50:15

S02:E01 Jun 1, 2026

Georgia's Green Industry and the Power of Advocacy with Lanie Riner

Georgia’s Green Industry and the Power of Advocacy Season 2 opens with Lanie Riner — greenhouse grower, farm kid turned Executive Director of the Georgia Green Industry Association, and the person who wrote the letter that helped strengthen Georgia’s Freedom to Farm protections. Lanie runs GGIA while running Thunderwood Farms in Meriwether County, and she brings both perspectives to a conversation about what it takes to advocate for an industry that, as she puts it, “puts nature back in place.” Ping and Lanie go back to a Ginkgo biloba tree and a job interview. From there, the conversation covers GGIA’s 35-year history, the COVID-era fight to keep horticulture classified as essential, the OSHA heat rule that could reshape outdoor work, and a Capitol Day tradition where plants are the only agricultural commodity that isn’t eaten by sundown. Lanie’s advice for anyone headed to meet a legislator: bring a true story — preferably your own. The episode also digs into the challenges growers face right now: succession planning for family operations, the two-spot cotton leafhopper and its quarantine implications, H-2A and H-2B labor programs, and the ever-shifting Waters of the U.S. definition. Lanie’s three-to-five-year vision for GGIA centers on a united industry voice and growing the next generation through programs like the Junior Certified Plant Professional. Listen Time: 50:15 Follow Along with this Episode’s Transcript In This Episode Guest Lanie Riner — Executive Director, Georgia Green Industry Association (GGIA); Owner, Thunderwood Farms. UGA horticulture graduate who started as a pharmacy student, found her way to Miller Plant Sciences, and built a career spanning greenhouse production and statewide industry advocacy. She personally testified before OSHA on the proposed heat rule and led the effort to secure essential-industry status for Georgia’s green industry during the 2020 shutdown. Main Topics Lanie’s path from farm kid to GGIA Executive Director (00:42) Favorite plants: Asclepias and Baptisia (03:27) GGIA overview: history, six divisions, and mission since 1990 (04:49) How Lanie’s zoning battle in Meriwether County led her to GGIA (07:40) Key programs: Southeast Green Conference, Wintergreen on the Road, scholarships (10:21) Southeast Green moving back to Athens (12:16) COVID-era advocacy: getting the green industry deemed essential (14:06) Freedom to Farm legislation and the “changing conditions” clause (16:01) Environmental benefits of the green industry — “We put nature back in place” (18:14) Emerging pests: two-spot cotton leafhopper and compliance agreements (21:05) OSHA heat rule: testimony, UGA Extension partnership, and ongoing process (23:04) The art of advocacy: storytelling over statistics (25:11) GGIA Capitol Day and relationship-building with legislators (28:12) Communication: e-blasts, direct outreach, and Hurricane Helene response (30:34) Industry challenges: succession planning, regulation, labor, and water (35:15) University and Extension partnerships — “unbiased scientific support” (39:23) Vision for GGIA: united voice, next-generation development (41:23) Junior Certified Plant Professional program and FFA partnerships (43:55) How to get involved with GGIA (46:43) Key Highlights GGIA formed in 1990 from two predecessor organizations — the Georgia Nursery Men’s Association (dating to the 1930s) and the Georgia Association of Landscape Professionals (1970s–80s) Lanie started as Executive Director in June 2020 and immediately partnered with Chairman Jeremy Oxford to secure essential-industry designation for horticulture during the shutdown The Freedom to Farm legislation removed a “changing conditions” clause that threatened growers who had been farming in the same location for 30–50+ years as urban development grew around them GGIA recently partnered with the Georgia Agribusiness Council for state-level lobbying, freeing Lanie to focus on federal issues like the OSHA heat rule and emerging pest regulations The Junior Certified Plant Professional program in Fort Valley has been running since 1991 Key Quotes “In our society, throughout every society, we learn through storytelling. … When you go to talk to a legislator or a regulator, whatever the point is that you are trying to make, it needs to be a true story. That’s the first thing. And it needs to — it’s even better if it’s your story.” — Lanie Riner (25:59) “We put nature back in place. But it’s exactly what we do. Our industry is where people and nature intersect.” — Lanie Riner (19:03) “Yours is the only industry that it is not eaten up at the end of the day.” — Chairman Robert Dickey, as recounted by Lanie Riner (29:04), on why GGIA Capitol Day stands out among agricultural commodities “We could not advocate for our industry at all without our university partners and extension. Extension provides that unbiased scientific support. It’s not an opinion.” — Lanie Riner (39:44) “We are stronger when we work together.” — Lanie Riner (43:27) Educational Highlights 501(c)(6) trade association: GGIA’s tax-exempt classification as a business league organized to promote common business interests for its members — distinct from a 501(c)(3) charitable organization GGIA’s six divisions: wholesale growers, retail, greenhouse growers, landscape contractors, irrigation, allied products and sales, plus floriculture Freedom to Farm: Georgia legislation that strengthened protections for farms operating in areas where urban development has encroached, removing a “changing conditions” clause that had been in place since the 1980s Two-spot cotton leafhopper: An emerging pest originally found on okra (a Malvaceae family crop) in Georgia, with host range extending to hibiscus, tomatoes, peppers, and other solanaceous crops — carrying quarantine implications for plant movement OSHA heat rule: A federal rulemaking process begun in 2021 that, as originally proposed, would impose workplace heat regulations that Lanie described as unworkable for outdoor agricultural operations H-2A and H-2B programs: Federal temporary agricultural worker (H-2A) and temporary non-agricultural worker (H-2B) visa programs that Georgia’s green industry relies on for labor WOTUS (Waters of the U.S.): A federal regulatory definition under the Clean Water Act that has been contested and revised repeatedly since 2008, with direct implications for growers’ water access and land use Georgia Certified Plant Professional: Originally a GGIA program, now transitioned to UGA for state recognition; GGIA maintains the Junior Certified Plant Professional certification for students Georgia’s annual rainfall: Approximately 50 inches per year — substantial, but punctuated by periods of drought that can threaten growers, as in the 2007 Atlanta water restrictions Resources & Links GGIA Website: ggia.org Southeast Green Conference: southeastgreen.org Blooms and Beyond: bandbpod.com About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Guest: Lanie Riner, Executive Director, Georgia Green Industry Association; Owner, Thunderwood Farms Producer: Rich Braman Episode Release Date: Sunday, May 31st, 2026 Episode Length: 50:15 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

48:38

S02:E02 Jun 8, 2026

It's Not Garden Therapy: The Real Science of Plants and People with Sheri Dorn

It’s Not Garden Therapy: The Real Science of Plants and People Ping calls it “garden therapy.” Dr. Sheri Dorn gently corrects her — and that correction opens up a whole world. Episode Description Ping sits down with her colleague and friend Dr. Sheri Dorn, who took on a new role at the University of Georgia in August as assistant professor of socio-horticulture and horticultural therapy. Within the first two minutes, Sheri lovingly catches Ping using the loose term “garden therapy” — and that small correction becomes the thread that runs through the whole conversation. There’s a real difference between horticultural therapy (a clinical setting with a therapist, a client, and a goal), therapeutic horticulture (the benefits of a group gardening session), and socio-horticulture (the big bucket that holds every economic, environmental, social, and health benefit plants give us). Sorting those terms out turns out to be the difference between a feel-good hobby and a documented science. From there the conversation ranges across Sheri’s path into the field — a childhood spent in an enormous inherited family vegetable garden, her mentorship under People-Plant Council pioneer Dr. Diane Relf at Virginia Tech, and the “plant magic” she first watched happen in community gardens. She walks through the research that explains why gardening lowers cortisol and blood pressure, why how often you garden matters as much as that you do it at all, and the landmark 1980s hospital-window study that showed surgery patients recovered faster when they could see a garden instead of a brick wall. If you’re a grower, there’s a marketing message here you can take to the bank. If you’re a plant enthusiast, there’s a clear, encouraging on-ramp: try a basil cutting, sow some lettuce, call your county Extension office, and build from there. And if you’ve ever joked that gardening is cheaper than a therapist, Sheri has thoughts about that very expensive tomato. Listen Time: 48:38 Follow Along with this Episode’s Transcript In This Episode Guest Dr. Sheri Dorn — Assistant Professor of Socio-Horticulture and Horticultural Therapy, UGA Department of Horticulture & State Botanical Garden of Georgia. Formerly the State of Georgia Master Gardener coordinator. Bachelor’s and master’s in horticulture from Virginia Tech (working under Dr. Diane Relf and the People-Plant Council), PhD from the University of Georgia. She is building UGA’s new horticultural therapy certificate program. Main Topics Meet Dr. Sheri Dorn and her new role (00:51) From a family vegetable garden to Virginia Tech (04:19) Learning from a pioneer: Dr. Diane Relf and the People-Plant Council (06:02) The “plant magic” of community gardens (08:02) Defining the terms: therapy, therapeutic horticulture, socio-horticulture (09:45) Why gardening makes us feel good — cortisol, blood pressure, memory (12:03) The biggest misconception: not all gardening is therapy (15:17) How often you garden matters (17:48) The hospital window: Roger Ulrich’s landmark study (20:19) The economic value of plants and landscapes (22:41) Choosing plants around the client’s goals (25:03) A marketing message for the green industry (28:12) Post-pandemic trends in horticultural therapy (30:44) What an effective program looks like + training and certification (34:51) Getting started: simple activities for beginners (38:36) Sheri’s vision for the program (44:15) Key Highlights Three terms, one correction. Horticultural therapy is clinical — therapist, client, goal, with horticulture as the pathway. Therapeutic horticulture is the looser group setting. Socio-horticulture is the broad umbrella for every human benefit of plants. Most of what people call “garden therapy” actually lives in the socio-horticulture bucket. Frequency is the finding. Some of the most useful recent research shows the benefits of gardening track with how often you do it — like exercise. A one-off patio container won’t deliver the therapeutic payoff that a regular, recurring practice does. The hospital window. In a study from the early ’90s, gallbladder-surgery patients whose rooms overlooked a garden had shorter stays and needed fewer pain medications than patients facing a brick wall. Don’t forget the horticulturalist. Sheri’s recurring concern: as the medical community drives more horticultural-therapy research, the person who actually knows how to grow and troubleshoot the plants gets left off the team — and the work suffers for it. The on-ramp is low. Root a grocery-store basil sleeve in a glass of water, sow lettuce, plant a paper white narcissus, and call your county Extension office. Small successes build the confidence (and the habit) that the science says matters. Key Quotes “I like to say that my parents nearly killed my career in horticulture before it got started, because it was — honest to goodness, Ping — it was the family vegetable garden, and we had a huge one.” — Dr. Sheri Dorn (04:21) “Those people, nine times out of ten, would not speak to each other if they ran into each other in the grocery store… But they have bonded over growing the plants.” — Dr. Sheri Dorn, on community gardens (08:55) “I think the biggest misconception is that all gardening is therapy.” — Dr. Sheri Dorn (15:17) “It was very clear that the patients that viewed the garden had a shorter hospital stay, took fewer pain medications, and they were less obnoxious, essentially… They were better patients, Ping.” — Dr. Sheri Dorn, on the Ulrich study (21:11) “Don’t forget the people side of plants. We won’t have an industry if there aren’t people buying our plants.” — Dr. Sheri Dorn (30:19) Educational Highlights Horticultural therapy — A clinical practice built on three things: a therapist, a client, and a goal (to heal, strengthen, recover, learn skills, or make social connections), with gardening as the pathway to that goal. It draws on cognitive science, psychology, counseling, and physical and occupational medicine — but the practitioner’s first training is in plants. Therapeutic horticulture — A less formal, usually group setting where the gardening activity produces positive benefits without tracking individually prescribed goals. Socio-horticulture — The broad term for all human benefits of plants: economic, environmental, social, community, health, and wellbeing. Self-directed gardening that simply makes you feel good lives here, not in clinical “therapy.” Why the body responds — Gardening is associated with cortisol reduction and lower blood pressure. Scent from plants like rosemary, lavender, roses, and gardenia works through brain pathways tied to memory. Part of the relaxation comes from a shift out of the office’s intense, narrow focus into the gentler, fascinated attention the garden invites. Attention restoration & the Ulrich study — Roger Ulrich (a psychologist) analyzed hospital records of gallbladder-surgery patients; those who could see a landscaped garden recovered faster and used fewer pain medications than those facing a brick wall — early behavioral evidence for what plants do for us. The economic case — A landscape investment can return more at resale than a kitchen renovation; well-landscaped homes tend to sell faster and help establish a desirable “sense of place.” Sheri also notes the flip side: over-complex landscapes can overwhelm buyers, and rising desirability can push taxes up, so keep communities involved in the decisions. Choosing plants by goal, not by species — Plant choice follows the client’s goal: non-toxic options for clients who put things in their mouth; scent, flower, or color to spark memory (Sheri’s lifelong snapdragon association with her mother); textured leaves like oakleaf hydrangea or a prickly holly for sensory work; easily propagated plants for vocational/production goals. Certification — UGA is building a horticultural therapy certificate: at minimum 12 hours of horticultural therapy coursework layered onto a foundation in growing plants plus human-sciences training. It draws students and working professionals alike — horticulturalists, educators, nurses, occupational and physical therapists. Beginner propagation win — A grocery-store basil sleeve placed in a vase of water will root in under a week — you’ve propagated a plant. Paper white narcissus bulbs (nose up, basal plate down) bloom in about five to six weeks. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com Dr. Sheri Dorn — reachable through the UGA Department of Horticulture; a dedicated horticultural therapy program website is in development. Contact information is available on the department webpage. People-Plant Council — the national group founded by Dr. Diane Relf (Virginia Tech) in the early 1990s. UGA horticultural therapy certificate program — in development at the University of Georgia. Your county Extension office — every county in Georgia has one; staff and Master Gardener volunteers offer research-based, unbiased horticulture guidance and publications. State Botanical Garden of Georgia — partner in Dr. Dorn’s appointment, with a conservation and native-plant focus. About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Sheri Dorn, Assistant Professor of Socio-Horticulture and Horticultural Therapy, UGA Department of Horticulture & State Botanical Garden of Georgia Support: American Floral Endowment Educational Grant Episode Release Date: June 7, 2026 Episode Length: 48:38 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

55:40

S02:E03 Jun 15, 2026

The Dream Team Behind Cultivate

The Dream Team Behind Cultivate How three women build the education that powers the green industry’s biggest event Episode Description Every July, thousands of growers, retailers, and plant lovers flood Columbus, Ohio for Cultivate — and behind roughly 160 education sessions packed into four days is a team of three. In this episode, Ping sits down with the AmericanHort education team: Meagan Nace, Rachel Rawls, and Alejandra Feliciano, Ph.D. They pull back the curtain on what it takes to plan the industry’s largest event, from the 400 to 500 session proposals they sift through each year to the speakers they lock in more than twelve months ahead. But Cultivate is only the headline. The conversation moves into the education that runs all year long — Mastery Series deep dives, grower certifications, a brand-new badging program, the Grow Forward series for personal and professional growth, and live Spanish interpretation that opens every webinar to a broader audience. Alejandra explains why mirroring English programming in Spanish matters, and why having Hispanic researchers serve a Hispanic audience changes who gets reached. For researchers and extension professionals wondering how to get involved, the team has a one-word answer: reach out. They share exactly what makes a session proposal stand out, why the practical “golden nugget” beats theory every time, and what keeps them coming back to the work. And yes — before the conversation ends, everyone names their favorite plant of the day. Listen Time: 55:40 In This Episode Guests Meagan Nace — Senior Education Program Manager, AmericanHort. Oversees the education team and all AmericanHort programming, from certifications to Cultivate to fall conferences. Background in agricultural education and new product development at Scotts Miracle-Gro. Rachel Rawls — Education Program Manager, AmericanHort. Focuses on events-based education and builds the Cultivate program — topics, speakers, and session formats. UGA horticulture and ag/environmental education graduate; former UGA and Purdue Extension agent. Passionate about grower-based education. Alejandra Feliciano, Ph.D. — Spanish Curriculum Development Manager, AmericanHort. Leads Spanish-language programming and helps lead the HortCred digital badge program. Grew up in Puerto Rico; master’s from Iowa State, Ph.D. from Washington State; former landscape designer and community college instructor. Main Topics Meeting the dream team and three paths into horticulture (00:52) Why horticulture is bigger than plant production (06:16) How Cultivate planning works — and why it never stops (08:09) Inside the proposal bank: ~160 sessions, 400–500 proposals (11:07) A detour on team strengths and the Six Working Genius (14:26) What makes the cut: applicable over trendy (17:28) The five core industry segments (21:56) Mirroring English programming in Spanish (24:41) Education that never stops: Mastery Series, certifications, badging (26:33) On-demand sessions and the Grow Forward series (30:14) A partner to research and extension — how to get involved (36:32) Sessions that stick, and everyone’s favorite plant (43:18) Where to find AmericanHort (52:13) Key Highlights AmericanHort runs roughly 160 education sessions across four days at Cultivate, selected from 400 to 500 proposals received each year — with some speakers locked in more than a year in advance. The team’s filter for what makes the cut: not whether a topic is trending, but whether attendees can take it home and use it next week. Education runs year-round, not just at Cultivate — Mastery Series deep dives, grower certifications (Technician level and Section Grower), a new micro-credentialing/badging program, and the Grow Forward series for personal and professional development. Spanish programming aims to mirror what’s offered in English, including live Spanish interpretation on webinars and badges available in Spanish. AmericanHort positions itself as a partner to extension and researchers, helping practical research reach frontline workers directly — and amplifying Hispanic researchers serving a Hispanic audience. Key Quotes “I’m not sure that planning for Cultivate ever stops. We’re already looking at 2027.” — Meagan Nace (08:48) “If it’s trending but it doesn’t change any decision-making or outcomes, it’s probably not gonna make the cut for education.” — Rachel Rawls (20:56) “We have a complete ecosystem of educational products that meets our industry and individuals where they’re at in their career and in their stage of life.” — Meagan Nace (29:44) “The number one word that resonates in my mind is we’re a partner to Extension and researchers, because we fulfill that outreach goal.” — Alejandra Feliciano (40:58) “They really are the secret sauce behind education at Cultivate, and everything at Cultivate.” — Meagan Nace, on the volunteer community connectors (35:42) Educational Highlights Cultivate is one of the largest green-industry events in the United States, held annually in Columbus, Ohio. AmericanHort’s education team programs around 160 sessions across four days — roughly 11 running at the same time in any given slot. Five core industry segments anchor the programming: greenhouse, nursery, garden retail, and interior landscape, with careers spanning everyone from owner-CEOs to the people physically growing in the greenhouses. Mastery Series are deep-dive programs — think master class — that give people the basic principles and useful information without committing to a full college course. Certifications and micro-credentials: AmericanHort offers grower certification at the Technician and Section Grower levels. Because certification takes time, the new badging program offers a quicker, trackable “happy medium” for teams that need technical knowledge fast. Grow Forward, launched in 2024 by the Generation Next Community Connectors, focuses on personal and professional “softer skills”; six sessions run virtually throughout the year. HRI (Horticultural Research Institute) is the research arm of AmericanHort, led by Jen Gray, Roni, and Michael. At Cultivate, the Thrive Stage spotlights HRI-funded researchers sharing their work and its industry impact. The practical “golden nugget”: when proposing a Cultivate session, researchers should frame their work around the problem it solves and what a grower could do differently in their operation next week. Plant spotlight (favorites of the day): oakleaf hydrangea (Rachel), witch hazel — Hamamelis — blooming and insect-pollinated in the Pacific Northwest (Alejandra), and peony, plus Edgeworthia paper bush prized for its scent (Meagan). Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com AmericanHort: americanhort.org Cultivate: cultivateevent.org AmericanHort online learning center (search for Spanish-language content) Follow AmericanHort on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guests: Meagan Nace, Senior Education Program Manager, AmericanHort; Rachel Rawls, Education Program Manager, AmericanHort; Alejandra Feliciano, Ph.D., Spanish Curriculum Development Manager, AmericanHort Episode Release Date: June 14, 2026 Episode Length: 55:40 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

1:06:20

S02:E04 Jun 21, 2026

Drones Take Flight in the Nursery: How Two Disciplines Built Something Neither Could Alone (Part 1)

Episode Description Sometimes the most interesting plant science doesn’t come from a plant person at all. In this special two-part episode, Ping sits down with two collaborators who’ve spent fifteen years figuring out how drones can work in nursery and greenhouse production — Dr. Jim Robbins, a retired University of Arkansas extension specialist who’s loved plants since he was fifteen, and Dr. Joe Maja, an engineer who freely admits he wasn’t a plant person before the two of them met. Their accidental partnership, sparked by a 2009 question about counting plants in a field nursery, is the thread that runs through the whole conversation. Part 1 is the grower’s field guide. What actually counts as a “drone,” and why does 55 pounds matter so much? Which license do you need — Part 107, Part 137, or both — and who regulates what? What are the five things a nursery can realistically do with a drone right now, from five-hundred-dollar marketing cameras to RFID inventory readers Joe is shrinking small enough to fly? And the question Ping keeps circling back to: does any of this actually pencil out, or should you just hire someone to fly for you? Whether you’re a commercial grower weighing your first purchase, a student curious about precision ag, or a plant lover who likes a good origin story, this one rewards a full listen. Part 2 takes the conversation deeper into the RFID inventory work itself. Listen Time: 66:20 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guests Dr. James “Jim” Robbins — Extension Specialist and Professor in commercial ornamental horticulture (retired), University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Twenty-three years supporting green-industry businesses in nursery production and woody plant evaluation; the past fifteen spent deep in drone work. Dr. Joe Maja — Director, Center for Applied AI for Sustainable Agriculture, South Carolina State University. Engineer specializing in robotics, unmanned aerial systems, remote sensing, and applying AI to agriculture. Main Topics Welcome and introductions (00:00) Jim’s journey from a Wisconsin nursery to drone pioneer — and a serendipitous 2009 collaboration (03:01) The 2009 inventory question that started fifteen years of work (04:45) Why interdisciplinary collaboration matters in modern agriculture (10:38) Introducing UAVs: the 55-pound line, multi-rotor vs. fixed-wing (15:24) Licensing: Part 107, Part 137, and who regulates what (21:15) A field guide to drone types and sensors (25:34) The five drone applications — and where nurseries use them most (28:39) The most-adopted application: simple images and video (34:36) Greenhouse vs. nursery, and the case for a practice drone (36:08) Putting a system together: equipment, payloads, and bundles (40:04) From image to answer: software, services, and the economics (43:43) A fact sheet on three ownership scenarios (49:09) Liquid to granular: spray drones, fire-ant bait, and smart flight software (53:36) The ornamental challenge: diversity, variability, and a software-smart future (60:16) Closing (65:26) Key Highlights An origin story worth keeping. A field nursery in the Pacific Northwest asked Jim in 2009 whether inventory could be automated. That single question — and his surprise that manual counting was still the norm — led him back to Arkansas, to engineer Joe Maja, and to fifteen years of collaboration. The 55-pound rule. When a drone plus its payload lifts off at under 55 pounds, the FAA calls it “small,” and licensing is very achievable. Cross that line — which spray drones do quickly — and you’re in a more involved regulatory category. Five applications, ranked by realism. Marketing/sales imagery, asset tracking, plant inventory (RFID), aerial application (spray and spread), and crop monitoring. The two “low-hanging fruit” — still images and video — are affordable enough that Jim thinks every operation should own a small drone. The economics is the real question. Jim and Joe co-wrote an extension fact sheet with an agricultural economist laying out three ownership scenarios — do it all yourself, a hybrid, or hire it out entirely — across a five-year return. The ornamental handicap. Row-crop monoculture is far easier to automate than a nursery growing 300–600 different crops, each with its own spectral signature. Joe’s bet for the next decade: smarter software and AI, not new hardware. Key Quotes “The choice shouldn’t be driven by the platform itself. It should be driven by the application. Whether it’s imaging, monitoring, or spraying, the key question is: what problems are you trying to solve?” — Dr. Joe Maja “Think of your driver’s license — just a regular driver’s license. But if you wanted to be a certified CDL, it’s a much more expensive and involved process. And the same is true once we jump above 55 pounds.” — Dr. Jim Robbins “The outdoor environment is very rough on engineered solutions.” — Dr. Jim Robbins “I wasn’t a plant person before working with James, and my training was purely in engineering, so I approached everything from a systems and problem-solving perspective.” — Dr. Joe Maja “I think the future solution is less about different hardware and more about smarter software.” — Dr. Joe Maja Educational Highlights UAV vs. UAS. Both terms describe the same family of aircraft. If the payload is a sprayer or a sensor, you might call the whole thing an unmanned aerial system; if you’re just flying the aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicle. Multi-rotor vs. fixed-wing. Multi-rotor drones (quadcopters, hexacopters) hover and maneuver precisely — ideal for the tighter, more variable space of a nursery. Fixed-wing platforms fly like airplanes, covering large areas efficiently but needing more room and offering less control in confined spaces. Part 107 vs. Part 137. Part 107 certifies you as a commercial drone pilot — achievable even without an aviation background, with the exam covering airspace classification, weather, and operational safety. Part 137 is the additional, more paperwork-heavy certification required to apply pesticides or agricultural chemicals from the air, often involving state agencies too. Who regulates what. Anything to do with flying an aircraft in the national airspace is the sole responsibility of the FAA. The moment you apply a chemical, a state agency — for example, Arkansas’s agriculture department, pest control division — may enter the picture. The sensor toolbox. Drone imaging can use standard RGB cameras, multispectral sensors, thermal sensors, hyperspectral cameras, and even LiDAR, depending on the detail needed. Remote sensing can flag water stress, heat stress, weed infestations, or chemical damage before the human eye catches them. Why bundles matter. A sensor needs its own power source, a trigger linked to the remote control, and a way to store and transfer data in flight. Pre-integrated bundles solve that electronic configuration so growers can focus on choosing the right setup rather than building from scratch. The liquid-to-granular swap. Newer spray drones let you pull out the liquid tank and drop in an interchangeable granular tank with a cyclone spreader — a standardized mechanical and electrical interface that makes fire-ant bait application especially efficient, since bait doesn’t need overlapping passes and packs low bulk density. Spectral signatures and “taxa.” Each plant species reflects light differently based on leaf structure, pigmentation, and canopy architecture, so a model tuned for one taxa may fail on another — the core reason ornamental automation lags behind monoculture row crops. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com Extension fact sheet (the one Jim mentions): “Planning for Financial Risks Associated with Using sUAS in Agriculture” — University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, FSA6153 (Robbins, Rainey, Maja, Shew, and Weems, 2020). Lays out the three ownership scenarios — buy everything, buy the aircraft/sensor but outsource image processing, or hire it all out — with a first-year cost table and a five-year projection, using a vegetation-index (NDVI) objective as the worked example: https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/FSA6153.pdf Companion fact sheet: “Drone Pilot Certification and Aircraft Registration” — University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, FSA6150 (covers Part 107 and registration): https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/FSA-6150.pdf Plant-counting / plant-inventory software services — search “plant inventory software” for companies that process uploaded aerial images into plant counts FAA Part 107 (commercial drone pilot certification) and FAA Part 137 (agricultural aircraft operations) About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guests: Dr. James “Jim” Robbins, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture (retired); Dr. Joe Maja, Center for Applied AI for Sustainable Agriculture, South Carolina State University Episode Release Date: June 21, 2026 Episode Length: 66:20 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

29:18

S02:E04 Jun 29, 2026

Drones Take Flight in the Nursery: RFID, Real-Time Inventory, and the Road Ahead (Part 2)

Episode Description A tag you never have to look at. That’s the promise behind the RFID work Dr. Jim Robbins and Dr. Joe Maja have been chasing for the better part of two decades — a way to walk past a block of containers, or fly over it, and know exactly what’s there without picking up a single pot. In Part 2 of this special two-parter, Ping picks the conversation back up where it left off, this time digging into the applied research: how passive UHF tags work, what a drone-mounted reader can do that a barcode scanner can’t, and why the real payoff isn’t counting plants — it’s tracing them from propagation all the way to the checkout line. Joe walks through the practical side a grower actually cares about: traditional tags versus RFID, where to start (small, with a single block or a high-value crop), how to pick a vendor who understands that moisture and container materials change everything, and the honest math on cost. Jim fills in the origin story and the “lower step” version of the system for nurseries that aren’t ready to tag every plant. Along the way the two of them land on the lessons that only show up after twenty years in the field — that simple beats sophisticated, that reliability matters more than precision, and that the projects that actually work are the ones where engineers, horticulturists, and growers are all in the room. Then they look down the road: integrated systems where drones, RFID, robots, and AI finally talk to each other, a realistic adoption forecast, and a warm closing on why collaboration — the kind that built this whole project — is the thing worth betting on. Recorded with Joe joining live from Japan. Listen Time: 29:18 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guests Dr. James “Jim” Robbins — Extension Specialist and Professor (retired), University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Decades of nursery-production research and a long-running partnership with Joe on automating inventory. Dr. Joe Maja — Director, Center for Applied AI for Sustainable Agriculture, South Carolina State University. Engineer specializing in drones, RFID, dashboards, and the data pipelines that connect them. Joined this recording from Japan. Main Topics Welcome back and a recap of Part 1 (00:00) Inside the RFID inventory project: the full-system vision from canning to checkout (00:57) The technical side: passive UHF tags, read range, and the data pipeline (06:07) RFID vs. traditional tags — why switch, how to start, and what it costs (07:30) Twenty-plus years of lessons: what works and what can be improved (12:04) How grower interest has shifted, and the role of labor (14:58) Where growers can learn more (16:31) What’s next: integrated systems and an adoption forecast (19:11) Final thoughts, advice for students, and goodbyes (23:46) Key Highlights RFID’s core advantage over a barcode is that it doesn’t need line of sight — you can read tags in bulk, wirelessly, hundreds or thousands in seconds. The vision isn’t just a headcount. A tag applied at canning can follow a plant onto the truck (touchless inventory), to the garden center, and through checkout — even into a point-of-sale system. Not every nursery needs a drone. Jim describes a “lower step” version: tag a block, link it to the production database, and read it with a handheld gun from a truck window. After 20+ years, the durable lessons are about people and conditions, not gadgets: simple wins, reliability beats precision, and ag is a brutal environment for technology. Joe’s realistic forecast: roughly 50–70% adoption across the industry over the next 15–20 years, with simple imaging arriving first and integrated systems taking longer. Key Quotes “The advantage is that it doesn’t require line of, line of sight. And if we could attach the plant… And then just fly over the top and simply count these things, we thought this was brilliant.” — Jim Robbins (02:11) “Instead of scanning one plant at a time, you can scan hundreds or even thousands of plants in a matter of seconds.” — Joe Maja (09:15) “It’s not just about inventory, it’s about connecting the entire life cycle.” — Joe Maja (12:12) “We’ve also seen that reliability is often more important than precision. A system that works consistently, even if it’s not perfect, is more valuable than one that’s highly precise but unreliable.” — Joe Maja (13:48) “The interest has clearly shifted from ‘What is this?’ to ‘How do I use this?’ And that’s usually a strong sign that the technology is moving toward mainstream adoption.” — Joe Maja (16:16) “You guys set a great example of how collaboration works and how collaboration matters.” — Ping Yu (27:39) Educational Highlights RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification): A wireless way to read identifying tags without line of sight, in bulk. The opposite of a barcode, which must be physically seen and scanned one at a time. Passive UHF RFID tags: The type used in this project. “Passive” means the tag has no internal power source — it draws energy from the reader — which keeps it cost-effective and practical for large-scale deployment. UHF (ultra-high frequency) supports the read ranges useful in a nursery. Read range factors: How far a tag can be read depends on reader configuration, tag orientation, and environmental conditions — and on a drone, that directly shapes flight planning: altitude, speed, and coverage pattern. Touchless inventory: Reading tags as product moves — onto a truck, off at a garden center, out the door at checkout — so an accurate count happens automatically, much like cashier-less retail stores. Traceability: Following a plant’s full life cycle from propagation to retail. RFID provides the data foundation for supply-chain transparency and data-driven decisions. Dashboards / data pipeline: Reading tags is useless unless the data becomes usable. Tag reads flow to a backend system that processes and visualizes them, turning raw data into something a grower can act on. Part 107: The FAA certification framework for commercial small-drone operation — one of the things training programs and workshops help growers understand. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com Dr. Joe Maja’s work: Search his name with “South Carolina State University” or on Google Scholar to reach his university profile and research publications. A Center for Applied AI for Sustainable Agriculture website highlighting projects and outreach is in development. University extension programs: Land-grant institutions such as UGA, Clemson, and South Carolina State publish free, grower-focused fact sheets, guides, and case studies on drone applications. Training & events: University and private workshops, structured courses, and industry conferences and trade shows are good ways to understand regulations (e.g., Part 107) and see the technology in action. A peer-reviewed publication on RFID read range from the project was referenced — see Dr. Maja’s Google Scholar page. About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guests: Dr. James Robbins (University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, retired); Dr. Joe Maja (Center for Applied AI for Sustainable Agriculture, South Carolina State University) Episode Release Date: June 28, 2026 Episode Length: 29:18 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

55:23

S02:E05 Jul 6, 2026

From Cherry to Cup: The Science Behind Your Morning Coffee

From Cherry to Cup: The Science Behind Your Morning Coffee Episode Description Most of us start the day with a cup of coffee and never think about the plant it came from. Dr. Leo Lombardini has thought about it for years. Head of the Horticulture Department at the University of Georgia and former director of the Borlaug Center for World Coffee at Texas A&M, Leo walks Ping through the whole journey: from a tiny white flower on a tropical shrub to the seed inside a coffee cherry to the roasted bean in your grinder. Along the way you will learn why only about three of the 133 species in the Coffea genus end up in your cup, what “shade-grown, mountain-grown” actually does to flavor, and how three different processing methods (natural, honey, and washed) change a coffee before it ever reaches a roaster. Leo also explains a fact that surprises most drinkers: caffeine content barely moves during roasting, so a dark roast is not a stronger jolt. By the end, Leo leaves every coffee drinker with a simple habit for the next trip to the store, and a reminder that behind every bag is a farmer who spent long days in the field. This one is for anyone who loves their morning ritual and wants to taste it a little differently tomorrow. Listen Time: 55:23 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guest Dr. Leo Lombardini has been Head of the Department of Horticulture at the University of Georgia since 2019. A native of Florence, Italy, Leo earned his PhD at Michigan State and spent years at Texas A&M, where he directed the Borlaug Center for World Coffee and studied pecan for roughly 15 years. His research spans coffee and pecan, and he co-led a USAID-funded project helping nine Central American countries fight coffee leaf rust. Main Topics Welcome to Blooms and Beyond (00:00) Meet Dr. Leo Lombardini: from Tuscany to horticulture (01:10) Pecan and the chestnut: a favorite species (05:24) How Leo got into coffee research (08:32) How studying coffee changed the way he drinks it (14:46) Where coffee comes from: species and geography (18:51) What coffee plants need to grow (23:58) Seeing a coffee plant in flower (27:51) From plant to cup: harvest and processing (29:10) The art of roasting (37:57) What every coffee drinker should remember (46:37) The future of UGA Horticulture (49:52) Where to learn more (53:00) Closing and credits (54:28) Key Highlights A childhood spent resurrecting an abandoned Tuscan vineyard and olive grove is where Leo’s love of plants began, long before video games gave kids anything else to do. Coffee leaf rust is the crop’s worst disease. A 2012–2013 outbreak in Central America was severe enough that economists linked the resulting job losses to a spike in migration to the United States, which is part of why USAID funded the response. Coffee grows commercially in only two U.S. states: Hawaii and a small amount of boutique production in California. Yet coffee supports more than two million American jobs. The coffee “bean” is actually a seed. Each coffee cherry holds two seeds facing each other, which is why a bean has one flat side and one curved side. Three processing methods (natural, honey, and washed) each leave a different chemical signature on the seed before roasting even begins. Caffeine is already in the green bean at about 1 to 1.5% of dry weight, and it survives roasting. Acidity, a prized quality trait, is what drops the longer beans stay in the roaster. Key Quotes “So most of the coffee we drink, certainly specialty coffee, comes from the Coffea arabica species, which is one of 133 species in the Coffea genus.” Dr. Leo Lombardini “According to statistics, there are over two million jobs in the United States that revolve around coffee.” Dr. Leo Lombardini “When you look at a coffee bean, one side is flat and one side is curved, because the two flat sides face each other.” Dr. Leo Lombardini “If the coffee is good, you literally don’t have to add any sugar or any creamer or milk or whatever. You just drink it straight, and that’s really how you can evaluate the quality of coffee.” Dr. Leo Lombardini “There’s so much work behind a cup of coffee, and so much sweat, and time spent in the field, just like for all horticulture crops. Never forget that behind anything we eat, there’s a farmer.” Dr. Leo Lombardini Educational Highlights The Coffea genus. There are 133 species of coffee, most of them native to Africa, and Madagascar alone holds 67 of them. Only about three are cultivated: Coffea arabica (roughly 65% of world consumption), Coffea canephora, known as Robusta (about 35%), and Coffea liberica (under 1%, mostly consumed locally). Arabica is prized because it is the mildest. Arabica vs. Robusta. Arabica came from the western highlands of Ethiopia, a cool, cloudy, high-altitude cloud forest, and it evolved as a shade plant under larger trees. That is why shade-grown, mountain-grown Arabica reaches the highest quality, with ideal temperatures around 70 to 80 degrees. Robusta comes from lowland equatorial Africa across a much larger range, so it tolerates heat and resists pests and diseases better thanks to a broader genetic pool. Many modern Arabica varieties carry a little Robusta ancestry from hybridization that added disease resistance. Coffee leaf rust. A fungal disease and the worst threat to the coffee crop. The 2012–2013 Central American outbreak combined climate, new fungal strains, and economic pressure into what Leo calls a “perfect storm.” The coffee cherry. The fruit resembles a cherry, but unlike a cherry it holds two seeds surrounded by a sugary, watery pulp. Because that pulp ferments and rots fast once the fruit is bruised at harvest, processing has to start immediately. Three ways to process. Natural: whole fruits dry in the sun on patios or raised beds for two to three weeks, and the pulp dries onto the seed, common where water is scarce, such as Yemen. Honey: a depulper removes the pulp, and the seeds dry with their sticky mucilage (a pectin, the same kind used for jams) still on. Washed: the pulp is removed and the seeds soak in water tanks for 24 to 48 hours, where natural yeasts ferment and break down the mucilage. After any method, seeds are dried to 10 to 12% moisture so they will not germinate or spoil. Green coffee. Beans are shipped unroasted in 60-kilogram bags. Green beans are hard, taste grassy, and smell nothing like coffee. Only roasting develops the familiar aroma and flavor. Roasting: time and temperature. Drum roasters work like a clothes dryer at about 400 degrees Fahrenheit, with each cycle running roughly 18 to 22 minutes. Roasters trade time against temperature to hit a target roast level. Caffeine (about 1 to 1.5% of the dry bean) is stable and does not change during roasting. Acidity, counterintuitively a marker of high quality in coffee, decreases the longer beans roast, so light-to-medium roasts let you taste a coffee’s best traits. Why caffeine is there at all. Caffeine is an alkaloid the plant produces as a natural deterrent against pests and diseases, packed most heavily into the seeds to protect the next generation. Reading the label. “100% Arabica” tells you something about quality. A bag that says only “100% coffee” means some Robusta is blended in. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com UGA Department of Horticulture: hort.caes.uga.edu (search “horticulture UGA” for faculty profiles and academic programs) Atlanta Botanical Garden: look for live coffee plants in the tropical greenhouse Specialty Coffee Association: industry conference and coffee education World Coffee Research: research partner on the Central American coffee leaf rust effort Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, Texas A&M University: home of the USAID-funded coffee project Leo co-led About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Leo Lombardini, Head, UGA Department of Horticulture Episode Release Date: July 5, 2026 Episode Length: 55:23 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

48:06

S02:E06 Jul 20, 2026

IPPS Southern Region: To Seek and to Share with Brie Arthur

IPPS Southern Region: To Seek and to Share Episode Description In 1951, nurseries still grew plants in tin cans, and information on rooting hormones was hard to come by. The society that formed to close that gap, the International Plant Propagators Society, is now the International Plant Production Society, and its Southern Region leads every IPPS region in the world for membership. Dr. Ping Yu sits down with Brie Arthur, “Brie the Plant Lady,” International Delegate and Communications Director for IPPS Southern Region, to explain how a 75-year-old organization keeps drawing in the next generation. Brie has been part of IPPS for more than a decade, and she traces nearly every mentor in her career back to it: Fred Davies, David Creech, Tom Saunders, Tom Yeager. She walks through the region’s scholarships, including the Coach Vince Dooley Student Scholarship and the Margie Jenkins First-Time Conference Attendee Scholarship, and tells the story of the 2014 Early Career Exchange that sent her to Denmark. Ping adds her own memory of meeting Tom Yeager at the 2019 student competition and feeling, in her words, like she had met a celebrity. The conversation keeps returning to one idea: plants bring people together, but the people are the reason anyone gathers. Ping and Brie make the case for showing up in person, for the talk on the bus and the conversation at dinner that no webinar reproduces. Whether you grow plants for a living, teach horticulture, or picked it up in retirement, there is a seat for you. The next meeting is in Houston, October 2026. Listen Time: 48:07 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guest Brie Arthur (“Brie the Plant Lady”), International Delegate and Communications Director, IPPS Southern Region. A Purdue-trained horticulturist who was introduced to IPPS as an undergraduate, Brie now focuses on consumer horticulture and food gardening, translating technical nursery research for master gardeners and home growers. Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture, and a member of the IPPS Southern Region board. Main Topics Welcome and host introduction (0:00) Meet Brie the Plant Lady, and finding your people at IPPS (0:59) What IPPS is, and the “seek and share” mission (6:16) How the Southern Region rose to lead in membership (11:48) Scholarships and the Early Career Exchange (20:55) Why the meeting happens in person (28:46) Bridging academia and industry (32:41) The next decade for the Southern Region (39:36) Where to find Southern Region IPPS (43:47) Key Highlights IPPS runs seven regions worldwide, three of them in North America: Eastern, Western, and Southern. The Southern Region now leads all regions globally in membership. At the last meeting, 60 percent of attendees were under 40, and more than half were women. Brie contrasts that with earlier years, when the women at meetings were often sent on separate shopping tours instead of nursery visits. The region gave a record 20 scholarships this year and offered five Margie Jenkins scholarships to mark the fiftieth anniversary. Membership is $150 a year, and full attendance at the four-day annual meeting runs under $600 before travel and hotel. Southern Region membership sits at 262. Brie’s 2026 goal is to reach about 500, one member bringing in one member. Meetings rotate through the region: Orlando in 2025, Houston in 2026, Charlottesville in 2027, with the next international tour planned for 2030. Key Quotes Brie Arthur: “The mission of IPPS is to seek and share plant knowledge globally, and it is a global network of plant production professionals.” Brie Arthur: “Plants are what unite us, but it’s the time we spend together that is what truly matters.” Brie Arthur: “I was the recipient of the exchange program in 2014, and I went to Denmark, and it completely changed my life.” Dr. Ping Yu: “This organization has lifted me up, and now it’s time for me to pay it forward.” Brie Arthur: “The future is green.” Educational Highlights From Propagators to Production. IPPS kept its acronym but changed its name from the International Plant Propagators Society to the International Plant Production Society. The reason is structural: a modern nursery might specialize only in young plants, or only in growing those plants on to finish. “Production” covers the whole cycle rather than one step of it. Why 1951 mattered. When IPPS started, auxins and other natural plant hormones were just being discovered, and there was no easy way to share rooting techniques without a society and its published proceedings. The original purpose was to let academics get propagation information to a young, growing nursery profession. Propagation, plainly. A nursery produces plants from seed, cutting, or graft. Improved, well-bred genetics are often patented, which is part of why young-plant nurseries exist: they can manage the royalties before the plant moves down the production line. Substrates and particle size. Brie points listeners to the soilless substrate research of Dr. Jeb Fields (formerly LSU, now University of Florida) and Dr. Brian Jackson. Particle size governs how long a mix holds water and fertilizer. Stratified substrates layer different particle sizes for better performance, but they need multiple potting machines, so commercial adoption is slow. Home container gardeners can use the same idea without the machinery. Hot pots and sun scald. Dr. Jeremy Pickens gave a talk this year on how dark containers heat the root zone as summers get hotter. White containers keep roots cooler, which is why Brie tells home growers to use ornamental white pots for container tomatoes to reduce sun scald. Southern native trees and shrubs. Margie Jenkins built one of Louisiana’s most important nurseries specializing in southern natives, a category Brie says still needs more development. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com IPPS Southern Region: ipps.org, then Regions tab, then Southern North America Facebook: IPPS Southern Region Instagram: @IPPS_Southern_Region YouTube: IPPS Videos Newsletter: sign up from the Southern Region homepage Scholarships (all deadlines June 1): Coach Vince Dooley Student Scholarship (two- or four-year students; covers travel, lodging, full registration, plus $250 spending money); Margie Jenkins First-Time Conference Attendee Scholarship; Charles Student Research Competition (renamed to honor both Charlie Parkerson and Dr. Charles Gilliam of Auburn); Early Career Exchange Program; and the Vivian Munday scholarship, honoring one of Southern horticulture’s early female professors Membership: $150 per year; full annual meeting under $600, not including travel and hotel Next meeting: Houston, Texas, October 18–22, 2026 (local site chair Paul Winski) Looking ahead: Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2027; international tour in 2030 About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Brie Arthur, International Delegate and Communications Director, IPPS Southern Region Episode Release Date: July 19, 2026 Episode Length: 48:07 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

42:17

S02:E07 Aug 2, 2026

The Beetle That Moved Into the Nursery: Managing Red-Headed Flea Beetles with Shimat Joseph

The Beetle That Moved Into the Nursery: Managing Red-Headed Flea Beetles Episode Description Growers spent years assuming the red-headed flea beetle flew in from the field edge. Dr. Shimat Joseph went looking for it out there and found almost nothing. When his lab sampled the landscapes around Georgia container nurseries, the beetle simply was not present, and nobody was reporting it as a landscape problem either. The pest was already home. The well-drained pine bark container that growers built for their plants turns out to be the exact combination of drainage and moisture retention the larvae need, which means the nursery is not being invaded so much as hosting a permanent resident. Dr. Ping Yu walks Dr. Joseph through the whole animal in this episode. Why the name has three separate parts to it, red for the tinge on the forehead, flea for the powerful hind leg that lets it jump, beetle for the chewing mouthparts. What the damage actually looks like as adults rasp the tissue between the veins until the leaf shot-holes, skeletonizes, and drops. Why a plant that would be perfectly healthy in a garden is worthless in a nursery, because ornamental stock sells on looks. And how the whole cycle, egg to adult, can turn over in about a month at 80 to 85 degrees. What makes the conversation unusual is how often the answer is “we don’t know yet.” Sex ratio, eggs per female, how long adults live, how many times they mate: Dr. Joseph declines to guess on all of it, and explains why guessing would be worse than admitting the gap. There is still plenty here for growers to act on, including which products his trials screened as effective, why an April drench or granule application can protect a block for months, and why protecting one block just pushes the beetles onto the next one over. Listen Time: 42:17 Follow Along with the Prose Transcript In This Episode Guest Dr. Shimat Joseph, Associate Professor, Department of Entomology, University of Georgia (Griffin campus). Dr. Joseph works on insect problems in turf and ornamental systems, in nurseries and landscapes. He joined UGA in 2017, and red-headed flea beetle is the main focus of his nursery work. His lab publishes applied research and a blog for the turf and ornamental industries. Main Topics Welcome, and why this beetle earns top billing (00:00) Meet Dr. Shimat Joseph, and how the beetle became his focus (01:57) From a bachelor’s in agriculture to entomology (03:19) Red, flea, and beetle: the name explained in three parts (04:04) Shot holes, skeletonization, and why nursery stock becomes unsellable (05:30) Into the container: mating, eggs, larvae, and pupae (06:35) How to tell a beetle from other insects you might see (07:25) Polyphagous: over 50 host plant species across many families (10:35) Panicled hydrangea, weigela, forsythia, holly, and itea (11:55) Where are they really coming from? The landscape theory tested (13:05) The container is the habitat, not the entry point (13:39) Inside the life cycle: instars, molting, and about three larval stages (16:20) A complete change, like a monarch butterfly (18:05) Roots or leaves: which stage actually causes economic damage (20:28) Males, females, and the questions nobody has answered (22:36) How many eggs per female? An honest “we don’t know” (24:48) Four generations a year, and why they overlap (26:20) Scouting: visual checks, no trap, and first adults in early May (27:24) Management: what works right now (30:18) The products in the toolbox, and one still in the pipeline (31:22) The April drench and planning around a marketing window (33:06) What comes next in the research (34:05) Advice for a young grower: isolate what you bring in (36:41) Where to follow the work (39:33) Closing and credits (41:18) Key Highlights The industry assumption was backwards. The long-held view was that beetles flew in from surrounding landscape, fed on weeds along the field edges, and worked their way in. Dr. Joseph’s sampling found none in the landscapes at all, and no reports of the beetle as a landscape pest. His conclusion is that the major driver is the nursery itself. The container is a purpose-built habitat. Larvae need moisture but not standing water. Pine bark in a nursery container drains fast and still retains moisture, which is precisely the balance the beetle needs. Growers optimized their substrate for plant roots and accidentally optimized it for this pest too. Only one life stage costs money. Larvae feed on roots in the container, but Dr. Joseph’s team has found no evidence of economic root damage. Adults are the destructive stage, because ornamental crops are sold on appearance and shot-holed foliage does not sell. Timing cannot be modeled the usual way. Generations three and four overlap so heavily that they cannot be told apart, and different host plants speed up or slow down development. That rules out the growing degree day approach that works for many other pests. Protecting one block moves the problem. Spray a block of hydrangea and that block is protected, but the beetles get pushed onto neighboring plants they would not normally choose. Understanding that movement is an active research question in the lab right now. Key Quotes “And I think the containers in the nurseries are providing exactly that, and they just love it and they just stay there and continue their population.” Dr. Shimat Joseph, 15:22 “We can guess it, but I think the guessing may not be right here. So that’s why I’m not giving a number to it.” Dr. Shimat Joseph, 25:09 “But eventually what happens is that they’re, they’re– we are pushing them to other plants and, uh, where they normally won’t go.” Dr. Shimat Joseph, 34:43 “It is good enough that different growers can strategize that according to their marketing window.” Dr. Shimat Joseph, 33:41 “There’s a lot of going on behind the scene where the plant is growing, and they have all those interactions with the pest, and they have to combat the whole challenges to be able to come to your door.” Dr. Ping Yu, 38:46 Educational Highlights The Beetle Itself Systena frontalis is the scientific name for the red-headed flea beetle. It is not spoken in the episode, and is included here so listeners searching for the research have the right term. Chrysomelidae is the beetle family Dr. Joseph names in the episode, the leaf beetles. It is a large and varied group, and Japanese beetle belongs to it as well. Red-headed flea beetle is a leaf feeder within that family, and while it can feed on flowers, no flower damage has been observed in Dr. Joseph’s work. Three parts to one name. Red for the reddish tinge on the forehead. Flea for the enlarged hind leg that powers the jump. Beetle for the hardened forewings and the biting, chewing mouthparts. Chewing versus piercing mouthparts. Beetles crush and ingest leaf tissue with mandibles. Contrast that with a mosquito, whose mouthparts form a straw containing six needles, called stylets, used to inject saliva and digest tissue before drawing it up. That difference in mouthparts is what separates the damage signatures growers see in the field. Damage Vocabulary Shot hole describes the small perforations left after adults feed repeatedly on the same leaf area. Tissue is rasped away, the fed area sinks, disintegrates, and opens. Skeletonization is the end state. Adults feed on the tissue between the veins, and with enough feeding only the vein network remains before the leaf drops. Life Cycle Vocabulary Instar means a stage between molts. Insects grow inside a rigid exoskeleton and cannot expand gradually the way we do, so they shed and rebuild. Dr. Joseph’s team believes red-headed flea beetle passes through about three larval instars, though the number is not confirmed. Molting is that shedding process. Dr. Joseph corrects himself on air from “eclosion” to “molting,” a useful distinction: eclosion refers to emergence, typically from the egg or the pupa. Holometabolous describes complete metamorphosis, where the larva looks nothing like the adult and reorganizes entirely during a pupal resting stage. Monarch butterfly is the familiar example Dr. Joseph reaches for. Phenology is the study of the timing of biological events across a season, which is what Dr. Joseph’s graduate student is mapping for this pest. The numbers stated in the episode: eggs laid from the surface down to about 10 centimeters deep, roughly three weeks as larvae, a couple of weeks as pupae, about six days for a new adult to feed and mate, and about one month for the full egg-to-adult cycle at 80 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Cooler weather stretches all of it out. Endosymbionts are microorganisms living inside an insect, such as specific gut bacteria, that can skew the sex ratio of a population. Dr. Joseph raises them as a possible explanation for sex ratio questions his lab has not yet studied in this beetle. Management Vocabulary Foliar spray treats the leaf surface and targets adults. Drench applies product to the growing medium, and granules release it into the container over time. Drench and granule applications made early, around April, can leave residues that stop adults feeding for multiple months. Multi-pronged is Dr. Joseph’s own framing. A single foliar spray on a single crop will not solve this, because adults simply move to another block and complete a generation there. Products Named in the Episode Dr. Joseph names four chemistries. What follows is current label and registration context, verified after recording, so growers can act on it correctly. This is background, not a recommendation. The label is the law, and product registration, rates, sites, and restrictions must be confirmed for your state before any application. | Named on air | Active ingredient | Notes verified after recording | |—|—|—| | Neonicotinoid spray, drench, or granule | Class of chemistry, IRAC Group 4A | Dr. Joseph describes this as the option that “really works” as an early-season drench or granule. Neonicotinoid use in ornamentals carries pollinator-related label restrictions that vary by product. | | Sarisa | Cyclaniliprole, IRAC Group 28 | OHP product for greenhouse and nursery ornamental stock. Flea beetles appear on the labeled pest list, and drench application is included on the label. | | XXpire WG | Sulfoxaflor plus spinetoram, IRAC Groups 4C and 5 | Corteva product labeled for herbaceous and woody ornamentals in greenhouses and nurseries. The labeled pest list names elm leaf, viburnum leaf, and willow leaf beetles, but does not specifically list flea beetles. Dr. Joseph’s mention reflects what his screening trials found, which is not the same thing as a label claim. | | Plinazolin | Isocycloseram | Described on air as “on the pipeline.” That has since changed. EPA announced final registration of isocycloseram on November 20, 2025, covering agricultural crops, turf and ornamentals, and various commercial and residential sites. | Resistance management. The IRAC group numbers above matter for rotation. Alternating products that share a group does not slow resistance, and this pest gets hit repeatedly across four overlapping generations in a season. Resources & Links Blooms and Beyond: bandbpod.com Dr. Shimat Joseph, UGA Department of Entomology faculty page: caes.uga.edu/departments/entomology/people/faculty/shimat-joseph.html (the publication list Dr. Joseph points listeners to) Joseph Lab, Turfgrass and Ornamental Entomology: site.caes.uga.edu/josephlab (this is the blog Dr. Joseph mentions; the signup form takes first name, last name, and email, exactly the “small three boxes” he describes on air) Georgia Department of Agriculture, search registered pesticides: agr.georgia.gov/search-registered-pesticides (confirm state registration before applying any product named above) EPA announcement, final registration of isocycloseram: epa.gov About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Shimat Joseph, Associate Professor, Department of Entomology, University of Georgia Episode Release Date: August 2, 2026 Episode Length: 42:17 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

52:52

S02:E08 Aug 16, 2026

When the Plants Start Talking to You: Breeding New Ornamentals with Dr. Ryan Contreras

When the Plants Start Talking to You: Breeding New Ornamentals Gamma rays, seedless shrubs, and the unglamorous skill that still beats every fancy technique. Episode Description There is a cobalt source on the Oregon State campus, and Dr. Ryan Contreras uses it on plants. He describes the method with a shrug and a movie line: “The Forrest Gump, life is like a box of chocolates. We never know what we’re going to get. We’re just taking a shotgun and pointing it and blasting and then growing out populations of those looking for useful variation.” That is mutagenesis, one tool among many in a program that keeps germplasm or small projects on close to 50 genera. Ping asked Ryan for the whole toolkit, and he gives it: sexual recombination as the workhorse, crossing elite by elite to move fire blight resistance into a plant the industry already likes, ploidy manipulation to make seedless forms the way a triploid banana is seedless, chemical and radiation mutagenesis, targeted gene editing, and the tissue culture step that woody plants keep refusing to cooperate with. He explains why ornamental breeders rarely backcross, since woody plants suffer from inbreeding depression and many will not self-pollinate at all. Then he shows where the ideas actually come from: a Kolkwitzia he taught for years because it was climbing over a seven-foot privacy fence onto the sidewalk, a Philadelphus madrensis whose fragrance reached him from a hundred feet away at the Santa Cruz Arboretum, and growers in Oregon asking him to fix cherry laurel. Underneath the techniques runs an argument that will not go out of style, because it never went in. The technique Ryan relies on most is walking the plots and looking at plants, and he has thirteen years of lilac sequencing without a validated marker to show for the alternative. He is unusually candid about the misses too: a triploid Cotoneaster with pink flowers, good fall color, and total fire blight resistance that nobody wanted because it had no berries, and a flat admission that some of what he releases over a career will be duds. Growers, students, and anyone who has wondered how a new shrub gets to a garden center will find something to take home. Listen Time: 52:52 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guests Dr. Ryan Contreras, Professor, Department of Horticulture, Oregon State University. Ornamental and woody plant breeder, at OSU since December 2009. He earned his PhD with Dr. John Ruter at UGA (Tifton), his master’s with Dr. Tom Ranney at NC State, and his first taste of plant breeding as an undergraduate working with Denny Werner on Buddleja. Dr. Ping Yu, host, UGA Department of Horticulture. Main Topics Welcome and meet Dr. Ryan Contreras (0:00) Mentors, and the technicians who get left off the thank-you list (4:52) Chicken houses, ag ed, and the class that changed everything (7:06) The summer that ended the nursery dream (9:29) What plant breeding actually is (12:38) Ploidy, mutagenesis, and the cobalt source (15:50) Why ornamental breeders rarely backcross (18:27) Where breeding ideas come from (21:53) Grower problems: cherry laurel and maples (23:54) Trends, pain points, and brands (25:12) Borlaug’s advice: walk the plots (29:10) The watering analogy, and having an eye (32:28) Lilacs, where markers have not caught up (34:10) Reblooming, remontancy, and validation (35:43) When a grower changes your breeding goal (38:48) Time, money, and what gets bred (42:37) The Cotoneaster nobody wanted (45:21) Training the next generation of breeders (48:25) Where to follow the Contreras lab (50:16) Key Highlights The toolkit, plainly explained. Ryan starts from the idea that breeding is not a complicated science: create variation, then choose. Everything else is method. He walks through recombination, elite by elite crossing, ploidy manipulation for seedless forms, EMS and gamma mutagenesis, transgenics, and targeted editing, and he is honest about where woody plants stall. Corn, cotton, soy, and wheat have chromosome-level genome assemblies and known gene targets. Nursery crops mostly do not, and regeneration from undifferentiated callus is the bottleneck. Ideas arrive by accident as often as by plan. The Philadelphus breeding program at OSU exists because a fragrance carried a hundred feet across the Santa Cruz Arboretum and Ryan went to find its source. The Kolkwitzia project exists because the only teaching specimen he could reach was hanging over a fence, bulletproof and far too big. A grower said no, and the program changed. Ryan brought polyploid arborvitae that would not brown in winter to A&R Spada Farms and heard “I don’t care about that.” Customers call about winter browning, the nursery tells them to wait two months, the plants green up, and the calls stop. What the grower wanted instead was spruce spider mite resistance, which costs real money every season. Who the plants are for. His triploid Cotoneaster survived 4 degrees Fahrenheit unprotected in a container, resists fire blight, roots well, and has pink flowers and good fall color. It has no berries, so the market passed. He kept a few plants and took the lesson. Advice for students. Learn how the plants are grown before anything else. In his program nobody leaves without doing flow cytometry, looking at pollen under a microscope, sticking cuttings, and processing seed. His closing plug is for IPPS, where students meet growers and see operations. Key Quotes “You go to the field, and you go to the field some more, and when the wheat plants start to talk to you, you’ve made it.” Norman Borlaug, quoted by Ryan Contreras (29:36) “I would say, I think of it like at a lot of nurseries, the lowest paid person is the most important person, it’s the watering.” Ryan Contreras (32:55) “I’m not breeding plants for what I think I want. I’m breeding plants for what people who are in the industry, what they need and what they want.” Ryan Contreras (46:40) “There’s no shortage of nearly unattainable goals. We want a plant to get three feet in one year and then not grow anymore, require no fertilizer and flower 52 weeks a year.” Ryan Contreras (41:48) “So everything is gonna come back around and it takes me 17 years to release a cultivar.” Ryan Contreras (28:55) Educational Highlights Creating variation, then choosing. Ryan’s working definition of plant breeding: observe variation and select something better for the trait you care about. Sexual recombination, through a deliberate cross or collected seed, remains the most common and easiest way to get that variation. Elite by elite. Crossing two good parents does not mean two perfect parents. In Cotoneaster, Ryan takes a plant that grows well in production and has the shape the industry wants but lacks fire blight resistance, and crosses it with a resistant plant to bring the two together. Ploidy manipulation. Doubling or changing the number of chromosome sets. In Ryan’s program the most common reason is seedlessness: bananas are triploid, and triploidy renders them seedless. The same trick applied to nursery crops removes unwanted fruit and volunteer seedlings. Mutagenesis, targeted and not. Non-targeted mutagenesis uses chemicals such as ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) or physical mutagens such as x-rays and gamma rays. OSU’s radiation center has fast neutrons and a cobalt source that gives off gamma radiation. Targeted editing is the newer path and depends on knowing which gene to aim at. The regeneration bottleneck. Gene editing and transgenics usually require regenerating a whole plant from undifferentiated callus tissue. Most woody ornamentals will not do it. New work on introducing CRISPR through non-tissue-culture-based methods would remove that step, which Ryan calls another huge leap forward. Backcrossing and inbreeding depression. A backcross means crossing a hybrid offspring back to one of its parents, as Ping defines it in the episode. Woody ornamentals are highly heterozygous and tend to suffer from inbreeding depression, and many will not self-pollinate. Hibiscus syriacus cultivars mostly self at very low rates, and the few seeds you get are weaker. Ryan’s workaround is what he calls a pseudo-backcross: existing Hibiscus syriacus by Hibiscus paramutabilis hybrids crossed back to H. syriacus for cold hardiness, improving on Tosca, Lohengrin, and Resi. Remontancy and reblooming. Repeat flowering reset customer expectations for whole genera: Encore azaleas, Endless Summer hydrangeas, Knock Out roses. Environment can fake it. ‘Palibin’ lilac has no reblooming genes, but shear it in early spring and it will flower in July, which Ryan saw in full bloom at Van Essen Nursery in late July. Telling a gene from a management effect is why field observations get validated with markers. Markers and QTLs, in perspective. Marker-assisted breeding has clear wins: nematode resistance in peanut, and the hazelnut program next door to Ryan that broke eastern filbert blight. His lilac work has been running since 2013 without a validated, effective marker, which is why he keeps asking whether a technique is getting him closer to a cultivar. Pest and disease terms from the episode. Shot hole disease and seediness in cherry laurel (Laurocerasus), western cherry fruit fly and the shipping restrictions it creates for Oregon growers, fire blight in Cotoneaster, spruce spider mite in arborvitae, and rhodoxanthin, the pigment behind that brown or purple cast on ‘Smaragd’ arborvitae in winter. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com The Contreras lab: horticulture.oregonstate.edu, under People IPPS, the International Plant Propagators’ Society, which Ryan recommends to students for meeting growers and seeing operations. Its motto, “to seek and share,” comes up in his sign-off ASHS and ISHS, both mentioned alongside IPPS as the societies students usually join first Oregon State University Department of Horticulture, Ryan’s program since December 2009 Related listening: S02E06 with Brie Arthur, on IPPS Southern Region, and S02E09 with Dr. John Ruter, Ryan’s PhD advisor at Tifton About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Ryan Contreras, Professor, Department of Horticulture, Oregon State University Episode Release Date: August 16, 2026 Episode Length: 52:52 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

52:28

S02:E09 Aug 30, 2026

Seven Out of 1,200: The Long Road to a Better Hibiscus with Dr. John Ruter

Seven Out of 1,200: The Long Road to a Better Hibiscus Episode Description John Ruter put 1,200 hibiscus seedlings in the ground and kept seven. The other 1,193 got bush hogged. He is the Armitage Professor of Horticulture at the University of Georgia and the director of the UGA Trial Gardens, and this week he walks Ping through everything that happens between a cross and a plant you can actually buy. It takes ten to fifteen years, and in his case it started with a phone call from a mountain research station. The superintendent at Blairsville told him to come up and look at his hibiscus. When John got there the plants were covered in hibiscus sawfly, which runs four generations a year in Georgia. His answer came from a native species with hairy leaves. Under the microscope, Hibiscus grandiflorus looked like old shag carpet, and it had zero feeding damage. Moving that hairiness into his red-leaved selections cost him an F2 and a backcross and several years, and it produced the first hardy hibiscus ever released with sawfly resistance. Five of those plants became the Head Over Heels series. There is a lot here beyond hibiscus. John explains why an Asian species and an American species usually will not make a fertile hybrid, using a dance-floor image that lands in one sentence. He explains why hardy hibiscus cannot be propagated offshore like almost everything else in the trade, why every cultivar he releases starts with the letters RUT, and what he does with graduate students that put three of them in first, second and third place at the same symposium. Ping brings her own hibiscus story too, from Chengdu, where Hibiscus mutabilis is the city flower. Listen Time: 52:28 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guest Dr. John Ruter, Armitage Professor of Horticulture, University of Georgia, and Director of the UGA Trial Gardens. He teaches three courses and runs an ornamental plant breeding program covering both herbaceous and woody plants. Past and current work includes hibiscus, Ilex, camellias, conifers, Salvia, Pycnanthemum and Lagerstroemia. His first release, the holly Emerald Colonnade, is now used as a boxwood replacement on estates. Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture Main Topics Welcome (00:00) Meet John Ruter, and the spark at twelve (00:42). A seventh-grade shop rotation in the San Fernando Valley, a Christmas tree farm, FFA competitions attended alone, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Seven acres, no water: becoming a breeder (07:06). Arriving at UGA Tifton, digging a well, building collections in what he calls the forgotten zone of horticulture How the hibiscus program started (12:24). Fleming Brothers germplasm, late emergence, lodging, the flag exercise, 1,200 seedlings, and the sawfly call from Blairsville Mutabilis, Taiwan, and the chromosome problem (18:47). Flowers on a stick, three-species crosses, and why diploid by tetraploid usually ends in a sterile plant From cross to catalog: ten to fifteen years (27:09). The 2009 to 2017 timeline, branded programs, and the cotton quarantine that keeps hardy hibiscus propagation at home Naming a cultivar: the RUT system (36:04). Nonsensical cultivar names, trademark names, and who actually gets to pick What is next for the program (39:54). All six species crossed both directions, an F2 population, HPLC pigment work, and an annotated Hibiscus moscheutos genome Advice for the next generation (45:33). Turning students loose, letting them hire their own labor, and the road trips Closing (51:44) Key Highlights The flag exercise (14:11). Garden club visitors got flags and were told to mark their favorites in the research plots. It did not matter how ugly the plant was. If it had red foliage, it got flagged, and that told John where to aim. Seven out of 1,200 (15:00). The first big population went in the ground around 2012 and was rated for aerial Phytophthora, Cercospora, Alternaria, flower size, color and foliage. Seven were kept. Shag carpet under the microscope (16:30). Hibiscus grandiflorus carries so many trichomes that the sawfly larvae leave it alone completely. That plant became the resistance source. The Head Over Heels series (18:08). Five selections, and the first hardy hibiscus on the market with sawfly resistance. Growers along the eastern shore had been giving up on the crop, even on native plants. Flowers on a stick (19:40). Hibiscus mutabilis drops all its foliage when it goes reproductive, leaving blooms on the end of a bare six to eight foot stem. Crossing in Hibiscus taiwanensis fixed the foliage and blew the height up to twelve feet, so a third species from the islands south of Japan, Hibiscus makinoi, brought it back down to four to six feet. Nobody has a dance partner (27:00). The clearest explanation of triploid sterility you will hear this year, in one sentence. Related to cotton, so it stays home (30:56). Most ornamental cutting production happens in Costa Rica, Central America, South America or Africa. Hardy hibiscus cannot go, because of cotton disease quarantine, so the companies had to find a domestic propagator. RutHib1 through RutHib5 (38:00). First three letters of the breeder’s last name, first three letters of the genus, then a number. The hollies are up to RutIle10. Yaupon holly makes caffeine (43:54). Ilex vomitoria is the only North American native that produces it, and in a substantial amount. John has a collaboration looking at it as a native tea plant. The patent clock (50:46). Post a photo of an unreleased plant, or let it land in somebody’s catalog, and you have one year to file. Key Quotes “And we ended up picking seven out of 1,200 to keep.” Dr. John Ruter (15:00) “it looked like old shag carpet growing on the leaves, and we noticed that they had zero damage” Dr. John Ruter, on the trichomes of Hibiscus grandiflorus (16:30) “The hybrid ends up with three sets of chromosomes and somebody doesn’t have a dance partner.” Dr. John Ruter, on triploid sterility (27:00) “So it’s always a number game.” Dr. Ping Yu (18:42) “I don’t baby them, I don’t hold their hand, I don’t call them every day and say this is what you’re doing today.” Dr. John Ruter, on advising graduate students (46:31) Educational Highlights Hibiscus sawfly. A Hymenoptera insect, so it sits in the bee family. The larvae are what chew the foliage. The adults look like a little black fly with a red orange thorax. Georgia gets four generations a year, which is why it turns into a real production problem rather than a nuisance. Trichomes. Plant hairs. Hibiscus grandiflorus is loaded with them, and that physical barrier is what gives it complete sawfly resistance. Breeding the trait in has a visible cost: the trichomes shift the red foliage toward a matte red-gray rather than a glossy red. Lodging. John gives the definition himself. It is an agronomic term for falling over, and it was one of the original flaws he set out to fix in the hardy hibiscus of the late 2000s, alongside late spring emergence. Heterosis. Also called hybrid vigor. His mutabilis by taiwanensis F1 hybrids hit ten to twelve feet in a single season, which is the effect working exactly as advertised and also more plant than any nurseryman wanted. Ploidy, and why crosses fail. The hardy hibiscus native to the eastern United States are diploids, two sets of chromosomes. The Asian species, including Hibiscus mutabilis, taiwanensis and Hibiscus syriacus, the Rose of Sharon, are generally tetraploids with four sets, and their base chromosome number is different too. Cross a diploid with a tetraploid and the offspring gets three sets. One set has nothing to pair with at meiosis, and the plant is sterile. John compares such a hybrid to a mule. Cultivar name versus marketing name. The cultivar name is the permanent botanical identifier and it is often deliberately nonsensical, which is why UGA settled on the RUT prefix for everything out of John’s program. The trademark or marketing name is what appears on the pot, and in the last ten to fifteen years the companies have wanted to choose that themselves, along with the series name. The one-year patent clock. In the United States, a public disclosure that reads as an offer for sale starts a twelve-month window to file a plant patent. That is why an unreleased selection photographed on a garden tour, or printed in a catalog by accident, becomes an urgent filing rather than a minor problem. Mountain mint. John’s program holds 16 or 17 of the 19 native Pycnanthemum species and has just finished a four-year garden trial. Only two named cultivars exist. It is a strong pollinator plant, and the species are distinct enough that you can often tell them apart by the scent of the foliage. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com UGA Trial Gardens, Athens, Georgia. Dr. Ruter is the director, and his invitation in this episode is to come visit in person University of Georgia faculty profile for Dr. John Ruter The Head Over Heels hardy hibiscus series, the five-plant release discussed at 18:08 Organizations that come up in the conversation: the Holly Society of America, the U.S. National Arboretum, the University of Georgia Research Foundation (UGARF), the International Plant Propagators’ Society (IPPS), the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS), and the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) Related listening: S02E08 with Dr. Ryan Contreras, who did his PhD with Dr. Ruter About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. John Ruter, Armitage Professor of Horticulture, University of Georgia; Director of the UGA Trial Gardens Episode Release Date: August 30th, 2026 Episode Length: 52:28 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

52:55

S02:E10 Sep 13, 2026

Apricot, Honey, and Sunshine: Breeding a Hardier Tea Olive with Lisa Alexander

Apricot, Honey, and Sunshine: Breeding a Hardier Tea Olive Episode Description Donna Fare, a former ARS researcher, had Lisa Alexander smell a branch of osmanthus. The words Lisa reaches for to describe that scent became the title of this episode: apricot, honey, and sunshine. Lisa is a research geneticist at the US National Arboretum, part of the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and she breeds hydrangeas, tea olives and other woody ornamentals. For Ping, the smell of Osmanthus fragrans means home. China has been cultivating the species for over 2,000 years. So why hasn’t tea olive gone further in American markets? Lisa and Ping keep landing on the same reasons. Most Osmanthus fragrans germplasm is in another country, and imported plants sometimes turn out to be all males. Every cross gives exactly one seed, because only one ovule in the four-chambered ovary is ever fertilized, and that seed takes six months to germinate when it germinates at all. Growers mostly propagate from cuttings, and Lisa’s own team is pleased with 50% rooting. Her crosses from 2018 are only now in their third year of field evaluation. From cross to a market-ready tree, she says, is seven to ten years. Lisa’s program works on those problems from several directions: pre-breeding with microscopy and flow cytometry, open-pollinated seed sorted to its parents with molecular markers, and a firm rule that nothing gets released unless growers can propagate it. Then she describes the plant that could turn the tide, an orange osmanthus that grows through Zone 6, and her dream of a catalog photo showing a front door at Christmas with a blooming Osmanthus fragrans in a pot on each side. The last section stays at the National Arboretum, with how researchers find plants through the National Plant Germplasm System and why USDA wants its collections shared. Listen Time: 52:55 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guest Dr. Lisa Alexander, Research Geneticist, US National Arboretum, USDA Agricultural Research Service (Floral and Nursery Plants Research Unit). She runs a breeding and genetics program for ornamental landscape plants. Hydrangea is her most active program, oakleaf hydrangea is one of her favorite plants, and tea olive is her other main interest. She also grows fringe tree, an osmanthus relative, and has evaluations and breeding under way for incense cedar and manzanita. Her tea olive trials are in McMinnville, Tennessee. She grew up in the Ridge and Valley of East Tennessee, earned an undergraduate degree in biology, and found plant breeding on a research program with a chestnut breeder. Her background is mainly in forestry. Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture Main Topics Welcome (0:00) Meet Lisa Alexander (0:59). From the hills and valleys of East Tennessee to the National Arboretum, by way of a biology degree and the American chestnut A tree that supported a way of life (4:28) What brought Lisa to tea olive (6:21). A plant for traditional breeding that does not bloom in summer, and one branch that won her over Osmanthus in the United States (8:21) How the cultivars differ (10:54) Breeding goals for a hardier tea olive (14:23). Crossing Osmanthus fragrans with cold-hardy species, plus compact plants for pots and small gardens Why osmanthus is hard to breed (17:11) The germination puzzle (20:34). Cuttings, grafting, and seeds that will not germinate on our timetable Inside Lisa’s germplasm collection (25:37). About 45 to 50 cultivars, pre-breeding work, parentage markers, and balancing papers with plants Seven to ten years from cross to market (30:17). What the wait is made of, and why the Arboretum does its own testing A traditional breeder with targeted tools (32:41) Working around one cross, one seed (36:13) One amazing plant could turn the tide (38:43). Getting tea olive to growers, and the plant that could change its market Hydrangea and the other breeding programs (42:18) Genome-enabled tools for woody crops (43:59) The Arboretum as a node of distribution (46:30). Who holds the plants, and how a researcher gets access Finding plants in the National Plant Germplasm System (48:11) Where to find Lisa’s work (50:10) Closing (51:58) Key Highlights A whole economy in one tree (5:04). Before chestnut blight reached the eastern US in the early 1900s, people in the mountains could live off the American chestnut. It gave them lumber that was strong and rot-resistant, a mast crop that fed their pigs, and nuts they ate or made into flour. Why a breeder picks tea olive (6:43). A lot of the plants Lisa works with run on short, intensive cycles or all bloom in April and May. She wanted a plant she could breed the traditional way, one that did not bloom in summer and had a small enough US footprint that she could enter on the ground floor. Fortune’s hybrid (9:38). Plantsman Robert Fortune brought in a naturally occurring hybrid of Osmanthus fragrans and Osmanthus heterophyllus, now called Osmanthus × fortunei. Because it sits between its parents in many traits, Lisa is confident that hybrid breeding can move traits between the species (15:17). Ten plants, all male (19:16). Osmanthus fragrans often carries male and female flowers on different plants. Bring in 10 plants and you may find they are all males. One cross, one seed (19:33). Pollinate a hydrangea and one fruit can hold a hundred seeds. Osmanthus has a four-chambered ovary, but only one ovule is fertilized, the same system as an olive. The best germination came from doing nothing (22:51). Lisa’s team has tried imbibing the seeds, cold and warm treatments, and hydrochloric acid. The best germination she has seen came from growers who let the fruit fall from trees outdoors, left it over winter, and dug up seedlings in spring. Her conclusion is that germination protocols will have to mimic the seed’s own physiology. Parents sorted by DNA (27:57). Instead of making every cross by hand, Lisa propagates the plants she wants as parents, collects their open-pollinated seed, and runs one multiplexed marker set to group the seedlings by parent. For her that is easier and faster, and it keeps her time on seeds that actually germinate. The straight line that isn’t (29:29). Lisa tells students that cross, evaluate and release looks like a straight line, “but you don’t get scholarly output that way.” Her published work, such as floral trait evaluations of her osmanthus core collection and molecular markers shared with the community, runs alongside the breeding. The podcast is the strategy (39:28). Asked how to make tea olive more popular, Lisa’s first answer is “Well, I think we’re doing it.” Her second is to get growers the resources to grow and propagate it, because the real surge comes when a big box store or a product catalog picks a plant up. Propagation is a hard cutoff (40:38). A good hybrid that does not root easily from cuttings does not move forward in Lisa’s program, and any release will come with a how-to-grow sheet for growers. A front door at Christmas (41:43). Lisa’s vision is a catalog photo of a home decorated for Christmas with an Osmanthus fragrans in full bloom in a pot on each side of the front door. Just before, at 41:10, she names Endless Summer hydrangea as the kind of single plant that turns the tide, and Ping agrees osmanthus needs one of its own. A train moving forward (45:46). The plant explorers who brought osmanthus here did their part, Lisa says, and she hopes the people who get on after her benefit from the genome-enabled work being laid down now. Key Quotes “Apricot, honey, and sunshine. It’s like nothing else.” Dr. Lisa Alexander, on the scent of osmanthus (7:34) “it didn’t just wipe out a tree, it wiped out an entire way of life.” Dr. Lisa Alexander, on chestnut blight in the eastern US (5:39) “And with anything, you know, it only takes one amazing plant to turn the tide.” Dr. Lisa Alexander (41:04) “It says the people who plant the tree, and then the next generation will come in and enjoy the shade.” Dr. Ping Yu (46:20) “We want to be a node of distribution and not, like, a silo of collection.” Dr. Lisa Alexander, on sharing USDA plant material (50:01) Educational Highlights Tea olive and its relatives. Osmanthus fragrans is native to China, where it grows as an understory tree in temperate forests. Lisa crosses it with more cold-hardy species, mainly Osmanthus armatus, Osmanthus heterophyllus and cultivars of Osmanthus × fortunei, aiming to recover three traits of fragrans: the upright tree form, the flower fragrance, and the smooth leaf. Many osmanthus cultivars have a holly-shaped leaf, which is less friendly in a garden. Fringe tree is an osmanthus relative. The four osmanthus groups. On air, Ping describes Sijigui as the group that can bloom through the year when conditions favor it, and says the other three groups bloom only in fall. Lisa finds the four categories confusing even as an osmanthus breeder, and she points to the traits underneath them: flower color, from creamy white through light yellow to bright orange; flower form, from flowers appressed to the stem to longer, more pendulant ones; and bloom time. For the group names, Ping’s UGA Extension Circular 1363, Propagating Sweet Tea Olive (Osmanthus fragrans), written with Yulong Chen, lists Yingui (Albus) with white to pale yellow flowers in autumn, Jingui (Luteus) with yellow flowers in autumn, Dangui (Aurantiacus) with orange flowers in autumn, and Sijigui (Asiaticus) with pale yellow to yellow flowers several times from fall to spring. Apical dominance. An understory osmanthus is content as a multi-stem shrub. In the presence of light, the leading shoot takes over and the plant shoots up toward it. Some are more shrubby than others, but Lisa says every one of them will train up to tree form or stay a shrub, depending on how you want it shaped. Heterozygous, outcrossing crops. Osmanthus does not inbreed, so each plant carries a lot of genetic diversity. Cross two medium-sized parents and the seedlings range from a tiny dwarf to a giant tree. The same biology makes it hard to build the F2 populations a geneticist normally uses to tie a trait to a gene (37:38). Pre-breeding. The work before the crosses that count. Lisa uses flow cytometry to make sure parents have the same genome size, and pollen tube work to learn whether a plant is self-fertile, whether flowers need to be emasculated and bagged, and whether one species’ pollen will take on another. Parentage reconstruction. Collect open-pollinated seed, extract DNA, and let markers identify the parents. Lisa uses microsatellite markers for this. They are not the newest technology, but they are reliable and affordable enough to run in her own lab every season on each batch of seedlings. Cold stratification. Temperate species such as Osmanthus heterophyllus need a cold period before their seed will germinate, and Osmanthus fragrans does not. Seed germination work has to be species-specific, which leaves an open question for every hybrid seed: does it need stratification or not? Semi-hardwood cuttings and grafting. Semi-hardwood cuttings are the most popular way to propagate osmanthus cultivars, with problems in both take and survival of rooted cuttings. A few specialty operations graft, and grafting needs seedling rootstocks. What a traditional breeder means. Lisa calls herself a traditional plant breeder because she thinks in population-level methods such as recurrent selection and backcross breeding. Most of her tea olive work is “pollen to pistil, get the seed, grow out the seed and look at it.” She is adding controlled-environment testing for cold hardiness, so that screening is not only a matter of whether a plant dies in the field. Genome-enabled breeding. Through Breeding Insights, ARS aims to give all the crops it breeds the kind of technology-based support the big crops have. For a breeder of non-model woody crops, Lisa says, that is a change from living on the technology crumbs that come down from other species. The National Plant Germplasm System. The first place a researcher should look for a plant. Its GRIN website shows which osmanthus species, seed especially, the system holds. After that, a researcher who reads that a scientist has trialed a set of plants can reach out, and USDA scientists share material under agreements such as a plant evaluation agreement or a material transfer research agreement. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com US National Arboretum website, which lists its scientists, their projects and recent publications (Lisa’s suggestion at 50:25) A search for “Lisa Alexander Osmanthus”: many of her papers are in open access journals (50:36) National Plant Germplasm System, searchable through the GRIN website (48:50) Propagating Sweet Tea Olive (Osmanthus fragrans), UGA Extension Circular 1363, by Ping Yu and Yulong Chen Breeding Insights, the USDA Agricultural Research Service program Lisa mentions at 44:22 People Lisa credits for bringing osmanthus into the country (18:09): Ted Stephens of Nurseries Caroliniana, Dave Creech, Richard Olsen and Donglin Zhang Colleagues named in the conversation: Donna Fare, former ARS researcher, and Todd Rounsaville, who manages the plant germplasm system for woodies at the National Arboretum About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Lisa Alexander, Research Geneticist, US National Arboretum, USDA Agricultural Research Service Episode Release Date: September 13, 2026 Episode Length: 52:55 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

53:10

S02:E11 Sep 28, 2026

The Bald Cypress Tunnel of Love: Dave Creech and 40 Years of SFA Gardens (Part 1)

The Bald Cypress Tunnel of Love: Dave Creech and 40 Years of SFA Gardens (Part 1) Episode Description Dave Creech was registering for his second semester of agronomy at Texas A&M when J.B. Storey, a six-foot-four pecan professor, grabbed him in the old basketball coliseum, walked him past every registration table, and introduced him as the next great horticulturist. Dave switched majors. Forty-seven years at Stephen F. Austin State University later, he directs SFA Gardens, 138 acres of mostly bottom land that marks its 40th anniversary this year. In this first of two parts, Ping sits down with a horticulturist she first met as a PhD student at Texas A&M. His favorite plant is bald cypress, a tree that can last 3,000 years. SFA holds 136 cultivars and selections of it along Lanana Creek. Dave follows one of them, ‘LaNana’, from an unexpected email out of Nanjing Botanical Garden, through USDA quarantine at Beltsville, to 2,000 trees headed for Memorial Park in Houston. Then comes ‘Cascade Falls’, a weeper Dave calls gravitationally challenged. A nursery that couldn’t sell it shipped him several tractor trailers of 12-foot trees, and he trained them over steel pipe into a tunnel where people now propose. Ping and Dave also compare how China and the United States plant trees, from the tree-lined medians of Chinese highways to weeping willows on every lakeshore, and ask why sweet olive stays a minor crop here when Dave once counted 169 varieties at a single conference. Part 1 ends on February 16, 2021, when SFA went to minus four degrees. Dave spent four days trapped at home, and the Asian evergreen magnolias he had praised on garden tours were later finished off by a nine-degree December night. The plants that made it gave him a new rule for any landscape: 80% natives. Part 2 picks up with Ping’s questions on azaleas, camellias, and Japanese maples. Listen Time: 53:10 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guest Dr. Dave Creech, Professor Emeritus and Director, SFA Gardens, Stephen F. Austin State University. He taught horticulture in SFA’s Department of Agriculture from 1978 to 2007, retired, and was hired back to direct SFA Gardens. He spent his childhood in India, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and Burma (now Myanmar), where his father, an agronomist and former vo-ag teacher, took him along to field plots in Nagpur. He came back to the United States at about 16, moved from agronomy to horticulture at Texas A&M, earned a master’s at Colorado State University on a National Science Foundation fellowship, and finished a PhD in fruit physiology in 1978. His international work has taken him to Guatemala, Mexico, Pakistan, Chile, New Zealand, and, starting in 1994, 27 times to China. Bald cypress is his favorite plant. Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture Main Topics Welcome (0:00) Meet Dave Creech: From Nagpur to SFA Gardens (0:51). A childhood in Asia, a professor who changed his major, and a nine-month contract that suited a peach grower Raised in Asia (2:27) The professor who made him a horticulturist (3:50) Leaving the Mecca on the Brazos (5:28) The case for ornamentals (8:55) Bald Cypress: A Tree That Can Last 3,000 Years (12:10). A collection of 136 cultivars and selections on Lanana Creek, and a clone born in China From Nanjing to ‘LaNana’ (14:18) Trees down the median (17:50) A village that moved (19:45) Cascade Falls and the Tunnel of Love (23:19). How an unsellable weeping bald cypress became SFA’s best-known feature Trees for highways and byways (27:40) Summer Heat, Dinosaurs, and Knees (28:31). Why bald cypress waits for summer, and what the knees might be for Montezuma cypress is hardier than expected (30:43) What are the knees for? (31:38) Cuttings, Clones, and Weeping Plants (35:11). Seedlings versus clones, topophysis, and plants that carry a culture Why weeping plants are rare here (37:14) Plants that remind you of home (40:06) Family trees worth a fortune (41:11) Building SFA Gardens (42:02). From a quarter-acre patch and a privet-choked floodplain to one of the gardens of the South Two years of care (44:25) How patents changed plant sharing (45:43) The 2021 Freeze and the 80/20 Rule (46:52). What minus four degrees and a later nine-degree night taught SFA Minus four degrees in February 2021 (48:06) Plant 80 percent natives (51:12) Closing (52:12) Key Highlights A job built around peaches (5:56). Dave owned a 35-acre peach orchard, started when land sold for $300 an acre. A nine-month teaching contract at SFA left his summers free, so he left the “Mecca on the Brazos” for a small university near the Louisiana border. Ornamentals outgrow poultry (11:24). In a department of agriculture where poultry and cattle rule, Dave points out that ornamental horticulture, counting retail nurseries, wholesale nurseries, and landscape, is worth four or five billion dollars at the gate. Ping adds that Georgia’s ornamental industry ranks among its top four or five commodity groups, and that raising its profile is one reason she started this podcast. A clone from China (16:05). Of 15 bald cypress clones that came through USDA quarantine at Beltsville, one resisted the foliage disease Cercosporidium and stayed nearly evergreen. It is half bald cypress, half Montezuma cypress. Dave’s Chinese colleagues let him name it ‘LaNana’, and 2,000 are going into Memorial Park in Houston, planted “like huge soldiers in a row.” Why a clone fits a highway (17:13). Bald cypress seedlings all grow at different rates and look different as they age. A clone comes “out of a cookie cutter,” so the trees in a row stay even, which is what highway plantings and windbreaks need. Trees in the median (18:04). Chinese visitors riding from the Houston airport to Nacogdoches on Highway 59 could not understand the mowed median. On China’s big G highways, trees line the sides and fill the middle. Twenty generations in one village (21:07). Professor Yin Yunlong took Dave to the village his family had lived in for 20 generations, since cleared for agroforestry and fish farms. The whole village had moved into seven or eight high-rise buildings around a plaza, and Yin’s father, asked whether he was angry about it, said, “Look at where I’m living.” The tunnel of love (26:13). ‘Cascade Falls’ grows straight down, and left alone it will crawl the ground like a snake. Dave tied it to steel pipe bows for two or three years until the growth turned to wood. The tunnel now runs about 100-some feet under a high-voltage line, where the rule is nothing over 15 feet, and it has become a place for proposals and weddings. A bald cypress waits for summer (29:02). Bald cypress is slow in March, April, and May. Once the summer heat arrives, a well-watered tree can put on four to six feet in a year. Leaning into a hurricane (33:12). In wind-machine work done at the University of Florida, two 427 Chevrolet engines drove a fan that put a 180-mile-an-hour wind on trees. An oak or an elm snapped. The bald cypress, with its feathered needles, leaned over and did not break. A root that may build land (34:07). Some think bald cypress knees catch debris and trash, building up knolls and berms, so the tree helps make its own soil. Dave also offers his dinosaur theory for the knees, and he labels it himself: “This is not science.” 169 sweet olives (38:46). At a sweet olive conference Dave counted 169 varieties. The plant has a strong fragrance, can live 2,000 years, and has its own festivals, yet it remains a minor ornamental in the United States. A garden athletics wanted too (42:52). SFA Gardens started in 1985 on a quarter-acre patch. Dave then went after a stretch of bottom land that athletics also wanted, and he got it. It was floodplain covered in privet, and his students thought he was crazy when he promised it would be one of the great gardens in the South. The 80/20 rule (51:12). After the freezes, Dave’s mantra is to build 80% of a landscape, its backbone, from native trees and shrubs, and use the other 10 or 20% for adventurous plants from China, India, or Nepal, so one hard winter cannot wipe out the whole landscape. Key Quotes “I wasn’t a horticulturist, but he made me be one.” Dr. Dave Creech, on professor J.B. Storey (4:28) “In horticulture, it’s not just fruit and veggie, but also ornamental.” Dr. Ping Yu (10:21) “Well, in 1,000 years it’ll own your whole lot, your whole home lot.” Dr. Dave Creech, on how big a bald cypress gets (12:49) “It is gravitationally challenged.” Dr. Dave Creech, on the weeping bald cypress ‘Cascade Falls’ (26:10) “So now my new mantra with this new wisdom is that, plant 80% of your landscape, and the backbone of it, in natives.” Dr. Dave Creech (51:12) Educational Highlights Three cypresses meet in East Texas. Dave describes East Texas as the place where bald cypress and pond cypress meet, with Montezuma cypress genetics from Mexico to the west. He says Taxodium dubium goes back 90 million years, that the genus was once found around the world, and that it now grows only in North America and Mexico. Montezuma cypress hardiness. Growers long assumed Montezuma cypress was tropical. In 1983 a young Montezuma cypress at SFA, from an area that rarely freezes, came through a hard freeze unharmed. Dave now grows it in Oklahoma. It is less hardy than some bald cypress, and much hardier than anyone expected. Knees, or pneumatophores. The knees that rise from bald cypress roots are pneumatophores. Their purpose is still debated. Cutting them off does not slow or kill the tree, but landscapers dislike them because they come up wherever there is moisture and tear up lawn mowers. Chinese breeders were the first to cross bald cypress with Montezuma cypress to get rid of the knees. Seedlings versus clones. In the United States, 99% of bald cypress are grown from seed, and every seedling is different. Clones, made by grafting or rooted cuttings, are identical. In China and other places, cultivars reproduced by grafting or cuttings are the norm. Juvenility and cuttings. A cutting roots only from a young plant. Dave’s example is a thousand-year-old bald cypress: take a cutting from it and you cannot root it, because the tree has lost its juvenile ability. Topophysis and plagiotropic growth. A cutting taken from a side branch “thinks it’s a branch” and keeps growing sideways for a while. That is topophysis, and the sideways habit is plagiotropic growth. The fix Dave learned in China: after one year in a one-gallon can, cut the plant back low, and it will send up a good leader. Those trees can grow six feet the second year. Training a weeping tree. A weeping bald cypress sends its new growth straight down. To make an arch, Dave tied the plants to bows of steel pipe and left the bows in place for two or three years, until the new growth turned to wood and held its shape. Two years of establishment. SFA’s standard for a new tree is two or three years of care: keep the weeds away, mulch around the plant, dig a decent planting hole, and water. After that, Dave says, a tree “better learn how to live in East Texas.” Plant patents and sharing. When SFA Gardens began, universities traded plants freely and academia had no patented trees. Patenting took hold in the 1990s, and people grew nervous about giving away plants bound for royalties. SFA puts patented plants it receives into the garden, but keeps them out of its plant sales. Why the magnolias died. The February 2021 freeze killed SFA’s Asian evergreen magnolias, some six to eight inches in diameter, back to the trunk, and they regrew fast. A December with no freezes and bananas on the banana plants followed, then nine degrees on December 23rd. That second freeze caught the vigorous regrowth and killed the magnolias. Live oak, native along the Gulf South but not in Dallas-Fort Worth, lost seedling trees when Northeast Texas went to minus eight, minus nine, and minus 11. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com SFA Gardens, Stephen F. Austin State University Search “Taxodium distichum ‘Cascade Falls’” with “SFA” to find the bald cypress tunnel; Dave says SFA is one of the top results (26:32) ‘LaNana’ bald cypress, now in the trade (16:47) Places named in the conversation: Nanjing Botanical Garden, Tyler Botanical Garden, Memorial Park in Houston, the Mast Arboretum and Ruby Mize garden at SFA, the US National Arboretum, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Houston Botanical Garden, and Mercer People named in the conversation: Professor Yin Yunlong, Nanjing Botanical Garden; Dr. Shiyou Li; Dr. J.B. Storey and Dr. Hollis Bowen, Dave’s professors at Texas A&M; Dr. Mengmeng Gu, his partner on the post-freeze plant evaluation; Doug Arnold of Trees USA, who grew the ‘Cascade Falls’ trees; Don Shadow, who introduced ‘Falling Waters’; and Neil Sperry About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Dave Creech, Professor Emeritus and Director, SFA Gardens, Stephen F. Austin State University Episode Release Date: September 27, 2026 Episode Length: 53:10 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

54:22

S02:E11 Oct 5, 2026

The Camellia of 10,000 Flowers: Dave Creech and 40 Years of SFA Gardens (Part 2)

The Camellia of 10,000 Flowers: Dave Creech and 40 Years of SFA Gardens (Part 2) Episode Description Dave Creech says SFA Gardens spent 30 or 40 years waiting for minus four degrees. When the 2021 freeze finally brought it, only two of the garden’s 31 gardenias really survived. The champion was Whispering Pines, a big double that Jim Berry had offered Dave because it didn’t fit his nursery’s product mix. In Part 2 of Ping’s conversation with Dave, the long wait pays off in plant picks: Japanese maples that came through unaffected, two camellia species that were in bloom when the cold hit, and Parrotia subaequalis, a Chinese ironwood that turns fire engine red in an East Texas fall. Then the talk turns to the people who grow plants. Dave names labor as the industry’s biggest challenge and runs the numbers: a kiwi costs eight cents a pound to pick, while a hand-picked blueberry runs 40, 50, 60 cents. He makes his case for golden kiwi in East Texas, a crop he admits he is stubborn about, and Ping reports that her three-year-old son asks for one every week at Costco. Dave also has a number for young professors: horticulture enrollment peaked in 1977, with 650 students at Texas A&M. The second half travels. Near Kunming, in Yunnan, Dave went to see the Camellia of 10,000 Flowers, two varieties grafted and woven together in a monastery plaza, with a monk whose job every day was to sit by the tree and protect it. He remembers refugee camps in Pakistan going from tents to mud houses to houses with roofs, a PhD advisor who told him seven students before him had failed, and the former student who walked up at TNLA and said, “You’re still alive.” Part 2 ends at SFA Gardens today, with a lecture series every second Thursday and an environmental education program for kids that is coming back. Listen Time: 54:23 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guest Dr. Dave Creech, Professor Emeritus and Director, SFA Gardens, Stephen F. Austin State University. He has lived in Nacogdoches for 47 years and works half time; in his words, he is not retired. He studied under Hollis Bowen and J.B. Storey at Texas A&M and did a master’s in potato tuber physiology at Colorado State University under Milt Workman, arriving the year Old Main burned. Raised in Asia, he has been going to China for more than 30 years and worked in Pakistan’s orchards in the 1980s. He once ran a peach business, and his current projects include golden kiwi and feijoas. Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture Main Topics Welcome (0:00) What Survived: Azaleas, Camellias, and Japanese Maples (0:25). Which plants at SFA Gardens came through minus four degrees, and why a long wait is the best test Forty-year-old Japanese maples (1:44) Maples worth stealing (4:04) Camellias that bloomed through minus four (6:05) Thirty years waiting for a torture test (7:07) Beyond Hardiness: Parrotia, Simpson’s Stopper, and a Champion Gardenia (8:48). Fall color, salt tolerance, and a gardenia nobody wanted Simpson’s stopper (11:05) Whispering Pines, the champion gardenia (14:03) The Industry’s Biggest Challenge: Labor (17:14). Robots, drones, and what a crop costs to pick The math on kiwis and blueberries (20:00) New pests (21:49) The Next 20 Years and Never Retiring (22:28). Floods, heat, enrollment, and why Dave is half time “How much is Johnny gonna make?” (24:13) Enrollment peaked in 1977 (25:36) Half time, not retired (27:40) Golden Kiwi (28:50). The crop Dave is stubborn about, and why it fits East Texas Why golden kiwi fits East Texas (30:16) A three-year-old golden kiwi fan (31:49) The Camellia of Ten Thousand Flowers (32:55). A grafted camellia in Yunnan and the monk who sat beside it The monk who guarded the tree (34:37) Weeping sophoras (36:10) Travel and a Changed Worldview (36:51). Pakistan in the 1980s, friends from 40 years of travel, and respect for elders Travel leaves you restless (38:33) Guanxi (40:26) Mentors and Advice for Young Horticulturists (41:51). The professors who shaped Dave, and what he tells students now Old Main and Milt Workman (42:47) Seven had failed (44:09) If you love what you do (45:17) “You’re still alive” (48:09) SFA Gardens Today (49:40). Lectures, workshops, kids’ programs, and a new university system Environmental education for kids (51:05) Joining the University of Texas (51:58) Thank you, Dave (52:39) Closing (53:25) Key Highlights Fifty maples by mail (3:00). Knowing nothing about maples, Dave asked Del’s Maple to send 50 different varieties that could stand the Texas heat. They came as grafted liners at $2.95 each, and most are still in the garden. SFA now grows over 400 varieties and puts on a fall show that starts the first week of December. Maples that walk away (4:04). The number one problem with SFA’s Japanese maples is young plants being “liberated and taken home by visitors.” The garden has put cameras up. Blooming through the freeze (6:24). Two camellia species, yuhsienensis and gauchowensis, were in bloom when minus four hit. The cold knocked the blooms off, didn’t hurt the trees, and some buds came through to make another crop of blooms. Dave went straight to propagating them. A name that hurts sales (12:41). Simpson’s stopper has white flowers, orange-red fruit, peeling bark, and clean evergreen foliage. Dave says the fruit cures diarrhea, which is where the name comes from, and he thinks the name holds the plant back. Galveston as a test plot (13:16). Dave calls Galveston Island “the ultimate torture test for all plants”: salt, wind, and everything leans. SFA has a project there, and a two-acre project at Moody Gardens looking for salt-tolerant plants. The gardenia nobody wanted (14:44). Jim Berry found Whispering Pines behind a house place that had melted down, a giant old bush. Dave took five, planted three behind a bench in 2006 or 2007, and in 2021 it was the champion of SFA’s 31 gardenias. Why nurseries shrug at hardiness (16:16). Dave has accused nurserymen, in a meeting, of not minding much when a plant dies in a hard freeze after 10 or 15 years, because the customer comes back to buy another one. Automation depends on how you built (18:54). Ping points out that greenhouses and nurseries built up site by site over the years, the American model, will take longer to automate than operations designed for it from the start. Dave has seen robots moving plants at conferences, and Jim Berry’s nursery runs robot trailers and drone spraying. Three floods in two years (23:31). Over Dave’s 47 years in Nacogdoches, a flood used to go out over the bottom about every three years. Now there have been three in two years. He calls it “a more energetic climate.” “Depends on how good he is” (26:46). When a father asks how much his son will make in horticulture, that is Dave’s answer. His proudest former students started their own businesses, bought land, and watched it grow for 30 years. Golden kiwi by the acre (29:35). Golden kiwi takes an investment of $20,000 an acre, maybe $40,000 with high shade, and an acre can make 40,000 to 50,000 pounds at two dollars a pound. This year SFA didn’t thin enough, so the crop came in plentiful and small. “I am in Nacogdoches” (30:41). Stepping off the plane in Changsha at the end of summer, 104 degrees Fahrenheit and humid, Dave felt right at home. Golden kiwi grows in that region; the green kiwi grows further north, around Wuhan. A monk by the tree (34:37). The monk guarding the Camellia of 10,000 Flowers had trained under the monk before him, and the tree goes back to the 1400s. Dave photographed him and later learned he has passed. Ping’s verdict on the job: “I would be so bored.” Seven had failed (44:09). On Dave’s first day as Hollis Bowen’s PhD student, Bowen told him, “I don’t know if you’re gonna make it.” Seven students before Dave had not. Dave was the first of eight to graduate. Back to 12,000 kids (51:05). SFA’s environmental education program brought 12,000 children a year through under coordinator Elyce Rodewald. It went to zero when the position was lost, and it is coming back with a new hire, aimed at third through eighth graders. Key Quotes “So we spent 30, 40 years waiting for minus four degrees. This is a torture test.” Dr. Dave Creech, on long-term evaluation at SFA Gardens (7:20) “Do you want a fire engine red foliaged Parrotia ironwood?” Dr. Dave Creech, on Parrotia subaequalis (10:26) “I never worked a day in my life.” Dr. Dave Creech, on being half time and not retired (28:42) “I really think the people or the culture that you see with the plant really played a big role in changing your view of the whole world.” Dr. Ping Yu, on what travel for plants gives a horticulturist (39:25) “If you love what you do, you’re, you’ll be fine.” Dr. Dave Creech, his advice to young people interested in horticulture (45:28) Educational Highlights Drainage first for Japanese maples. SFA never plants a Japanese maple in its bottomland gardens. The tree goes on top of the ground with a berm built up around it, so it sits on a knoll. Poor drainage kills Japanese maples, but once established they are very drought resistant in East Texas. In containers they like a variable schedule: consistent daily watering in a shade house has hurt maples at SFA’s nursery. Chilling or day length? Japanese maples grow in Houston, given drainage, and in Minnesota, and they don’t seem to have a chilling requirement. Dave’s view is that they respond more to photoperiod than to hours under 45 degrees. Why a big maple costs so much. A Japanese maple over two inches is worth $400 or $500 wholesale. Few Texas growers produce them, so they come in on tractor trailers from Northwest nurseries, and they can’t be cinched. Cinching means netting a tree tight into a pole so trees stack like poles. Japanese maples are brittle and break, so each one has to be fitted on the truck. What long-term evaluation catches. Of 31 gardenias at SFA, two really survived minus four; one sold as Arctic Frost “went to the ground and below.” Indian hawthorn, Rhaphiolepis indica, has died for Dave in ’83, ’89, and 2021, yet huge beds of it keep coming back into the trade a year or two after each freeze. His conclusion: native trees are mostly fine, and the shrub world needs the attention. Parrotia subaequalis. This Chinese ironwood was discovered in Zhejiang Province and, Dave says, wasn’t really described until the 1990s. It is directly related to Parrotia persica, Persian witch hazel, grows faster, roots more easily, is drought resistant, and turns fire engine red in fall. It came through minus four without trouble. It has no real common name, and “Chinese ironwood” doesn’t sound very appealing to Dave. Simpson’s stopper, Myrcianthes fragrans. A sand dune tree to about 12 feet, popular on the western side of Florida, and very salt tolerant. At SFA it handled the lower teens and high single digits with no problem; minus four took it to the ground, and it grew back vigorously. AgriStarts is now starting a variety called Geode. Clones are available now, including a variegated form and a Mexican form, and Dave has plants from Cuba. The cost of picking. One person can pick 500 to 1,000 pounds of kiwis an hour, at about eight cents a pound. Blueberries run about 150 pounds a day by hand, 40 to 60 cents a pound, which is why larger blueberry plantings of 50 to 100 acres go to machine harvest, which can pick for a dime. Where golden kiwi grows. Golden kiwi has been tried in California, where growers own the domestic market for green kiwi, but Northern California is too dry and the fruit shrivels. Its home region in China, around Changsha, has a hot, humid climate like Nacogdoches. Golden kiwis store for four months, and New Zealand packs a million trays a week, which makes golden kiwi a worldwide continuous supply. New pests in East Texas. Dave lists brown marmorated stink bug, spotted wing drosophila, and ambrosia beetle as pests he had never seen before. Crape myrtle bark scale, the pest Dr. Mengmeng Gu made a career out of, is now turning up on callicarpa, a native plant; Ping saw it on the host range trial on callicarpa. A camellia carrying two varieties. The Camellia of 10,000 Flowers is grafted, with two varieties growing on one tree, woven together. Dave says the tree goes back to the 1400s. Guanxi. Dave describes guanxi as “the art of relationships, time, trust, friendship, experience.” Ping says it translates to relationship. She adds that in Eastern Asia the older you get, the higher you stand on the social ladder, at least within the family. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com SFA Gardens, Stephen F. Austin State University. Search “SFA Gardens” for the website and event calendar (50:38) SFA Gardens lecture series, once a month on the second Thursday (50:04) Dave’s article on the Camellia of 10,000 Flowers: search the name of the camellia (34:29) Simpson’s stopper ‘Geode’, started by AgriStarts (13:05) Gardenia ‘Whispering Pines’, selected by Jim Berry of J. Berry Nursery (14:17) Places named in the conversation: the Native Plant Center and the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building at SFA, Moody Gardens and Galveston Island, Texas A&M, Colorado State University, the TNLA and IPPS meetings People named in the conversation: Dr. Hollis Bowen and Dr. J.B. Storey, Dave’s professors at Texas A&M; Milt Workman, his master’s advisor at Colorado State; Jim Berry; Bobby Green and Maarten van der Giessen, who have helped SFA with camellias from the Mobile area; Tim Hartmann of Texas A&M, Dave’s partner on a TDA feijoa project; Dr. Mengmeng Gu; and Elyce Rodewald, SFA’s environmental education coordinator Japanese maple sources Dave names: Del’s Maple, Jen’s Maple, Heritage, and Hidden Hollow About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Dave Creech, Professor Emeritus and Director, SFA Gardens, Stephen F. Austin State University Episode Release Date: October 4, 2026 Episode Length: 54:23 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱

55:45

S02:E12 Oct 11, 2026

Tell the Story They Want to Hear: Science Communication with Alexa Lamm

Tell the Story They Want to Hear: Science Communication with Alexa Lamm Episode Description Alexa Lamm was a 4-H kid who showed livestock and horses and fully expected to go to vet school. Then she realized she liked working with healthy animals, kids and producers a lot more than sick ones. She spent almost ten years as an extension agent just south of Denver, and it frustrated her for years that Extension kept calling itself the best-kept secret. Today she is a professor of science communication at the University of Georgia, and she has a claim every extension specialist should hear: Extension is the original science communication. Ping brings the question she wrestles with herself. How do you show impact to people who don’t farm? Alexa’s answer is to tell the stories the public cares about, like water saved on farm that stays available for other uses, or produce on the shelf at a price a mom can balance a meal around. She lays out her four pieces of effective science communication (know your audience, know what they care about, deliver through a source they trust, and use the channel they already use), with a Georgia and Florida example that anyone who owns red and black will recognize. Then she explains why nursery and greenhouse producers want YouTube videos, and why, if scientists stay offline, someone else fills the space. The second half turns to trust. Alexa puts public trust in science at about forty-three percent and says a lot of that is the scientific community’s own doing: unpublished null results, talk of fact and certainty, and emotion left out of everything. Ping offers a case from her own lab, a student’s Osmanthus fragrans study that found no germination and could only go out as a proceeding. Alexa shares the reason she gets up every morning and fights for science, the surgeon who saved her daughter’s life, and closes with advice for handling online critics, by way of celebrity chef Lazarus Lynch, and for early career scientists who know more about communicating online than they realize. Listen Time: 55:46 Follow Along with the Transcript In This Episode Guest Dr. Alexa Lamm, Professor of Science Communication, University of Georgia. She studies how people communicate about critical issues facing the agricultural industry, much of it in partnership with scientists. She grew up in 4-H, earned an animal science degree and a master’s in extension education, and was an extension agent in Colorado for almost ten years. She earned her PhD at the University of Florida and spent about ten years there, including about eight as an evaluation specialist, before coming to UGA eight years ago, originally as the evaluation specialist. With ag economists, she helped create an evaluation tool that about half of the United States now uses within their extension systems. Her lab, the Lamm Lab, hosts the AgriCurious podcast for early career scientists. Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture Main Topics Welcome (0:00) Meet Alexa Lamm (0:59). From 4-H and animal science to extension agent, evaluation specialist and professor of science communication From animal science kid to extension agent (1:59) Why evaluation became her focus (5:08) Telling the stories of impact people care about (8:00). Why grower profit alone doesn’t move the public or decision-makers A win-win-win (11:13) Science communication as a two-way dialogue (12:10). Listening to producers, and what a pot Walmart won’t accept can teach a scientist Knowledge passed down on the farm (15:06) Four pieces of effective science communication (17:11). Know your audience, and know what they care about A source they trust, on a channel they use (19:06) Digital media and the rise of YouTube (22:05). How COVID changed outreach, and what producers want from video Pork production, misinformation, and filling the space (25:33) Why trust in science is at an all-time low (28:20). Null results, defensiveness, funding questions and the language of certainty How scientists can rebuild trust (32:34) A study that found no germination (35:15) Emotion, storytelling, and starting with your why (37:01). Alexa’s own why, and why it builds trust with a room The connection a machine cannot replace (41:10) Measuring the impact of science communication (43:25). Knowledge gain, intent, behavior change and stories of impact Controversial topics and online critics (46:24) “I just delete the line” (49:10) Advice for early career scientists (50:52) Where to find Alexa’s work (53:03) Closing (54:44) Key Highlights Extension is the original science communication (4:01). Alexa sees no real line between the two. What has changed is the public: people now vote on legislation that can block science or fund it, and regulations can block practices producers would love to use. The best-kept secret (6:28). As an agent in Colorado, it frustrated her for years that Extension found the same people using its services over and over. Her diagnosis was that Extension couldn’t showcase its impact, and that sent her to a PhD in evaluation. The mom buying groceries (10:40). Producers adopt a practice because it saves them money or makes them more, but a taxpayer hears that and thinks, “okay, so what?” Alexa’s alternative is the story the public cares about: water conserved on farm that keeps other resources open (9:34), and produce on the shelf at a price a family can afford. The pot Walmart won’t take (14:07). A scientist recommends the most efficient container. The grower answers that the wholesaler won’t take it, because Walmart won’t accept a pot that deteriorates too quickly on its shelves. Listening to that answer and adapting the science is what Alexa calls true science communication. Red and black, or orange and blue (19:41). Producers trust their local extension specialist, so a Georgia grower calls Ping and a Florida grower calls IFAS. If your work applies to both states, partner with someone at Florida to deliver it there. Podcasts on the tractor (20:25). Producers have told Alexa they listen to podcasts driving the truck or out on the tractor. Others want a newsletter over coffee, social media, webinars or a face-to-face field day. Her rule is to meet people on the channel where they already are and not ask them to go somewhere new. A scientist with a GoPro (23:38). Alexa says COVID changed outreach more than digital media did. In the nursery and greenhouse industry she sees producers asking for YouTube videos, even a scientist walking a greenhouse with a GoPro. Her combination plan: hold the field day, stream it on Facebook Live, and post it to YouTube for people to watch later. Fill the space (27:03). If the scientific and agricultural communities aren’t present online, others fill the space. When a decision-maker searches a question about water use on farm, that other material is what shows up, and it looks very real. Forty-three percent (29:12). Alexa puts public trust in science at about forty-three percent. Much of the reason, she says, is the scientific community’s own fault: defensiveness about results, null results that never get published (30:04), and questions about who funds the research (31:15). Practicing medicine (33:10). Doctors talk about practicing medicine. They try a solution, see what happens and adjust. Alexa wants scientists to drop the language of certainty, fact and truth the same way. A study that found no germination (35:15). One of Ping’s students found no germination in his Osmanthus fragrans study. With no significant results, a proceeding was the only way to get the work out. Alexa adds that publishing it also keeps someone else from spending the time and money to run the same experiment (40:38). Her own why (38:23). Alexa’s daughter was born with a heart condition and had open heart surgery at two months old, and a second right after her second birthday. Fifteen or eighteen years earlier, Alexa learned, the science to save her would not have existed. She names her superhero, Dr. Mark Bleiweis of the University of Florida (39:09), and she opens talks to hundreds of people with that story because it builds trust. Eighty percent of intention (44:12). About 80% of intention doesn’t follow through into full behavior change, which is why tracking runs to the six-, twelve- and twenty-four-month marks. The truer measure of impact, she says, comes from going back to the opinion leaders, the producers everyone else looks up to (45:04). Delete, delete, delete (48:19). Her advice to scientists who can’t handle the heat online is that you don’t have to respond. Lean on your university’s communication folks instead. Celebrity chef Lazarus Lynch, a World Food Prize fellow who won Chopped twice, told one of her classes that he just deletes the line (49:57). Key Quotes “Extension is the original science communication, where we take information from the land grant university out to those who need it the most.” Dr. Alexa Lamm (4:01) “tell the story they wanna hear, not the one you wanna tell, from the source that they trust on the channel where they’re already present.” Dr. Alexa Lamm, on the four pieces of effective science communication (21:26) “Because humans are emotional, they’re not logical, and science talks to logic, numbers, facts, figures.” Dr. Alexa Lamm (34:10) “I just delete the line.” Chef Lazarus Lynch, as Dr. Alexa Lamm recounts his answer to her class (49:57) “There’s always people that can teach you something, and that might change your whole life.” Dr. Ping Yu, to early career scientists (52:53) Educational Highlights From one-way to two-way. Communication was originally defined as one person delivering a message and another receiving it. Alexa’s field has moved past that to a two-way dialogue: scientists share findings, listen to the end user, and adapt the science, in what she calls a continuous reciprocal relationship. Knowledge passed down on the farm. Knowledge a farmer inherits from generation to generation usually has a scientific explanation for why it works, even when the farmer can’t give one. A scientist who listens can find that explanation and carry the practice to a whole bunch of other farms. The four pieces of effective science communication. First, know your audience, and remember that the public is many audiences: a 20-something saving for a first home, a middle-aged woman with a family, a producer who has been doing it for 60 years. Second, know what they care about, whether economics, environmental sustainability, water use or recycling on farm, and build the message around it. Third, deliver it through a source they trust. Fourth, put it on the channel they already use. Alexa calls the audience the foundation, because it drives the other three. Misinformation and disinformation. As Alexa explains them, one is intentional and one is not, and either can cause harm. Some misinformation traces back to a real journal article whose data was completely misinterpreted. Her two responses are teaching critical thinking and source checking, and being present online with good information. Null results. A hypothesis that tests false is still a finding. Alexa wants journals to publish non-significant findings as readily as significant ones, because over time they are the record of what has and hasn’t changed. How impact gets measured. Evaluation tools measure how much knowledge someone gained and their intent to use it. Follow-up observation at six, twelve and twenty-four months shows whether behavior actually changed. The same tools can put an economic value on information and measure emotional well-being, how much more secure or safe something makes people feel. With decision-makers, Alexa pairs the numbers, which they have to have, with the face, story, picture or video that shows what the numbers mean. Opinion leaders. In every producer community there is one producer everyone else looks up to. If they adopt a practice, others will. If they decide not to, she says, you’re done. Going back to those producers and asking them to tell their stories is, for her, the truer measure of impact. Genetic modification and genetic engineering. Alexa names GMOs, and now CRISPR and genetically engineered crops, as sticky spaces. The two terms sound similar but are different, and explaining the difference is part of the work. The lesson she takes from past mistakes is open transparency: anything that feels hidden needs to be more open. Starting with your why. Before the content, tell the room why you are standing in front of them, why you care and why you study this. Alexa calls it making yourself vulnerable, which is not what grad school teaches, and she says it builds immediate trust. Implicit knowledge. Early career scientists are digital natives. Alexa tells them they already know more about communicating online than she ever will, and that this implicit knowledge belongs in their jobs. Resources & Links Website: bandbpod.com Lamm Science Communication Lab, University of Georgia: site.caes.uga.edu/lammlab (Alexa’s tip at 53:31: just Google Lamm Lab) AgriCurious, the Lamm Lab’s podcast for early career scientists: site.caes.uga.edu/lammlab/agricurious-podcast (53:37) Connect with Alexa on LinkedIn: @lexlamm (53:57) Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), which Alexa recommends for its webinars and programs on communicating science: cast-science.org (51:50) Pork production on YouTube: frame and sentiment analysis, by Anu Karki, Alexa Lamm and colleagues at Iowa State, UGA and NC State, in Frontiers in Communication (2025), the study Ping brings up at 25:33: doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2025.1557633 University of Florida IFAS, the extension home Alexa mentions for Florida growers (19:46) About Blooms and Beyond Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture. Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better. Credits Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Alexa Lamm, Professor of Science Communication, University of Georgia Episode Release Date: October 11, 2026 Episode Length: 55:46 “Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱