Cover Story

Virginia Tech Hampton Roads Agricultural Research & Extension Center (AREC) Update

Well, what a year so far! Like everyone, we’ve had our challenges at the AREC due to the pandemic, but we’ve been able to keep calm and carry on; just in a different way. When you stop and think about it, isn’t that what we in the green industry do all the time? You could also look at it as improvise, adapt, overcome (think Clint Eastwood and the Marines in the movie Heartbreak Ridge), or if that doesn’t work for you, then what about adaptive management business models? Regardless, it’s what we do – new unique landscape to maintain, new design or build problem to solve, new crops to produce, pests to combat, work force shortage, supply and demand trends, regulations, and on and on. Every year, every season brings new challenges even in the world of academia. And while there may be moments of panic, overall we keep calm, network, learn, change, and move forward. So, here’s what’s going on at the AREC.

You may know that 10 of our 70 acres is open to the public through 28 different educational demonstration gardens. We are truly fortunate to benefit from our partnership with Virginia Cooperative Extension where over 100 Master Gardener volunteers work and teach in the gardens. When things shut down in March, most of our gardens went without love and care for almost 5 months. We are slowly but surely recovering. Volunteers were allowed to continue working in the Annual Trial Garden area because it had vegetables. Over 1,000 pounds of produce was harvested from that garden and donated to the local food bank this summer. Our gardens remained open to the public, and boy did people come and let us know how thankful they were. Visitors included walkers, bird watchers, photographers, dog walkers, graduation celebrations, family picnics, baby announcements, and at least one wedding.

Specific faculty and program updates include:

• Jeffrey Derr (weed science) is investigating alternatives to glyphosate (Roundup & others), including organic control options. His team continues to evaluate controls for troublesome weeds in the green industry, including yellow nutsedge, kyllinga, bermudagrass, doveweed, Virginia buttonweed, dallisgrass, and others.

• Laurie Fox (urban stormwater & sustainable landscaping) and the Tidewater Arboretum team of volunteers received an $8,000 Virginia Trees for Clean Water grant from the Virginia Department of Forestry. New signage and more than 50 trees will be planted at the AREC this fall. The trees will be used for educational programs, to replace trees lost in recent storms, and to increase the property canopy coverage to reduce stormwater runoff.

• Alejandro Del Pozo-Valdivia (new entomologist) started work at the AREC on August 10th. He will be focusing on both biological and chemical controls of insect pests impacting the nursery, turfgrass, and landscape maintenance industries. Some upcoming research projects include: the use and placement of flowering insectary plants to attract naturally occurring beneficials, as well as releasing laboratory-reared predators to manage pests, providing population monitoring data (redheaded flea beetle & fall armyworm) to alert growers, and maximizing the use and timing of chemical control tactics to lower insect pest populations. He is very interested in talking with growers and other stakeholders to learn about pressing insect pest issues and research needs. If you are willing to participate as a collaborator on any of these research projects, or would like to learn more about the Entomology program at HRAREC, please send Alejandro an email at adelpozo@vt.edu.

• Pete Schultz (retired entomologist) is finishing up his research on the Asian Ambrosia Beetle; a significant borer pest of nursery tree stock.

• Chuan Hong (pathologist) continues to address recycled water quality, plant health risk and other related issues associated with recycling irrigation, while coordinating two national projects on boxwood blight. Both projects officially started September 1, 2020 and are aimed at better understanding the blight biology and developing innovative and sustainable solutions to this destructive disease that is affecting everyone on the horticultural chain from growers to consumers.

• David Sample (stormwater engineer) continues to work on stormwater modeling, a project with the City of Fredericksburg, and is involved with the new stormwater practices being installed at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond.

• Nursery specialist position – Jim Owen left this position back in January to accept a position with USDA in Wooster, OH. The nursery production position is the number one hiring priority at the AREC. The university is currently under a hiring freeze so it is unclear when campus administration will allow us to fill this important faculty position. •