Lily Perennializing in Ithaca, Louisiana and Holland

In May 2006, we published a newsletter (number 10) where we first reported on our experiences with multi-year flowering of a variety of “cut flower” hybrid lilies at Cornell’s outdoor trialing site, Bluegrass Lane, in Ithaca NY. In 2002-2003, we planted a range of LA, Asiatic and Oriental hybrid lilies to investigate perennialization. While not a formal trial, the 2006 newsletter showed that a range of hybrids, primarily bred for cut flower use, performed very well in outdoor garden situations in upstate New Yor

People pollinating partnerships: harnessing collaborations between botanic gardens and agricultural research organizations on crop diversity

The world's botanic gardens are repositories of plant diversity but are seldom considered to be major contributors to conservation and research of crops. Thus, botanic gardens and agricultural research organizations have had somewhat limited interactions historically. An unprecedented three-year collaboration between the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America, the American Public Gardens Association, and the World Food Prize Foundation brought together experts from botanic gardens and the agricultural research community, culminating in a Symposium in April 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa. Funded by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture – National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA – NIFA), one of the major outcomes of this collaboration was the development of a shared Road Map for conservation, use, and public engagement around North America’s crop wild relatives and wild utilized plants – species of interest to both communities. Key takeaways from this collaboration are discussed

Lily Perennializing in Ithaca, Louisiana and Holland

In May 2006, we published a newsletter (number 10) where we first reported on our experiences with multi-year flowering of a variety of “cut flower” hybrid lilies at Cornell’s outdoor trialing site, Bluegrass Lane, in Ithaca NY. In 2002-2003, we planted a range of LA, Asiatic and Oriental hybrid lilies to investigate perennialization. While not a formal trial, the 2006 newsletter showed that a range of hybrids, primarily bred for cut flower use, performed very well in outdoor garden situations in upstate New Yor

Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium uptake and demand in Agrostis capillaris: the influence of elevated CO2 and nutrient supply.

Responses to elevated CO2 have been studied using Agrostis capillaris L., an upland grass which is abundant on nutrient-poor soils. Plants were grown in sand culture with a wide range of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium concentrations, and the impact of CO2 on the demand for nutrients was determined using isotopic root bioassays. Plants grown with the smallest concentrations of N and P showed typical foliar symptoms associated with deficiency of these elements. However, even when supplies of N and P were limiting to growth, additional CO2 (250 ppm above ambient) influenced neither total N nor total P in above-ground tissues, nor nutrient demands as indicated by the bioassay. The estimates of the demand of the plants for K from the 86Rb bioassay indicated an appreciable increase when plants were raised in elevated CO2. For plants of the same size with the same nutrient supply, those grown in elevated CO2 consistently displayed an increased internal demand for K. Uptake of K was not however, enhanced by elevated CO2 even in non-limiting conditions and it might therefore be limited by a factor other than K supply. The overall conclusion from the experiments is that when A. capillaris is grown in elevated CO2, uptake of N, P and K fails to increase proportionally with dry mass. This was true even when nutrient supplies were adequate, and it appears that nutrient-use-efficiency might increase to enable the plants to maintain growth in elevated CO2