In A Chinese Garden

The light was fading, the rain was falling and the leaves played like fish beneath one of the many pavillions that provide respite in the garden. Not a great many maples were still holding their leaves on this 1st day of December, but this little poser kindly obliged. Need sound? Give a listen to this story.

I am no indiscriminate city booster. And never mind that my voice is on the audio tour (snore). I have watched this garden grow and mature since its opening in 2000 and I now consider a good many of its plants my personal friends. As such, I can think of no other garden open to the public where it's absolutely always a good time to visit (OK, so skip it when it's crowded). Of course there are richer moments than others — particularly when fragrances float on the air — but the garden is simply too complex to reveal itself in any single day.

The last fruit on a persimmon tree as shown off by a shower of weeping willow and the peaked roofs that take wing throughout the garden. I like to think of them as directionals to more celestial planes.I fear you're going to want to know the name of the persimmon tree above. The number of Diospyros species is frightening so as of this writing I can't say for sure, except that because it's in the Chinese garden, it ain't going to be one of our native trees.

Bromelliads as blooming plants

Bromelliads, or "Air Plants"( specifically, those Tillandsia species which are so commonly used as ornamental, yet disposable plants by many designers, installation artists). They have many interesting forms, and thus, they appeal to the hipster in all of us, but they are also nice when treated in a less ornamental way - like these in my my collection. Treat these mini bromeliads like real plants, and they can be long-lived, as well as blooming plants.

 

First, start with your container. They may be called "air plants" but don't be mislead into believing that they live off of the air - they require moisture, almost constantly. A Brooklyn apartment is not quite the same as forest in Florida, with 100% humidity, so find the most humid spot in your home, which will most likely be over your kitchen sink, or in the bathroom.

Second, they do need light. In the wild, these species grow on tree branches in live trees, so although you may think that they like shade, the truth is that they require light, even sunshine, especially in the winter.

Third, don 't think they they will live in a terrarium, for here is where the name "air plant" has some truth to it - Tillandsia require fresh air, think - tropical, moist breezes. The atmosphere in a glass dome may be humid, but it is also a stagnant air mass, a breeding zone for fungus. Air plants like things simple, but precise - tropical downpours, brisk trade winds to dry off their leaves, and a bird dropping or a dead ant every now and then.

　　
Spanish moss ( a Tilandsia species too) helps to create a moist atmosphere around these rootless plants. I wrap moist sphagnum moss around the stumpy end of each plant, and then set it into a wooden basket. The potted baskets are then hung in the greenhouse, and most essentially, brought outdoors for the summer, where they spend a vacation on the shady side of the deck enjoying summer downpours, thundershowers and yes, even a nutritious bird poop or two ( never three, and always canary sized).

ARS plant report the global warming



ARS plant physiologist Jack Morgan

 ARS plant physiologist Jack Morgan leads the study, which uses both CO2 pipelines and thermal infrared heaters to simulate global warming conditions predicted for the end of the century: 600 parts per million (ppm) of CO2-in comparison to today's average 390 ppm-and day/night temperatures raised by 3 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively. Warmer temperatures increase water loss to the atmosphere, leading to drier soils. In contrast, higher CO2 levels cause leaf stomatal pores to partly close, lessening the amount of water vapor that escapes and the amount of water plants draw from soil. This newly released study finds that CO2 does more to counterbalance warming-induced water loss than previously expected. In fact, simulations of levels of warming and CO2 predicted for later this century demonstrated no net change in soil water, and actually increased levels of plant growth for warm-season grasses.

"By combining higher temperatures with elevated CO2 levels in an experiment on actual rangeland, these scientists are in the process of developing the scientific knowledge base to help prepare managers of the world's rangelands for what is likely to happen as climate changes in the future," said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency. The results cover the first four years of the eight-year Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment (PHACE) experiment on native northern mixed grass rangeland. The study is being conducted by the ARS Rangeland Resources Research Unit (RRRU) at the High Plains Grasslands Research Station near Cheyenne, Wyo.

Based on these findings, warmer temperatures would likely play a role in changing the relative success of various grass types. "Only the warm-season grasses had their growth boosted higher by CO2 and warmer temperatures," Morgan said. "If this leads to a competitive advantage for warm-season grasses, it may increase the challenges faced by ranchers who desire cool-season grasses for early-season forage".
Elise Pendall and David Williams at the University of Wyoming at Laramie and Matthew Wallenstein at Colorado State University at Fort Collins also are participating in the study, which will be completed in 2013. Retired ARS soil scientist Bruce Kimball, designer of the infrared heater system, is helping conduct the study. Kimball serves as a research collaborator at the ARS U.S.

Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center in Maricopa, Ariz.Grass-dominated, dry rangelands account for approximately a third of the Earth's land surface, providing most of the forage eaten by livestock. This research, the first of its kind on this scale for rangelands, supports the USDA priority of helping farmers and ranchers throughout the United States and the rest of the world best adapt production practices to variable climate patterns.

Cool-season grasses and Warm-season grasses

For swine effluent however, the economic model suggests that higher fertilizer levels could generate higher returns since the marginal-value product has still not decreased, Park said. At such higher fertilizer levels, it is possible that swine effluent could result in significantly higher dry matter yields than urea, he said.
Based on average economic returns, the economic model was not able to provide a single best alternative, but it was able to conclude that cool-season grasses perform better than warm-season grasses, Park said.
Four alternatives from the cool-season grasses emerge as generating the highest economic return. These include orchard grass applied with 450 pounds per acre of swine effluent, orchard grass applied with 50 pounds of urea, wheatgrass applied with 450 pounds of swine effluent and wheatgrass applied with 50 pounds of urea.

Park recently had the results of his study reported in the Journal of American Society of Farm Manager and Rural Appraisal. The study was funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for "Comprehensive Animal Waste Systems in Semiarid Ecosystems." Cooperators in the study were Dr. Jeffrey Vitale and Dr. Jeffory Hattey, both with Oklahoma State University.The study reviewed the risk and economics of intensive forage production systems under four alternative types of forage and two alternative nitrogen sources, he said. The results will help farmers make better informed production decisions.

The study compared two cool-season grasses orchard grass and wheatgrass with two warm-season grasses. Bermuda grass and buffalo grass, he said. The two nitrogen sources used to fertilize the crop were urea or swine effluent. Park said their model showed that intensified production of cool-season grasses with the application of fertilizer appeared to be the more economically viable option for producers in the Southern Plains. This, in part, was due to seasonal constraints on forage production which drive up prices of cool-season grasses, he said, providing better marketing opportunities than warm-season grasses.
When combined with lower production costs and more stable yields, cool-season grasses have higher returns and less risk than warm-season grasses, which often have negative returns, Park said.

The average economic return of the cool-season grasses was $274.17 per acre, which was considerably higher than the warm-season grasses average return of $36.64 per acre, he said. "This is an interesting result, since the dry matter yields of warm-season grasses were found to be significantly higher in the field trials than those of the cool-season grasses," Park said.

The difference between yield and economic performance can be explained by both the higher market prices and lower variable costs of the cool-season grasses that compensated for the lower yields, he said.
When it came to the comparison of swine effluent and urea, Park said the swine effluent generated significantly greater returns when applied on the warm-season grasses but provided no growth advantage over urea on the cool-season grasses.

All the grasses respond to higher fertilizer levels, he said. However, the economic model showed urea applications beyond 150 pounds per acre would never be economically efficient due to declining product value at a higher rate. Future research will be mandatory to explore different types of warm- and cool-season forages to identify a wider range of options for producers, he said. "This should include investigating other types of management options including herbicides, integration into crop rotations and other types of animal manure, especially beef," Park said. "This could also provide solutions to producers from a wider range of farming systems beyond the Oklahoma Panhandle and Southern Plains".

While there were slight differences in economic returns between them, ranging between. $297.19 and $305.03 per acre, the differences were not significant, Park said. The performance ranking of each forage species was, however, dependent on the decision maker's attitude toward risk, Park said. Urea was found to have less risk than swine effluent and would be the preferred choice for even modestly risk-averse producers.