Category: Cool Research

Bounce – it’s not just a fabric softening sheet…

…it’s an Integrated Pest Management tool!

[Note added after-the-fact: this was a  tongue-in-cheek bit of  hyperbole – kind of like “it’s not just a Job, it’s an Adventure.” Did not mean to imply that it actually IS an IPM tool. Very badly worded. Hence the beating I took in the comments. Live and learn.]

Fungus gnats (Bradysia spp.) are a pain in the bottom for commercial greenhouse growers. The adults are more of a nuisance than anything else –it just looks bad when a customer picks up your 6” pot of pansies and a bunch of little black gnats take flight. … Continue reading this article “Bounce – it’s not just a fabric softening sheet…”

Potted plants…really potted

A week or so ago my new friend Doug wondered about some gardening advice on the radio: would adding vodka to paperwhite narcissus make the flowers less “floppy?” The explanation he’d heard was that alcohol would burn the roots and reduce stem growth. Then today I received an email newsletter with the same intriguing information. This newsletter referred to a 2006 article that appeared in HortTechnology as the source of this information.

The study by Miller and Finan has generated a lot of interest in the gardening community, especially this time of year as people get ready to force bulbs for indoor blooms.… Continue reading this article “Potted plants…really potted”

Ignorance and the so-called “bogus” bee study

I’m angry.  Really, really angry.  And it’s all Kenny’s fault.

Kenny S., one of our long-time blog followers, alerted me to a blog posting dismissing a new study on colony collapse disorder (CCD). The post was devoid of any evidence of bogusness, other than a link to “great reporting” by New York Magazine. Aside from the general snarkiness of this article, we’re breathlessly informed that Fortune magazine (a hotbed of scientific inquiry) uncovered an unholy connection between the lead author (Dr.… Continue reading this article “Ignorance and the so-called “bogus” bee study”

Why I like science (our visiting professor returns)

I like science.  I see it as a way to figure things out.  It creates a combination of a) things we’re pretty sure of (facts about the shape of DNA, the optimum pH for certain plant species, and theories consistent with such facts, for example) and importantly, b) questions we can ask next.  When research is designed to answer those new questions, the results will either support the things we’re pretty sure of and lead to an expanded understanding and new questions, or they won’t support what we thought we knew and the results will lead to a different understanding and new questions. … Continue reading this article “Why I like science (our visiting professor returns)”

Need a lift?

One of the topic groupings for our posts is titled ‘Cool research’.  The subject of today’s post has actually been around for a few years but I still think it’s pretty cool.

 

When we think of interactions between plants we usual think of negative interactions such as competition for water and nutrients or maybe allelopathy.  But there are cases where plants can benefit each other.  One of these is a phenomenon known as hydraulic lift.   … Continue reading this article “Need a lift?”

Restoration ecologists – you need us!

Restoration ecology – the science of restoring degraded ecosystems – is another branch of applied plant sciences.  Oddly enough, very little plant science makes it into the scientific literature of this field.  This has driven me nuts for a number of years after reading an endless stream of papers where no mention is made of how plants are selected, installed, and managed.  Or worse, some ancient horticultural practices are used – like amending the backfill with organic material rather than using just the native soil. … Continue reading this article “Restoration ecologists – you need us!”

Organic farming study at – gasp! – a research university

There is a common misperception among some that university researchers are in the pocket of Big Ag (see June 11 and 13 posts). So here’s a link to an article in today’s Seattle Times about the benefits of organic farming from a study at Washington State University.  The research was published in Nature (one of the most revered of the scientific journals).

The Approach Graft

Seeing as this blog is called “The Garden Professors” it has been far too long since we’ve given you a lecture on a useful practice for your garden, so this week I thought I’d give you a little how-to demonstration on something called approach grafting.  Approach grafting is a technique that you could use to graft a tomato to a tomato (good if you want to use a disease resistant root with a non-disease resistant top — common in heirloom tomatoes), a tomato stem to a potato root (just a fun project), or an eggplant root to a tomato shoot (good for wet locations).… Continue reading this article “The Approach Graft”

Lunar control? Or lunacy?

Yesterday one of my dear skeptical colleagues sent me a link to a new article on lunar influences on plants (you can find it here).  Briefly, the authors argue that scientific evidence supports the concept of a lunar cycle influence on plants.  Interspersed within the discussion are references to seasonal and daily plant cycles, along with legitimate references to these verifiable phenomena.  (Had these references to circadian and diurnal rhythms been left out, the literature citations would have been rather paltry.) … Continue reading this article “Lunar control? Or lunacy?”

Baffling Daffs

It is daffodil season in the Northern Hemisphere, hurrah!  May their blooms shoo away the gray of winter! It is also the season where everybody and their mother writes something about the wonders of the genus Narcissus, so figured I’d join the fray, but with a bit of a chip on my shoulder…


Miss ‘Barrett Browning’ in the Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech

I recently read YET ANOTHER article warning against mixing daffodil stems in with other cut flowers due to “harmful effects from the sap”.… Continue reading this article “Baffling Daffs”