In the latest published study from her dissertation research, Jen Hayes, a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State, examined whether native plant cultivars differ from wild native plants not just in pollinator visits, but in floral traits that shape how bees use flowers.
“We start with bee biology and ecology, so participants understand not just what to do, but why it matters.” Said Jen Hayes, a postdoctoral scholar in the lab and the program’s primary instructor.
“Climate change education is a priority topic for the Master Gardener Program,” said Brooke Edmunds, an OSU Extension community horticulturist in Marion and Polk counties and associate professor of practice in the Oregon State University Department of Horticulture.
Vegetable specialty seed production is a cornerstone of agriculture in the Pacific Northwest. More than 170 seed crops — including brassicas, spinach, radish, carrot, onion and many others — are grown on relatively small acreages but generate high farm-gate value and supply global markets.
In winter, the nursery production research plots at Oregon State’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center (NWREC) rest under bare branches and steady rain.
Red maples stand leafless. Nursery containers are tucked away. By summer, the quiet pad warms to life, becoming a living laboratory; a working nursery packed with young plants and students.
Professor Gail Langellotto is the principal investigator in the Garden Ecology Lab in AgSci’s Department of Horticulture. She is also the director of the college’s BioResource Research Program.
Over the past 15 years, Oregon State University researchers and partners have worked through the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station and the Oregon State University Extension Service to develop tools that help farms manage spotted-wing drosophila with better timing and fewer unnecessary inputs.
After three years of research on working farms in Lincoln, Tillamook and Clatsop counties, Oregon State University researchers and partners now have clearer answers about which forage plants grow best in the pasture conditions of the central and north Oregon Coast.
Oregon farmers will soon be able to plant hazelnut trees with a new genetic source of Eastern Filbert Blight resistance than they’ve traditionally relied on. Oregon State University recently obtained a plant patent for “Lagerstedt,” a new cultivar that can withstand the fungal pathogen based on a gene inherited from “Ratoli,” a Spanish hazelnut variety.
Christmas is behind us, so what do the more than 300 Christmas tree growers do for the rest of the year? According to Priya Rajarapu, a researcher from Oregon State University, there’s a lot that has to be done to make sure those crops stay healthy.