes have been proposed in the U.K., and 2010 is likely to be a pivotal year for peat use in growing media in that market. In 1999, the U.K.’s Biodiversity Action Plan called for growing media and soil improvers to be 40% peat free by 2005, and 90% peat free by 2010. The former target was met (largely through peat substitution in soil improvers), but the latter will not be met. A chorus of disapproval is likely to arise from environmental and other lobby groups, with action demanded from the U.K. government. There is much opportunity to develop peat-reduced media for the U.K. market.

Green compost has been studied extensively in several parts of the world for its potential as a constituent of growing media. The use of green compost and its admixture with other materials has formed the basis of much of the research programme at the Bord na Mona Research Centre since 1995, and is reviewed by Prasad and Carlile (2009). This work has been aimed at both professional and retail markets, and a primary intention was to use materials indigenous to the Republic of Ireland.

1. Thermic effect: thermic films have attracted attention for their ability to reduce heat loss at night. Film manufacturing technology and new additives can now provide superior clear (9% infra-red transmission) and diffusing (5% infra-red transmission) thermic films offering improved heat retention capacity.
2. Optical properties: light transmission can be tailored to suit the specific crop, growing season, area, and grower’s expectations. A synopsis of the most important light manipulation effects is given.
3. Anti-mist effect: some manufacturers’ and independent trials indicated that anti-drip, anti-mist films not only controlled the development of undesirable mist formation under certain conditions, but halved the number of fungicide applications required for adequate disease control, compared with standard film or standard anti-drip film.
4. Cooling effect: recently developed three-layer silver and bubble films counter excessive heat development in greenhouses.

We need to aim to produce a root system as close as possible to the one the plant would develop when grown from a seed in its natural environment. Figure 1 shows a natural root system on a tree, note the dominant tap root plus strong lateral roots to give support and adventitious feeder roots to take up water and fertilizer.

Figure 2, by contrast, shows the type of root system that is found all too often in container-grown nursery stock, this being an example of a tree root circling in a black pot. A plant with such a root system will never establish successfully and growth will never be fully healthy. The culprit here is the black pot, it is cheap, practical, and most growers use them despite the fact that they know it produces a poor root system.

With my brother, I own a 5-ha nursery called Wim & Alphons van der Poel in Hazerswoude near the famous Dutch nursery town of Boskoop. My father was a nurseryman, so were my grandfathers, and our family business has been running since 1887.

My brother and I were brought up on the nursery and in those days it was quite common to help in the nursery at a young age, starting with weeding and later planting. As there are about 900 nurseries in the area I soon began to work at another nursery during the summer holidays. After completing high school, I went on to attend the Boskoop Nursery School, which had an emphasis on practical training, with half days at school and half days as an apprentice at a local nursery. I also worked in Germany and England to learn more about the nursery industry and to learn the language and customs. With my brother Alphons we took over from my father.

This paper is an honest evaluation and presentation of a moment in time in the life of an Irish nursery. It’s about the mounting difficulties that have to be faced and the solutions that have to be found in the face of a very severe recession. Irish consumers are now talking about how much they save, not how much they have spent — and that is a problem for all businesses. In the last year Sunhill Nurseries has experienced a 30% drop in turnover with the most recent months showing an even greater drop. This is an enormous jolt to a system that had only seen year-on-year turnover increases in the last 20 years. Other nurseries have had a similar experience.

Magnolia Gardens Nursery specializes in young plant production using tissue culture, in particular that of numerous Nandina domestica

A definition of technology as it applies to nursery producers might be: "The practical application of science to commerce or industry." The word science comes from the Latin scientia meaning knowledge. Therefore in essence the title of this paper is simply the application of propagation knowledge to improve plant marketing. We can sometimes be blinded by words that appear more involved than they were meant to be when first devised. Technology is useless unless it results in ease of use.

The motto "To Seek and Share" is quite appropriate and in fact much of what the IPPS stands for is directly relevant to the use of technology for improved plant marketing. The purpose of this paper is to make a few practical suggestions based on our experience, working on our own, in an area where vast amounts of knowledge lay hidden in tomes of research papers.

Our business aims to make the offer easily understood and easy to handle; to maintain rigorous product selection criteria and rigorous supply base control; to thoroughly trial products every year and to maintain strong relationships with sup?pliers, customers, and competitors.

I?d like first to welcome you all to this year’s annual conference of the International Plant Propagators’ Society, Western Region. We owe a hearty "thanks" to Jim Conner and his hard-working committee members for putting together a fine program of lectures and tours for you, with plenty of fun in sunny San Diego around the edges.

IPPS HISTORY AND CREED

This is our fiftieth anniversary as a society, and you’ll probably hear frequent references to a rich history of "Seek and Share." I?d like to bring that motto, as I understand it, into sharper focus and to talk about practical, attainable ways we might carry it forward.

On this 50th anniversary of the Western Region of the International Plant Propa?gators’ Society, it is important to remember our history and to look to that history to guide us into the next 50 years. Today we are going to look at the origins of the Western Region, who conceived it, and who gave it life, energy, direction, and character. The formation of the Western Region established an important precedent for the establishment of additional autonomous regions around the globe as part of an international organization, the International Plant Propagators’ Society.

The original creation of the International Plant Propagators’ Society can be credited to the vision and commitment of many people, and especially to Ed Scanlon and his publication ‘Trees Magazine.‘ Ed Scanlon felt an organization was needed to share updated information on plant propagation. This type of organization had formed in 1934 during the depression, but had subsequently failed.

Water run-off is becoming a top issue and priority for nurseries and agriculture in general. Within 2 years, regulations will be written in California from 5 years’ information gathering at sites. If you cannot contain it, it will have to be clean before discharge. If you can contain it, how can you use it to your advantage?

WATER TREATMENT: TWO DIFFERENT NURSERY COMPANIES

La Verne Nursery. We have an 8-acre reservoir that recaptures 100% of our irrigation run-off and have the capacity to capture a rain event equal to a 50-year rain event.

I was asked by Western Region 1st Vice President Jim Connor to present a short report on the International Board meeting and tour in Ireland at the Western Region annual meeting. Upon considering this task, I thought it might be useful to explain the role of the International Board as it relates to individual members of IPPS, while showing a few pictures I took on the tour.

Richard Wilson: The pH may increase and you have to stay on top of that. We have a valve in-ground that automatically adjusts EC which can also rise over a period of time. We add fresh water to counteract the EC increases.

Most of us know the old adage, "If we want something done right, we have to do it ourselves." Propagating the native oaks of the interior portion of the American west is a perfect example of this old saying. As with many regionally important plant species, it is often difficult and sometimes impossible to find these oaks in the nursery trade. We cannot easily just open up the nursery catalogs on our desks and order these plants, so if we want them, we have to grow them ourselves.

At our Nursery, located in north central Colorado, we grow many of our regions native oaks because our conditions are vastly different than in much of the rest of the country. We start with having a precipitation rate of only 14 in. per year. Our mineral soils are thin and lacking in organic matter and the pH is very alkaline, often times greater than 8. Our springs and falls are very unsettled, as we can have spring freezes into the teens in late May, and in the fall, I’ve experienced the first frost come as an arctic blast blowing in with -5 °F temperatures. Our native oaks have evolved in these inhospitable conditions, and can take what nature throws at them. For us, they can be nearly cast iron.

Jelitto lists over 3000 different seed items in their 2009 catalog. Seventy percent is under our production in over 20 countries. The company has pioneered the patented GOLD NUGGET SEED^® process that significantly reduces the germination time on over 300 taxa that might normally require extended moist-cold stratification. Jelitto Seed Technology JET^® represents the company’s improvement in seed cleaning.

By incorporating seed technology products into a business, a grower can save money by producing more plants for the same financial inputs. Savings can be realized in multiple ways:

• Easier handling > labor savings
• Fewer skips > more plants per plug flat
• Fewer doubles > fewer seed sown per plug flat
• Higher germination > more plants per plug flat
• Uniform germination > more transplantable plugs
• Faster germination > less bench time (less labor and less utilities)

SEED TREATMENT METHODS TO IMPROVE PRODUCTION

Grading. In the early 1980s, the demand for high-quality seed was spurred by growers switching from the broadcast method of sowing to plug production.

These three properties interact with each other to provide a balanced and ideal environment to sustain and promote root development and create the foundation for the plant. If any of these properties are substandard, the overall health and performance of the root will be jeopardized. An ideal rooting medium must have sufficient air, easily available water, and good drainage.

This article will focus only on the physical aspects of the root environment, specifically aeration.

"Planting" or applying very small dormant propagules of beneficial microbes to your rooting medium can result in a population of organisms that provide many benefits including protecting your plant roots from disease. While the "crop" doesn’t produce a plant of above-ground beauty or utility, some biological fungicides can result in hairy, disease-free, vigorous roots, which to a grower, are beautiful things!

I will be focusing on biological fungicides for root disease control. When approached with a new product to try, the first level of evaluation is to determine if it is EPA/DPR registered. Registered products have at least been screened for a basic level of efficacy against root diseases. Currently, the more commonly used biological fungicides are either bacterial or fungal organisms (Table 1).

A mycorrhiza (plural mycorrhizae) is an anatomical structure that results from a symbiotic association between a soil fungus and plant roots. In exchange for a "home," the fungus provides numerous benefits to the host plant which we’ll discuss in the next section. Mycorrhizal fungi produce an extensive network of microscopic hyphal threads that extend into the surrounding soil or growing medium (Fig. 1).

Literally thousands of research papers have been written on mycorrhizal fungi, but many growers are unsure whether their plants have mycorrhizae or how to identify them. Numerous brands of commerical mycorrhizal inoculums are available but, unfortunately, some have been marketed as a "silver bullet" that will cure all your propagation problems. Since you are all experienced propagators who already know how to grow plants, we?d like to share with you how to make them even better.

What Is Slow Sand Filtration? Slow sand filtration (SSF) is an old water treatment technology that is reappearing in horticultural applications in Europe, but isn?t yet in widespread use in the U.S.A. A common misconception is that SSF and rapid sand filtration are the same but with different flow rates. Though they use the same type of substrate they are quite different in that SSF is a biological treatment method that can remove pathogens (Wohanka, 1995), whereas rapid sand filtration is a physical filtration process.

It has taken many years and it has involved several false starts, but California’s native plants are finally joining the horticultural mainstream. The process began long ago with a few trees, mostly oaks, pines, and redwoods, and two shrubby genera, Arctostaphylos and Ceanothus. Recently it has encompassed a much wider range of plant genera and even plant types, including a number of herbaceous perennials and even a few bulbs.

Those of us who would like to take part in this evolving market will encounter a new set of interesting challenges for nursery culture and propagation, calling for a combination of creative thought, careful observation, and patient experimentation. The novel factors have to do with the plants’ adaptations to an almost overwhelmingly wide range of natural conditions, all of them distinct from those of more familiar ornamentals.

Loren Oki: Based on information we’ve received from civil and environmental engineers pesticide run-off should not have a negative effect. If the molecule can be degraded there?s going to be an organism to degrade it.

Valerie Sikima: How specific are the mycorrhizae to the actual plant? Can you use a broad-spectrum mycorrhizae on most plants and expect them to grow?

The 100-acre San Diego Zoo is dedicated to the conservation of endangered species and their habitats. The Zoo also manages the 1,800-acre San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, which includes a 900-acre native species reserve and the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. The San Diego Zoo’s Botanical Collections are accredited by the American Association of Museums and hosts a wide range of plant species from around the world due to its favorable climate and location. The Botanical Collection consists of the following: 46 taxa of Erythrina, 796 taxa of orchids, 106 taxa of cycads, 32 taxa of gingers, 135 taxa of aloes, 254 taxa of palms, 38 taxa of Acacia, 71 taxa of Ficus, and 74 taxa of bamboo. The San Diego Zoo’s collections include 47 taxa of imperiled species representing 2,761 individuals. Regional and specialty gardens are also found on Zoo grounds such as the Mediterranean Garden, Hawaiian Garden, South American Garden, Madagascar Garden, Bog Garden, Butterfly and Herb Garden, and Vegetable Garden.

Zoo horticulture is a unique facet of the horticulture industry.

Instead of focusing on the minutiae of commercial plant tissue culture (TC), I’ve elected to provide you with a broader perspective of the TC industry focusing on its early years through to today’s commercial applications, finishing with our Rancho Tissue Technologies (RTT) perspective on the future of commercial plant tissue culture. Having been in the U.S.A. TC industry for over 20 years, RTT has the technical background and experience to offer valuable insights into this important part of the horticulture industry.

During crop production, cuttings of woody nursery crops or even herbaceous greenhouse crops are seldom planted directly in a growing medium in which the crops would be finished. Cuttings are first rooted in a propagation medium in propagation containers and grown in propagation houses. The cutting-propagation medium is thus an important part of the propagation process.

When you are a supplier of growing media, you face many queries concerning media for cuttings: Is the medium sterilized? Why not? My cuttings are rotting! Are fungus gnats coming in the media? Media smells! When should I feed the cuttings? Why are my "rhodies" not rooting as well as those I saw in Georgia?

You notice that the same growing medium produced very good roots at one grower and poor roots at another grower. You notice roots on blackberry proliferate like emails on your BlackBerry and magnolia keeps mum like your landline. You start wondering about the basis of these differences and whether a medium can remedy them to some extent. How can media serve as a conduit for the needs of cuttings?

Christy Powell: These were border confiscations. This often happens when bringing plants from Mexico. There have also been confiscations in Florida. If the plants don’t have the proper permits they’re confiscated and given to us.

This paper is designed for plant enthusiasts who wish to propagate their agaves and cacti through vegetative means. Although there are many methods used by commercial growers who mass produce these plants including in vitro propagation, grafting, cuttings and seed, this paper will focus on low-tech, easy-to-follow protocols utilizing cuttings of cacti, vegetative divisions, and bulbils of agaves.

Ornamental plants are some of the most attractive yet costly plants in production on the planet. Total sales by greenhouse- and nursery-crop growers reached $17 billion in the U.S. in 2006 (Jerardo, 2007), and total gross sales of nursery crops alone totaled $4.65 billion (NASS USDA, 2006). In addition, average sales per acre were $88,411, which is significantly greater than most any other crops on an acre-by-acre basis. However, maintaining a high-value high-quality crop can be challenging for any grower with the myriad plants to grow and the myriad pests to control. Even small blemishes caused by pests can have a profound effect on the quality and value of an ornamental plant. Therefore, pest management in ornamental production is very different than pest management in agriculture because higher standards are expected and prophylactic use of pesticides is common and allows an ornamental grower to sleep at night. But what are some of the challenges and alternatives in pest management faced by the producers of today?

No, it’s dusting sulfur. Sometimes a rooting hormone is added to the sulfur, which will make it less yellow, but you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do the sulfur either. The key is to scab them over so they are really dry. You can let them go for a month or up to 6 months and they’ll still root easily.

Duarte Nursery Inc., was founded in 1989 in California’s Central Valley near the city of Modesto, as a grapevine nursery supplying potted bench-grafted grapevines to the wine industry. During the nursery’s establishment, demand for vines was outstripping availabilities so the nursery grew rapidly in the early years and by the late 1990s was producing 18,000,000 potted vines a year. Even though the company was growing rapidly, there was concern over having only one product line creating sales for the company, so the Duarte family entered into a partnership with John Driver who was operating Dry Creek Laboratory, a biotechnology lab in Modesto, California. Out of the many projects Mr. Driver was working on, his work on clonal propagation of rootstock taxa being used in agriculture, had real potential as a viable commercial enterprise that fit well into the nursery’s established practices.

Floyd Zaiger’s fruit breeding roots run deep. In the 1950s, Floyd worked with fruit breeder Fred Anderson. Fred has long been considered the "Father of the Nectarine." In his early years, Fred worked with the famous breeder Luther Burbank. Mr. Burbank (who needs no introduction) is known for many hybrids in the world of horticulture, including the Santa Rosa plum, the Russet potato and the first, true plum-cot, an F1-plum-apricot hybrid.

Normally, the decision to automate production is based solely on the labor cost associated with the process. Since finding and retaining good labor in sufficient quantities is difficult and getting harder all the time and due to the fact that labor represents one of the largest input costs a grower has, this seems to makes sense. However, there are other significant benefits to be gained through automation. First, the uniformity gained through automating technical processes often leads to efficiencies of all other associated inputs, through more even distribution and the ability to accurately repeat processes. Second, with the current "green" movement gaining momentum, it also makes sense to waste as little as possible, which is good for both your business and for the environment. As an added benefit, working conditions often improve for the production line workers and machine operators and elevate those jobs to a higher status, empowering the workforce.

Tom Spellman: At this time Zee-Stem is about 40% of our total cherry production. I see that expanding next year to between 60%-70%.

Kathy Echols: Are those plants only going to commercial growers or are any of those plants available to the home gardener?

Why does anyone need another Echinacea introduction? There is a confusion of dazzling color selections to sift through, but only a few are durable garden plants. And when propagated by tissue culture cultivars came on board, the cost of production, and royalties, significantly increased the price tag.

Bigtooth, or canyon, maple (Acer grandidentatum Nutt.) is of interest due to its fall color and potential use in low-water landscapes. Improved asexual propagation would facilitate the introduction and production of new clones from the wild. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of etiolation on rooting A. grandidentatum softwood cuttings.

I also, want to thank on behalf of everyone here, the local site committee who have done a heroic job of putting together a splendid group of tours and bringing to us the Ohio Secretary of Agriculture as our banquet speaker. If you see a local site person, look on their name tag, step up, and thank them personally if you can. They have done a great deal of work for us. This group includes: Brian Gilson, Carla Lee, Charles Tubesing, John Maslen, Kathy Kowalczyk, Mark Gilson, Rick Wenham, Tim Brotzman, and Vic Swanson.

The most recent trends in sustainable horticulture are:

• Plastic and soilless media were invented in the 1960s with full integration as a matter of regular production practices in the 1970s
• Mass marketers businesses began their growth stages in the 1980s
• The advent of annuals produced in plugs occurred as well in the 1980s
• The introduction of off-shore vegetative annuals began in the 1990s
• The beginning of sustainability has started in the early 2000s

"We’re the original green industry, but even BP^® has redesigned its logo to look like a flower." — Kerry Herndon

Sustainability should be viewed as a part of your overall organization. Sustainability is not a project that resides outside of your normal business practices. Sustainability will be a driver of innovation throughout your organization.

Rhus aromatica ‘Gro-low’. This is what we have found to work on ‘Gro-low’. We take as juvenile cuttings as we can and that means taking cutting from plants from our fields that were planted out the same spring as we take the cuttings. So what we are doing is just taking a cutting from a plant that was rooted the year before. We take these cuttings as soon as they are big enough to cut off which is usually late July or early August. Once the cuttings are taken they are put in cold storage usually 2–5 h after they are cut.

Container crop producers are experiencing rising costs and concern for future availability of substrate components used to grow container plants. Rising fuel costs have dramatically affected the cost of Canadian peat moss. Additionally growers are experiencing increased prices and shortages of pine bark. Over the last 40 years nursery container crop producers have depended on pine bark as a by-product of forest operations. Pulp mills, fuel pellet mills, and other industries are increasingly turning to pine bark as a source of fuel, reducing supplies available to the horticultural market. Competition and increasing costs of substrate components threaten the future economic profitability of the floriculture and nursery industry. Therefore, investigation of alternative container substrates is necessary and paramount for sustainable container crop production practices.

The hard and cold facts (no pun intended) are that the energy and raw material needs of most nursery operations are largely carbon based and in many cases these raw materials are not renewable. It is interesting that the original text of this missive was written on notebook paper that is derived from sugar cane residue. When joined with the digital miracle of the computer, the carbon foot print to produce this dialogue at least at the beginning is negligible. Plastics in the form of film and slides were eliminated and replaced by electrons. Even the transmission of this "paper" to the editor will be electronic and will side step gasoline or diesel induced transportation.

Prides Corner Farms is a large wholesale nursery in eastern Connecticut that pro?duces a diverse line of woody ornamentals, herbaceous perennials, herbs, trees, fruits, and vegetables. Our propagation department generated over 3.5 million woody and perennial liners this past year. We use almost all propagation techniques including: unrooted cuttings, grafting, seeds, root divisions, and micropropa?gation to accomplish our tasks. Because we typically use more than 2–3 cuttings per propagation cell, we’ll stick over 4 million cuttings. As you can imagine, we need to stick hard and fast in order to get all our liners done in a timely fashion. My objective today is to explain how Prides Corner Farms uses group incentives as a motivational tool to help increase productivity in propagation.

I wanted to discuss first the methods used to grow chickens in America. One option is the large commercial high technology chicken farms. A second less ex?pensive route is to raise them loose in your backyard. Both of these methods will likely be successful but in today’s world it is unlikely that any method in between these extremes will be profitable and successful. I use this example as an analogy to compare to the propagation industry in the nursery business. I believe the trend is clear toward large, highly efficient propagation nurseries replacing most of the in house propagation conducted by mid-range nurseries. Very small mom and pop size nurseries might still continue propagation successfully on a shoestring.

In 1952 Gied immigrated to the U.S.A. via New York after a 10-day journey across the Atlantic. Gied was stopped at customs and questioned by custom agents regarding his reasons for coming to the United States. Apparently, customs agents did not know what a propagator was and were suspicious of the container of hor?mone powder in his luggage. They continued to interrogate him until he was finally able to convince them that the hormone was for his future crops and he was then permitted entry into the country.

In field production we use a combination of composted nursery waste (ground up plants and container media), leaves and grass clippings. Working with the local County Cooperative Extension office we provide a service to the community as a drop off point for the Local Leaf to Land program allowing residents to drop off leaves and grass clippings at no charge.

I would like to thank the IPPS for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you. I stand here today humbled in front of my piers for which I have great respect. Nothing today that I have to say about plant material will be new to any of you. I will instead try to explain how these plants impact our operation thus making it somewhat easier to survive in today?s economic conditions with a diverse line of plant material.

DIVERSITY OF PLANT MATERIAL AND WHAT THIS MEANS TO LOSELY NURSERY

Many of you remember Edward Losely. I was 21 years old when I started working at Losely Nursery. I was fresh out of Ohio State and ready to tackle the world. It was not long after starting to work for Mr. Losely that I realize how much I still had to learn. I was very fortunate to learn from whom I feel is one of the best talents we had in our industry.

Willowbend Nursery was founded by the Brewster family in 1897. It began on 7 acres of land. During the Great Depression, the nursery filed bankruptcy and was taken over by a bank. Attempts by the bank to sell the nursery to outsiders went unfulfilled and three Brewster brothers were able to purchase the lands back. One of these brothers was Thor Brewster who eventually bought his two brothers out of the business and passed it on to his only son Dave in the early 1970s.

In 2006, Willowbend underwent its second bankruptcy proceeding. The nursery itself, the land, and the key personnel survived the proceedings; however the Brewster family did not. In the Spring of 2007 Angelo Petitti of Petitti Garden Centers purchased Willowbend out of bankruptcy and Ridge Manor out of receivership. Angelo is a very innovative individual. He is extremely passionate about horticulture and has experienced unprecedented success with his garden centers. He is unparalleled with his uniqueness due to integration. By integrating his business from wholesale through retail, Angelo has created an environment in which only the best product is sold to the end retail customer.

• The profitability of your business is controlled by the person holding the hose.
• More plants are damaged by incorrect water application than any other thing you do.
• Pesticides compensate for incorrect water application.
• Slow growth, uneven growth rate, reduced quality, and poor post-harvest survival are all signs of incorrect water application.

Watering plants is a core activity in a nursery. Most staff receive training consisting of "go water the plants." Rarely does a new employee understand the intricacies of when to water, how much to apply or the frequency of application based on plant development and weather conditions. Invariably growers either "figure it out" or become frustrated and quit your company and start the process all over somewhere else. Unfortunately while the growers are "figuring it out" they produce crops that are inconsistent in quality with increased shrink.

The semi-hardwood cuttings of Daphne tangutica and hardwood cuttings of Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Tempelhof’ and C. pisifera ‘Mops’ have a reputation for being difficult to root. In 2008, propagation trials were conducted with the cuttings of those genera in peat/perlite-based conventional medium and Oasis^® phenolic grower foam medium. The objective of the study was to explore the possibility of rooting difficult-to-root semi-hardwood and hardwood evergreen cuttings in Oasis phenolic grower foam medium.

In these "green" times, it seems as though the nursery sector is one of few industries that hasn’t been recognized for its contributions towards helping the environment. Nursery growers produce the plants that sequester carbon, provide oxygen, clean the air and water, restore habitats, and so on. But it doesn’t stop there. At many nurseries in Ontario, growers are working hard to implement more sustainable production practices. Many of these stewardship activities are targeted towards protecting surface and sub-surface water, reducing the use of fossil fuels, and recycling or reducing waste.

Most of us have never thought of our gardens — indeed, our entire landscapes — as wildlife preserves that represent the last chance we have for sustaining the plants and animals that were once common throughout the U.S.A. But that is exactly the role our suburban landscapes are now playing and will play even more in the near future. If this is news to you, it’s not your fault. We were taught from childhood that gardens are for beauty; they are a chance to express our artistic talents, to have fun with and relax in. And, whether we like it or not, the way we landscape our properties is taken by our neighbors as a statement of our wealth and social status. But no one has taught us that we have forced the plants and animals that evolved in North America (our nation’s biodiversity) to depend more and more on human-dominated landscapes for their continued existence. We have always thought that biodiversity was happy somewhere out there "in nature," in our local woodlot, or perhaps our state and national parks. We have heard nothing about the rate at which species are disappearing from our neighborhoods, towns, counties, and states. Even worse, we have never been taught how vital biodiversity is for our own well-being.

As you heard in the previous talk given by Dr. Doug Tallamy, native plants are the necessary link in the food chain if we expect to increase biodiversity in our landscapes. In the early 1990s, my business partner at the time, Dale Hendricks, gave a talk to the Eastern Region IPPS in Long Island entitled "New Markets for Native Plants." At the conclusion of the presentation a member protested the idea of promoting native plants and rejected the idea that native plants should play a significant roll in nursery production. We could see that he was threatened by the idea of promoting and using native plants. He also believed it would be bad for the nursery industry and just plain bad business. I’m here today to tell you that after the last 17 or so years, the perceived threat is over. What was yesterday?s fringe is now today?s mainstream.

The nursery industry has always been considered part of the "Green Industry." Now every day we see more and more industries claiming to be "Green." Just the other day I saw a concrete truck with the words "Go Green" on it. How sad is that! Everything we say and do these days must have the word "Sustainable" attached to it. Now we are hearing that we just can’t plant plants that do well in our area, they must be sustainable plants. Some will even go a bit further and say that native plants naturally grow here so they must be more sustainable. So we end up with a very confused public and a very confused industry on the issue of sustainable plants. Here is the question. Does it have to be native to be sustainable?

This seems like a reasonable question. One that often gets me into trouble or laughed at depending on which group of people I am talking to. When I bring it up to nurseries and landscapers they tend to have the same reaction, they can?t believe I am even asking the question.

To be efficient and competitive it is necessary to use effective methods. In propaga?tion, the goal is produce high quality and high yield production. Material cost must be minimized. It is also important to select labor-saving methods that assure all plant materials are properly treated.

I have never completely read a whole book on plant propagation nor a complete chapter. I did however read a popular book on nursery management. Written in ’96, the esteemed writer explains that the best way to propagate a plant is to use its natural reproduction ability. Perhaps you own this popular book, the Nursery Book, written by Liberty Hyde Bailey, not 1996 but 1896, more than 120 years ago. He did not discuss plant rooting substances since scientists had not yet identified them (Bailey, 1896).

First of all please let me clarify a general misconception. I believe that bamboos are not "invasive," because: (1) bamboos do not flower and set seeds that are dispersed far and wide, (2) bamboos do not invade wetlands — their roots cannot survive in water-saturated soils; they do not "jump" to other areas, and (3) some genera of bamboo have pachymorph root systems with no expanding stolon or rhizome parts. However, some bamboos are extremely spreading and if planted, need to be sited properly, be maintained within the desired perimeter of spread, and have their unwanted spread controlled.

• Acer palmatum ‘Twombly’s Red Sentinel’
• Alstroemeria ‘Tangerine Tango’ ppaf
• Buddleja ‘Blue Chip’ pp# 19,991, cbraf, Lo & Behold^® blue chip butterfly bush
• Buddleja ‘Miss Ruby’ ppaf, cbraf
• Coreopsis ‘Route 66’ ppaf
• Fargesia murielae, Oprins Selection, New Umbrella^™ umbrella bamboo
• Fargesia nitida ‘Isle of Man’, Great Wall^™ bamboo
• Gleditsia triacanthos ‘Draves’ ppaf, Street Keeper^™ honey locust
• Hamamelis ovalis
• Helianthus x multiflorus ‘Sunshine Daydream’ ppaf
• Hydrangea arborescens ‘Abetwo’ pp# 20,571, cbraf, Incrediball^® smooth hydrange
a
• Hydrangea arborescens NCHA1 ppaf, cbraf, Invincibelle^® spirit smooth hydrangea
• Hydrangea paniculata ‘Jane’ ppaf, cbraf, Little Lime^® panicle hydrangea
• Picea pungens ‘Lemonade’
• Syringa ‘Penda’ pp# 20,575, cbraf, Bloomerang^™ purple reblooming lilac

Goal: To improve rooting success of winter propagated hardwood evergreen cuttings, and to reduce unacceptable levels of variability in rooting from year to year.

Location: Grand Haven, Michigan, approximately 5 miles from Lake Michigan. Days are short with frequent cloud cover from November-February.

Rationale: Despite a lack of data for minimum required light intensity to root evergreens, Dr. Paul Fisher of Young Plant Research recommends a minimum Daily Light Integral (DLI) of 3–5 mol·m^-2·d^-1 (pers. commun. 16 Oct. 2008).

Monitored greenhouse 2008 DLI values were found to be well below target values January until March, (Fig. 1).

The northern bog blueberry is the most harvested wild berry in all of Alaska. The plant grows from the northern tundra to the coastal mountains. It has been a traditional food of indigenous people for thousands of years and is commercially harvested for farmers market sales and for small cottage jam and jelly industries. The berries are extremely high in antioxidants even when frozen or processed into juices, fruit leather, and other products (Leiner et al., 2006; Holloway et al., 2006).

Because of increased demand for this northern berry, Alaskans are interested in managing wild stands and field cultivation for improved fruit production (Holloway, 2006). Any attempt at cultivation requires a rapid and consistent method of propagation that is feasible in Alaska with limited propagation facilities.

Insect vectors can be serious pests of production and display crops, of both woody and herbaceous plants. This presentation will highlight an ongoing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program designed to reduce conventional chemical control methods of selected insect pests.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

There are numerous seasonal insect pests which damage and even destroy production plant materials. These pests also ruin display gardens, by their predation of the plants, making them unsuitable for view, by eating stems, leaves, and flowering parts of these plants.

North Creek Nurseries is committed to the pursuit of sustainable production and business practices. Our interest in brewing and using compost tea began in 2003, when we began to trial aerated compost tea drenches (ACTs) on native plants in our deep plug program. While the experiments were not scientifically verified, the observable results were dramatic. The results of these trials stimulated our interest to learn more about brewing and using compost tea in propagation and liner production.

WHAT IS COMPOST TEA?

The generally accepted definition of compost tea is: an aerobically brewed cold water extract made from compost. It contains beneficial microorganisms, nutrients, and plant growth regulators that enhance plant and soil health.

Edmund (Ed) Victor Mezitt was born in 1915, son of Peter J. and Anna (Olga) Mezitt, and grew up involved in the nursery business founded by his parents in 1923. He graduated from Cornell University in 1937 with a degree in landscape architecture. Understanding the need for better landscape plants, he joined his family in an effort to select and propagate superior individual plants with improved characteristics, many from seedling crops being grown by Weston Nurseries. His first attempt at hybridizing in 1939 resulted in the now-world-renowned Rhododendron PJM Group. Using this initial success as his foundation, Ed documented more than 4,500 crosses until his death in 1986.

The physical environment affects seedling physiology (photosynthesis, transpiration, and respiration), with factors interacting to control growth rate and uniformity. A strategy for controlling environmental factors will benefit seedling etiolation, hardiness, and disease control.

Tetragonal sweetleaf (Symplocos tetragona Chen ex Y.F. Wu), a member of Symplocaceae, is a new woody ornamental evergreen plant. Since it was discovered in 1986 (Wu, 1986), this small evergreen tree attracted gardeners by its dense, glossy dark green foliage and round to pyramid habit. As a wonderful landscape tree, tetragonal sweetleaf is gaining popularity in urban landscapes and public areas and earning nicknames "forever green tree" (Liuchunshu in Chinese) and "fragrant mountain flower" (Shanguihua in Chinese). Tetragonal sweetleaf is native to China and mainly distributed in Hunan, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi province (Qin and Li, 2007; Wu and Huang, 1987). To date, no record had been found for tetragonal sweetleaf in North America. This paper is to introduce this beautiful tree and share its cutting propagation method.

For many years Hydrangea macrophylla has been forced into flower in greenhouses for sale in April or May as houseplants. In nursery production, it is common to overwinter larger containers and allow them to flower naturally, often with a head start in covered houses. In greenhouse production it is common for growers to start with pre-cooled plants produced by a supplier which they can force into flower in 12–14 weeks. In nursery production it is common for growers to purchase or propagate liners to transplant and grow for one or two seasons before finishing. Hydrangea macrophylla flower induction is best achieved by cool temperatures (<18 °C) under shorter daylengths, then followed by a dormancy period. In greenhouse production coolers are used to initiate and develop flower buds. In nurseries, flower initiation typically occurs naturally. Because flower buds are initiated before dormancy it is critical not to prune or pinch plants after this process has begun or flower buds will be removed.

Successful rooting of vegetative cuttings is dependent both on preharvest carbohydrate status and current photosynthesis during the course of propagation. When cuttings produced under high light levels at tropical locations are shipped and propagated under lower light during winter months, their net carbon assimilation will be impaired. This is primarily due to the poor photosynthetic performance of the cuttings during propagation because of the improper adaptation of their photosynthetic apparatus. The survival and root formation of those cuttings can be improved by supplemental lighting during propagation.

The 34th Annual Meeting of the International Plant Propagators’ Society Southern Region of North America convened at 7:45 AM at the Imperial Palace Casino Resort with President Hugh Gramling presiding.

PRESIDENT HUGH GRAMLING

President Gramling welcomed everyone to Biloxi, Mississippi, for the 34th Annual Meeting of the International Plant Propagators’ Society Southern Region of North America.

The University of Arkansas established a Statewide Plant Evaluation Program in 1999. Over the past 10 years, the program has evaluated 118 different woody ornamental plants — some have been winners and some not so hot. As you can imagine, with thousands of different ornamental plants, just 118 plants is a drop in the bucket. However the program is trying to make an impact by providing reliable performance data for homeowners and the green industry in the MidSouth.

Because there are so many different woody ornamental plants, the Arkansas pro?gram established two general guidelines for accepting plants for evaluation. The first is to assess the suitability of broadleaf evergreens with the primary consider?ation being winter hardiness in Northwest Arkansas (USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 6b). The second is to assess the performance of underutilized woody ornamentals that may serve a specific landscape function such as a screen or hedge.

At Bracy’s we produce a wide range of items from fruit to trees to ornamentals and perennials. We have grown from an 8-ha (20-acre) nursery in the late 1990s to a 61-ha (150-acre) facility today, while adding more and more items to our palette. This rapid growth along with our staged production process pushed us to expand and more fully develop our limited propagation at the nursery. Our goal from the start was to be able to furnish liners for our production in a way that was timely, efficient, and cost effective.

The propagation facility at Bracy’s includes two primary mist houses and an overwintering structure and encompasses 6968 m² (75,000 ft²). In this facility, we produce approximately 1 million units of over 300 different taxa of plants in sizes ranging from 72 cell to 1 qt. The number produced for each variety range from a few hundred to tens of thousands. We begin propagation in late January and usually finish by early November.

To maintain high growth rates, plants need to stay fully hydrated. Yet over-irrigation results in nutrient leaching and can promote root diseases. Water management is especially important for container production, where soil volume is limited. For woody shrubs, there are several examples available to estimate irrigation need (Beeson, 2004; Burger et al., 1987; Knox, 1989; Reagan, 1997). However for trees, examples are few (Beeson and Brooks, 2008; Edwards, 1986; Steinberg et al., 1990). In Florida, nurseries and tree farms are often required to justify their request for water-use permits when renewed. This project was initiated to quantify water use of three tree species up to 13-cm (5-in.) caliper. This paper is a brief summary of some of the results.

Cutting propagation is an important tool for clonal nursery propagation. Currently there is a significant number of woody perennial species (especially trees) that cannot be rooted from cuttings. Adventitious rooting is a complex process that is affected by many factors including hormone levels, light, rooting cofactors, and plant maturation (Hartmann et al., 2002). However, the two major factors determining root initiation are auxin availability and the plant’s ability to respond to auxin. Although researchers have spent decades trying to understand the basic physiology behind adventitious root formation, we still know very little about the genes controlling this process. It has become increasingly clear that the next significant improvement for rooting cuttings from recalcitrant species will not be discovered until we have a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms controlling rooting and maturation-related loss in rooting potential.

Trees grown conventionally and planted in city spaces typically experience high stress and a short life. A city environment is especially tough for trees. Exaggerated heat and wind, plus pollution, shading, and other factors all restrict leaf functions. Soils range from fair to poor to a mixture of construction debris with a bit of soil mixed in. Drainage can range from poor to extreme. The problem is often com?pounded by the ridiculously small space where trees are planted. This subject is reviewed in detail including many photos (Whitcomb, 2006a).

Planting trees in spaces with less than 2.8 m² (30 ft²) of exposed soil surface (roughly the area of a sheet of plywood) leads to slow decline and death, even with the toughest species. Getting landscape architects and designers to provide adequate room for tree root development is comparable to dealing with the IRS (Figs. 1 and 2). The public continues to be enamored with planting trees in cities, yet appreciates little about tree requirements for survival and growth.

Magnolia Gardens Nursery is a medium-sized nursery with three locations in Texas including, Magnolia, Waller, and Plantersville. The nursery has two divisions: one that produces finished containerized stock, and the other that grows lining out stock. The focus of this paper will be the liner division at the Magnolia, Texas, location that specializes in young plant production through the use of micropropagation, in particular that of Nandina domestica. To many the process of micropropagation can seem mythical. This is mainly due to the fact that not every nursery deals in this method of propagation as they would with conventional means such as cuttings, grafting, and seeds. So it is the purpose of this paper to show that micropropagation is not mythical, just unfamiliar. This will be done by going through some of the daily activities at the liner division of Magnolia Gardens Nursery.

The coontie, Zamia pumila L., syn. Z. floridana, is a cycad native to most counties in peninsular Florida and three counties in southeast Georgia. It is the only Zamia that is native to the United States, and is a larval food source for the Florida Atala butterfly, Eumaeus atala. Coontie has also been historically utilized as a human food source. The name "coontie" is thought to come from a Native American word meaning "flour root." Another common name for this plant is "arrow root," and during the early 20th Century, it was widely harvested and processed into starch in factories all over South Florida.

In modern times, coontie are rarely consumed but rather produced for their value as a landscape plants. The potential planting range for the coontie is USDA Hardiness Zones 8b–11, encompassing the Gulf Coast and much of the West Coast, as well as the most significant population centers of Texas and Arizona. Coontie are best adapted to partial shade, but do well in full sun. In Florida, they are frequently used in low-maintenance landscape situations including urban highway medians. Coontie do best in soils with moderate to good drainage. Soil pH is not usually a limiting factor, and coontie is considered to be salt tolerant.

Exposure to smoke has been shown to improve germination of species previously thought to be difficult or impossible to germinate (Dixon et al., 1995). Kings Park and Botanic Gardens in Western Australia have used exposure to smoke to increase the germination of at least 23 native species that do not germinate easily. These include species that had been described as being fire-responsive, suggesting that germination would only occur after exposure to heat from a fire. However, there is evidence that the products of fire rather than the effects of heat may be an important germination stimulatory factor. Keeley and Bond (1997) observed that of 57 species of South African natives from fire-prone areas 44% had increased germination in response to being treated with the products of fire while heat treatments increased germination of only 16% of these species. Only one species, Heliophila pinnata, responded positively to both stimuli.

The search for the causal agent has been elusive (Minorsky, 2002; Van Staden et al., 2004).

Most disease control practices work by preventing a pathogen from spreading from one area to another, by preventing build-up of the pathogen’s inoculum at a site, and by preventing the inoculum from infecting the host plant. In a propagation setting, exclusion of a pathogen from the propagation house can be a powerful tool. Once a pathogen has entered a propagation house, most controls attempt to limit infection, which also serves to limit inoculum build-up. Between crops, killing all pathogen propagules that remain on greenhouse surfaces allows a fresh start for the next crop. While these general control principles are commonly used, the specific practices and combination of practices needed to achieve these goals will vary depending on the pathogen being controlled. Proper diagnosis of problems is key to control, as problems may or may not be caused by a pathogen. Controls should be selected primarily based on the disease problems that have a history of occurrence at a specific greenhouse or nursery facility.

Rhizoctonia fungi cause a range of disease problems during propagation and production of herbaceous and woody ornamental plants. The senior author has discovered that binucleate Rhizoctonia species live on live azalea stems and in the growing media of container-grown plants all year.

Hollies (genus Ilex) are a large and complex group of plants with an estimated number of species to be over 500. Selected forms of species and hybrids have been mainstream landscape plant for centuries. The large majority of holly selections are relatively easy to reproduce by means of asexual propagation of cutting wood. Asexual propagation maintains the desired plant in a "carbon copy" state (clone) from one cutting generation to the next without much plant variation, except for a rare sport mutation. Growing hollies sexually from seed can produce plants that exhibit variations for future selection. Selected holly seedlings with variations that prove to be exceptional can result in new and exciting cultivars. The information summaries below are from past experiences germinating seed from Ilex crenata, I. cornuta, I. cassine, I. verticillata, I. purpurea, I. opaca, I. ‘Mary Nell’, and I. ×meserveae at Transcend Nursery, Independence, Louisiana (Zone 8).

The growth of the plant market is more often than not driven by the "what’s new" question posed by the potential plant customer. Nurserymen are always looking for the new cultivar or even a new species that shows potential for not only the specialty nursery trade, but also the "big box stores" as well. For the past 30 years, I have been on the look out for new finds to introduce to the ornamental market for our discerning customers. And in so doing I have extended this to explore for new plants in foreign countries, mostly in Japan and the United Kingdom. We will examine a number of new cultivars of more familiar species, but also some genera and species which are practically unknown in the nursery trade such as Platycrater arguta, Ajuga incise, and Rhodoleia henryi.

Ardisia japonica is known well in the Deep South as a shade groundcover with relatively few new cultivars being introduced in recent years. We have found many new outstanding large growing, dwarf, and variegated forms in Japan where there is a cult of growing and exhibiting this genus in the Koten Engei fashion.

Waste creates problems. It expends resources, frustrates those involved, and adds unnecessary costs to the process. An operational strategy called Lean Flow aims for a solution to these problems — it focuses on reducing or eliminating waste so that fewer resources are needed to do the same or more work than before. Within Lean Flow Management, waste is identified as anything the customer is not willing to pay for, including wasted time, effort, money, movement, and materials. The goal of the system is to provide the customer with the highest quality at the lowest cost with the shortest lead time.

Lean Flow strategies include reducing lead time and inventory, introducing quality checks into processes, and finding better ways to manage work flow. This focus on processes makes Lean Flow heavily dependent on employee involvement. Lean Flow or Lean Manufacturing evolved from the Toyota Production System. Although it orig?inated in the manufacturing realm, the concepts can be applied to all sorts of businesses and operations such as office operations, academia, and retail establishments.

Grafting ornamental plants carries with it a mystique and perception as one of the more difficult forms of plant propagation. While it can be difficult at times, successful grafting is usually predicated on a solid understanding of the basics, coupled with considerable practice.

My goal here is to discuss the basic steps and concerns relating to grafting woody ornamental plants. Grafting, much like other forms of plant propagation, begins with a simple recipe. The recipe serves as a guideline; however, each grafter must adapt the recipe to serve his or her specific needs and objectives. This recipe will, more often than not, blend aspects of both science and art to achieve the desired result. Propagation includes the sciences of botany and plant physiology, as well as artistic skills honed by practice and experience over time. A grafter must follow the science of horticulture to provide the necessary elements and conditions for plants to grow and thrive. For example, he or she must also be an artist in the sense that each different plant requires fine tuning the recipe to adjust for different conditions and objectives.

Breeding efforts in butterfly bush (Buddleja spp.) and redbud (Cercis canadensis) have been ongoing at North Carolina State University (NCSU) since 1998. The goals of this program are to develop improved ornamental forms of these two popular landscape plants, and to contribute to the knowledge of the genetics of important traits found in these taxa. Considerable progress has been made in these objectives, which is summarized below.

BUDDLEJA BREEDING

Efforts in Buddleja breeding have focused on the development of cultivars demonstrating compact growth habit, improved flower color, and reduced seed set. To date, ‘Blue Chip’ and ‘Miss Ruby’ have been released from the program

Recent research has identified two potential materials to meet nursery grower’s needs: Clean Chip Residual (CCR) and WholeTree (WT). Both of these alternative substrates contain higher wood content than pine bark alone. The CCR is a product composed of approximately 50% wood, 40%bark, and 10% needles (Boyer et al., 2008a). It is created when transportable in-field harvesters are used to process pines into "clean chips" that can be used by pulp mills. One study evaluating CCR as an alternative substrate in annual species production (Boyer et al., 2008b) reported that two out of three species tested had similar growth when compared to standard PB substrates. Another study evaluating perennial species production in CCR (Boyer et al., 2008a) determined that there were few differences in growth at the conclusion of the study for most species. In 2009, Boyer et al. also reported that CCR as an alternative nursery crop substrate for container-grown ornamentals was acceptable for use at several screen sizes 3.2, 1.9, 1.3, 1.0 cm (Boyer et al., 2009). In general, studies indicate that plants grown in CCR are comparable to those grown in a traditional PB substrate.

The focus of this presentation is to look at different nursery functions and pieces of equipment that have been developed by nurseries to improve their work efficiency. Most equipment, implements, and machinery used in the nursery industry have been modified to suite the needs of the different nurseries as they try to mechanize and become more efficient.

Inviro Mist Sprayers. These are used by many field nurseries to apply postemergent herbicides. This sprayer system can be modified to fit almost any piece of equipment and multiple different options to apply pesticides to many different types of crops. It can replace applying post-emergent herbicides by backpack sprayers and is more efficient in both less man hours to apply as well as less chemical used with the unique spraying system.