When researching plants, scientists usually must send away and have the plants delivered at their doorstep. But not at N.C. State.
N.C. State is one of the only universities in the country that has this option for plant research, according to John Dole, a professor in horticulture science.
Researching plants after they are harvested can be difficult if the researchers did not grow the plant themselves, according to Erin Regan, a graduate student in horticulture science. She said having grown the plant helps the researcher know what went right or wrong during the growing process.
“It’s nice to grow [plants] out so you know exactly what’s been done,” Regan said.
Regan, who works on cut flower research, is glad she is at a University where production to post-harvest research is available.
Production to post-harvest research means the researcher grows the plant, harvests it and examines the research topic throughout the entire process — whatever the research topic may be, such as cut flower research.
When researchers don’t grow the plant themselves, they must have the plant shipped in, which is what most universities do, according to Dole.
Erin Possiel, a graduate student in horticulture science, said she likes production to post-harvest research because it gives her more confidence in her results. She said if she sees something odd in her data, she can usually discover the origin of the difference because she worked closely with the flowers.
Regan agreed. She said she understands her flowers better when doing production to post-harvest research.
However, it is sometimes better to ship the plants rather than grow them. According to Regan, roses take a long time to grow, so shipping the plants moves the process along and saves time.
“It’s good to have a balance,” Possiel said.
The time issue is the reason most people don’t do production research is because, Dole said. But he said he thinks it’s a good idea to still do it.
If the flowers are shipped, the research can take as little as two weeks, he said. When growing the plants, the minimum amount of times is several months. He said the average research time with production is about five months.
Another advantage to production to post-harvest research is the network of people all in the same location. It takes a long chain of people for this kind of research, and N.C. State is one of the few places able to have them all together, Sylvia Blankenship, the associate dean for admissions in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said.
She said all of the steps influence each other, so it is beneficial to have them all interacting in one place.
Blankenship also thinks it is important to know the plant better through production. There are a whole host of things that could go wrong during production, so it helps the researcher to know exactly what happens while the plant is growing, she said. Anything that happens during production can affect post-harvest life.
One part of post-harvest research is the vase life of cut flowers, according to Dole. He said he thinks customer satisfaction is highly important for cut flowers and does research of how to increase vase life and what factors affect it.
Possiel and Emma Locke, a graduate student in horticulture science, recently finished research of how varying factors during production can affect the vase life of flowers. They wanted to put the flowers in more real life situations, according to Dole. He said factors like the temperature, water stress and humidity are constantly changing in the real world, so it is important to try to figure out how those real world things affect vase life.
Regan is doing research similar to the project Possiel and Locke completed. She is focusing on how post-harvest handling procedures affect vase life. She is growing a new variety of stock called Matthiola incana ‘vivas blue.’ One of the catches to her research is the number of plants she has to grow.
“I have to plant twice as many as I need…I needed significantly less than what I planted,” Regan said.
She said she has to plant so many because the flower industry only uses the double flowered plants, but the plant varies in whether it will have single or double flowers. So, she said she has to count on at least half of the flower having single heads, which are useless for her research.
However, the flowers she doesn’t use do not go wasted. She said she often times takes the flowers home with her.
Locke said she and Possiel had a similar experience of needing to plant too many flowers. She said they couldn’t use the flowers that were on the outside of the bed because they were considered to be in a different environment. Since they were researching how the environment affected vase life, using the ones of the outside would have skewed the results, according to Possiel.
After researchers have completed their study, they then write reports to publish in scientific journals, so the people in the flower industry can examine the research and learn from it, according to Dole.
Even though it is a long process, Blankenship said N.C. State is able to make more progress with its research because having all the processes in one place makes a difference.