July 12, 2024 • 49 mins
Join us for a rich discussion with our distinguished guest, Ryan Contreras, a leading expert in ornamental horticulture from Oregon State University. Ryan shares his incredible journey from the fields of eastern North Carolina to becoming a renowned professor, revealing pivotal moments and key mentorships that shaped his career.
Step into the world of invasive plant species and biotechnology with Ryan as he unpacks the significant ecological threats posed by plants like Scotch broom and English ivy. Learn about the origins and impacts of these species and how new biotechnological tools like CRISPR are revolutionizing plant breeding. Ryan's insights shed light on the potential of precision tools in maintaining desired plant traits while eliminating undesirable ones, making this a must-listen episode for anyone passionate about plant science and environmental conservation.
Explore groundbreaking developments in drought-resistant plant varieties and the collaborative efforts in bioinformatics and genomics aimed at tackling climate change. Ryan discusses his innovative work on Hibiscus syriacus and other ornamental plants, sharing the excitement around new technologies like the Plant Array system for drought stress evaluation. This episode promises to inspire and educate, offering a glimpse into the dynamic and ever-evolving field of plant science through the eyes of one of its most dedicated experts.
See below for more information about Ryan Contreras and his work:
https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/47/9/article-p1210.xml
https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/57/4/article-p558.xml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxRnV4cDhT8&ab_channel=OregonAgricultureintheClassroom
Learn more about the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) at https://ashs.org/.
HortTechnology, HortScience and the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science are all open-access and peer-reviewed journals, published by the American Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS). Find them at journals.ashs.org.
Consider becoming an ASHS member at https://ashs.org/page/Becomeamember!
You can also find the official webpage for Plants, People, Science at ashs.org/plantspeoplesciencepodcast, and we encourage you to send us feedback or suggestions at https://ashs.org/webinarpodcastsuggestion.
Podcast transcripts are available at https://plantspeoplescience.buzzsprout.com.
On LinkedIn find Sam Humphrey at linkedin.com/in/samson-humphrey. Curt Rom is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/curt-rom-611085134/. Lena Wilson is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-wilson-2531a5141/.
Thank you for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Curt Rom (00:13):
Welcome to Plants People Science, a podcast of the
American Society forHorticulture Science, where we
like to talk about all thingshorticulture.
I'm your co-host, Curt RomUniversity, professor of
Horticulture at the Universityof Arkansas, and joining me
today is our co-host, SamsonHumphrey.
(00:33):
Welcome, Samson.
Sam Humphrey (00:36):
Welcome, Curt.
How are you doing?
Curt Rom (00:39):
I'm doing real well.
It's another great summer day.
Sam Humphrey (00:43):
I made the first homemade lemonade I've ever made
in my life this week and it wasreally incredible.
It's getting hot here.
It was very, very necessary.
Curt Rom (00:54):
It's getting hot here too.
You know, I was thinking aboutour former co-host Lara last
night because I was making basilpesto and Lara was working at
Rutgers on fungus resistantbasil.
So now, whenever I have basilin my dinner or in my salad or I
make pesto, I think about ourformer co-host.
Sam Humphrey (01:16):
See, I have the opposite problem.
When people think ofstrawberries, they think of me,
and so they always send mestrawberry texts.
But I'm at the very tail end ofmy master's, and so every time
I see the word strawberry it's alittle bit grating on my brain.
I've written it too many times.
I hope you don't feel that way,though, craig.
Curt Rom (01:36):
No, you know, I still love strawberries and I still
think highly of you, but I canmake the difference.
Sam Humphrey (01:43):
Just avoid saying the word around me, please.
Curt Rom (01:46):
I'll avoid.
You know strawberries and younotice I never ask you how's
your thesis coming along?
Sam Humphrey (01:55):
I.
You know, Curt, I appreciate somuch about you.
That's just one of the many,many things that I love about
our friendship.
It's going well.
I am in the last month of it,and so I'm trying to relax a
little bit.
Curt Rom (02:09):
I made the lemonade.
Sam Humphrey (02:10):
I made cookies this morning and I will make
cookies this afternoon.
What have you been up to?
Curt Rom (02:16):
Well, you know, again into the midst of summer at work
, I've got some fieldexperiments and a greenhouse
experiment, propagationexperiment on elderberry that
I'm doing, and then my apples inthe field and watching some
other projects that I'mcollaborating with.
My major hobby, as you know, ishome gardening, and so my
(02:36):
vegetable garden has beenplagued with a little bit of
excessive drought and not asgood as I would like to say.
I'm not going to brag on myvegetable garden.
My flower gardens are doingreasonably well.
I've got my rabbit problemunder control and my Japanese
beetle problem under control,but my flower gardens are doing
very well right now.
Sam Humphrey (02:58):
All our listeners with rabbit and beetle problems
are cursing you for your rabbitand beetle success.
That is something to brag about.
Well done, Curt.
Curt Rom (03:06):
Okay, I guess we probably ought to get into our
conversation today.
I want to welcome our audience.
Glad that you're joining ustoday.
Sam Humphrey (03:14):
Our guest today is Ryan Contreras.
Leading up to the ASHSconferences, I'm reflecting more
and more on my experiences atprevious ASHS conferences and I
actually met Ryan through one ofmy experiences at previous ASHS
conferences, and I actually metRyan through one of those
experiences.
He was talking about researchand mentorship philosophies, and
our guest today is just areally wonderful person.
(03:37):
You've actually known him for along time, haven't you?
Curt Rom (03:40):
I've known Ryan since he was a graduate student, and
he's just a rock star in theornamental world, so it's going
to be a real honor and delightto have him as our guest today.
Sam Humphrey (03:52):
Introducing Ryan Contreras.
Let's give the interview alisten.
Curt Rom (04:07):
Welcome, Dr.
Contreras.
Ryan Contreras (04:08):
How are you doing today?
I'm fantastic, Dr.
Rom.
Curt Rom (04:12):
Thanks for having me Well we're glad to have you here
.
Ryan Contreras (04:15):
Before we get started on today's conversation,
how would you like us to referto you Dr Contreras or what's
your preference?
Ryan is very comfortable withme.
You know I tell my studentsyou're welcome to call me Ryan
if you're comfortable, or DrContreras if you prefer
formality.
The only one I don't reallylike is Mr Contreras.
(04:35):
You know we worked really hardfor that doctorate, so but Ryan,
ryan will do just fine, okay,ryan, and you can call me Kurt,
and of course, I'd like you tomeet our co-host, samson.
Sam Humphrey (04:47):
Hey, Ryan, I'm so happy you're here, hey thanks
for having me.
Ryan Contreras (04:50):
Good to see you.
Sam Humphrey (04:52):
For the listeners who for some reason don't know
who you are, could you pleaseintroduce yourself?
What do you do?
Ryan Contreras (05:00):
So I am a professor, I'm at Oregon State
University in the Department ofHorticulture and I am an
ornamental plant breeder.
I've been here since Decemberof 2009.
So, for folks not familiar,oregon State University, we're
the orange and black one northof University of Oregon, so
(05:21):
we're the beavers and we'relocated in Corvallis, oregon,
north of University of Oregon.
Sam Humphrey (05:25):
So we're the Beavers and we're located in
Corvallis Oregon which is in theWillamette Valley, western
Oregon, about an hour and a halfsouth of Portland.
Ryan Contreras (05:34):
How'd you end up there?
How did you become anornamental plant scientist?
Yeah well, how did I become anornamental plant scientist is?
You know I have what I feellike is a bit of a circuitous
route, not not compared to somefolks, but I actually.
So I'm from eastern NorthCarolina and I went to NC State.
I started in 1996 and I actuallystarted my education wanting to
(05:57):
be an ag ed teacher.
So I started with ag ed andextension and a concentration in
horticulture.
So my my goal at that time whenI started was to go get my
degree and then move back toBeaufort, north Carolina, and
run the ag program and start ahorticulture program, because we
(06:18):
had a greenhouse there but itwas essentially a storage place
and we used it for a petting zooonce a year but no horticulture
was being done.
And I knew I did know that Iwanted to do something with
plants and I liked horticulture.
I during my first year I wastaking animal science and metal
shop and I took my firsthorticulture class with Bryce
(06:39):
Lane and Bryce is one of themost charismatic teachers and
one of the best instructors thathas ever walked the planet and
mine is a common story that youknow.
After that I was less interestedin agriculture, writ large and
really.
So I came to horticulture,transferred in or changed majors
(07:01):
into horticulture and was inthe standard sort of production
option.
And you know, I went throughand I took a broad suite of
classes and during my senioryear I went and did an
internship at the Center for theStudy of Early Events in
Photosynthesis at Arizona StateUniversity with Ken Huber and it
(07:25):
was a really fascinatinginternship where we were radio
labeling protein constituentsand looking at what you know the
light, harvesting complexproteins whether they were
assembling in the thylakoid oryou know how, how these
essential proteins that are thecore of life, where they were
(07:46):
assembling.
And nobody had answered thesefundamental questions before and
I was just so blown away bythat and it was an amazing
opportunity to learn new labskills and gain a little bit of
a scientific acumen.
I had an opportunity to presentto folks who had been studying
these, had been studying this,these types of things, for 40
years and I learned all of thosethings.
(08:09):
But what I learned more thananything was that I did not want
to be a solely a lab scientistfor the rest of my life.
I was in the desert, the valleyof the sun, and spent eight to
10 hours a day in a windowlessroom, you know doing doing
working with a Clamidomonasreinhardii, which is a
(08:29):
photosynthetic algae.
So so I came back and, you know, during during my senior year,
I was, I, I I ran out of ascholarship that was from my
high school.
It was a four-year scholarship.
So at the termination of that,which was 2000, I took about
(08:51):
nine to 10 months off and workedin pizza places, worked in
sandwich shops, but I mostdistinctly remember I did a lot
of landscaping off and on.
But I most distinctly rememberit was August and in Raleigh, in
the red clay and the heat ofAugust, and I was digging a
French drain and I looked overand the rest of the crew was
(09:13):
standing there, you know,chewing tobacco, drinking
Mountain Dew in the shade, and Iwas digging a French drain and
I was 19 hours from having my BSin horticultural science.
So I pulled out my phone and Icalled the owner of the company
and I gave him my two weeksnotice and I went back and got
to finish in my 19 hours that Ihad to go and during that time
(09:35):
was when I it was really a thatwas an inflection point.
So during that last term I wasthere, I took plant propagation
with Denny Werner.
During that last term I wasthere, I took plant propagation
with Denny Werner, of course asa legendary peach and
ornamentals breeder, and duringthat, during that time, well, I
(09:59):
learned you know, that could bean hour and a half conversation
just on what I learned aboutbeing a human and being a
scientist from Denny.
He's one of my great mentors.
But but during that time I toldhim that I wanted to do an
independent research project andI'm really interested in woody
plants.
I've gotten interested ingenetics and would really like
to do some independent studyproject and he put me on a
project to do chromosome countsin honeycomb buddleia and so in
(10:23):
that process he introduced me toDr Shamal Rao-Tallery, who is a
cytogeneticist in the peanutcytogenetics program at that
time and so I went over and youknow we Dr Tallery started
training me and you know roottip collection and we started
going through the whole processand I was moderately successful
(10:45):
in my work on.
You know I got some decentenough counts to show them to Dr
Werner that you know it doesn'tseem to be a triploid.
And so anyway, it was that partof it was moderately successful
.
Denny was satisfied enough andso I got my independent study
credit.
But what it did is it launchedme with Dr Tallery and so I
(11:06):
actually stayed on with DrTallery working in the peanut
cytogenetics program for twoyears and during that time it
was incredible.
I got to start doing rapids andAFLPs and we were doing
traditional crosses, we did someploidy manipulation in wild
species of peanuts, trying tointergress, disease resistance
(11:27):
and insect resistance, and itwas just, you know, a full
development of all of theseskills simultaneously and you
know field technique and just somany good things.
And it was just a reallymarvelous time to be in the
peanut breeding and cytogeneticsprogram.
It was a yeah, sort of a heyday, I think.
And you know some of the peopleI got to work with Tom Islub,
(11:51):
suzanne Amelia Lewis, who's nowa turf breeder at North Carolina
State.
She was a graduate student thenand sort of held my hand
through a lot of my own graduatework that I later did.
But anyway, but I distinctlyremember we were in Lewiston,
north Carolina, doing diseasescreening and Lewiston is well,
(12:11):
all of eastern North Carolina isflat.
But I remember standing in themiddle of a field we were doing
disease screening and I turnedto 360.
And there was peanuts as far asthe eye could see, and I'm a
horticulturist was peanuts asfar as the eye could see and I'm
a horticulturist.
And that was sort of that samedigging a French drain kind of a
moment where I then I went backto Danny Werner and I said, hey
(12:33):
, I think I'm ready to be backinto horticulture and I would
like to start breeding somewoody plants.
Do you know of anyopportunities?
And he said, oh, I think thisguy.
And he said I think this guyTom Ranney has, you know, I
think he's got an assistantshipcoming up.
And so I looked him up, senthim an email and he graced me
(12:57):
with an interview and again,never forget this that I was
about 20 minutes late to meetingwith one of the greatest
ornamental plant breeders on theplanet, because I was loading a
gel to run a rapid for the 268base pair marker for the
resistance that we were lookingat in these peanut populations,
(13:20):
and Tom has also not forgottenthat.
So anyway, I got on with DrRanney and what I will say if
there's students that arelistening what I will say is
those experiences.
It's not the coursework.
He looked at my coursework andhe did ask me why did you have
such a bad grade in quantitativechemistry?
I didn't really have an answerfor that, but what was of more
(13:45):
interest to Dr Ranney was thetwo years that I spent in a
breeding program, learning allof these real world applicable
skills and breeding techniqueand, you know, related to that.
I wouldn't have known how toanswer this question, but he
asked me what kind of work doyou want to do?
What kind of project do youwant to be involved in?
And because of all those youknow, the extensive skills and
(14:08):
or the experience of being in abreeding program I was able to
say you know, I would likesomething that I can do some
traditional breeding.
I'd like to make some crosses,try to do some improvement.
I would like to continue doingsome cytogenetics.
I really like, you know, ploidymanipulation and I like ploidy
analysis.
And then I would like to dosomething that has some
(14:28):
molecular component.
I'd like to, you know, use somemarkers and do something along
those lines.
And I think you know thecombination of having two years
with the peanut genetics programand the ability to come in and,
you know, say these are thetypes of things I want to do in
a project is why he took me on,even though I showed up looking
like a rag muffin and I was 20minutes late and I had a C minus
(14:52):
or something in quantitativechemistry.
So anyway, that's how I got onwith Tom and of course his
program is he's one of the bestgraduate advisors, you know
that's ever been and reallyhelped launch me.
And it also, again, one dooropens another, and so you know
(15:16):
my success.
I worked hard with Dr Rennie andwas then recruited by John
Reuter out of University ofGeorgia, was then recruited by
John Reuter out of University ofGeorgia, and that was a really
fun time to be with Dr Reuterbecause he was really
transitioning from being one ofthe best nursery extension
agents that's ever been toreally transitioning more to
(15:37):
germplasm plant evaluation andgetting into plant breeding more
heavily.
But was really phenomenal thathe, he, I went down to Tifton
after I did my coursework inAthens and I went down there and
he just, you know, he kind ofopened the door, you know when.
When I got there, he said youknow, I want you to do there's.
There was two projects he saidI'd like you to do these and
(15:59):
both of them were chromosomedoubling projects on some plants
he was working on.
So but other than that, youknow, I don't care how you do it
and I don't really care whatelse you work on, and he had,
you know, hundreds of generadown there and it was really fun
.
It was just like a kid in acandy store, like you get to do
whatever you want, and so itgave me a lot of free reign.
(16:21):
I spent a lot of time failing,had some successes and got to
work with amazing folks.
Peggy is Isaiah Aikens, who is.
You know, what do you say aboutDr Isaiah Aikens?
She's a brilliant scientist andeven though she is an
exceedingly kind person, herbrilliance is intimidating.
(16:45):
But so she works on apamexisand in a few different crops,
and Wayne Hanna was also a keymember of my graduate advising
team down there and neither ofthem work on ornamental plants.
So that's something else Iwould like to tell.
(17:05):
You know, if there are studentsthat are listening, don't just
look within your field.
So, if you're a grape breeder,don't just look at at grape
breeders or grape geneticistsfor help and guidance.
Um, you know, make sure you'relooking throughout, uh, not just
the horticultural discipline,but, uh, crop science and botany
(17:26):
and plant pathology or whereverit is.
So anyway, that is a very longway of saying how I became an
ornamental plant breeder.
I was, I was fortunate enoughand I think timing is a lot of
timing is everything when I hadtaken my prelims, but I was
still a year and a half awayfrom defending and this position
(17:50):
came open and I you know youhave to you got to shoot your
shot.
So I applied and I think I wasfortunate that there weren't
there, apparently was not a awhole cadre of folks coming out
of their PhD who were interestedin woody plant breeding in the
Pacific Northwest at that time.
So I was very fortunate enoughto be offered this job and they
(18:12):
waited for me to finish writingmy dissertation, defend and
drive out here.
So that's my very long story ofhow I came to Corvallis and I
can tell you there's not that'san interesting story, thank you.
There's not many places thatare more on opposite of poles
than Tifton, georgia, andCorvallis, oregon.
(18:32):
I can tell you that.
Curt Rom (18:34):
Well, you're in the heart of one of the most diverse
and intense nursery systems inthe United States, so it's kind
of a great place for you to land.
So, at Oregon State, tell uswhat do you do, what are your
responsibilities?
You obviously research, but doyou have teaching extension?
Tell us a little bit about whatyou do.
Ryan Contreras (18:56):
Yeah, my, my job has evolved a little bit over
the years, as many of these arewant to do.
So I was hired at a prettyheavy teaching appointment.
When I was hired, I had lots ofdifferent aspects, but what it
came down to was about 45%teaching, 55% research, and then
, of course, there's service inthere and things, and so I was
(19:17):
teaching plant identification inthe spring and the fall, and
we're on the quarter system herein Corvallis, so we have spring
, winter and fall quarters herein Corvallis, so we have spring,
winter and fall quarters.
So in the spring and fall I wasteaching plant identification,
and in the fall I was alsoteaching a plant growth and
development course and over theyears I picked up plant
propagation.
(19:37):
So then I was teaching fourclasses on campus, and also in
2011, anita Azarenko, who's theformer department head and
former vice president for ASHS.
She was a visionary and launchedthe first in the country
eCampus degree, so I startedteaching all my classes by
(19:59):
eCampus and, yeah, so at onepoint we had I had nine sections
of teaching that I wasresponsible for, but we
transitioned that, so graduatestudents and other faculty here
in my under my banner are takingthose on.
Yeah, so I've actually tried totaper down my teaching a little
(20:22):
bit.
So I'm trying to just stickwith plant propagation and plant
growth and development.
But in 2021, I picked up someadministrative role.
So now I am research teachingand I'm the associate head for
horticulture.
So you know, all of thosethings keep one busy.
Curt Rom (20:44):
Yeah well, thanks.
Yeah well, careers evolve overtime.
You know we're evolutionary inour academic pursuit, but thanks
for sharing that.
Sam Humphrey (20:54):
So we reached out to you because you've recently
published a paper called GeneticMethods for Mitigating
Invasiveness of Woody OrnamentalPlants Research Needs and
Opportunities.
This is a fantastic paper Toget started on this topic.
We were curious if you couldtalk to us about what
invasiveness means.
(21:15):
We were talking with someonewho's not a plant scientist but
who listens to the podcast andshe was saying invasive, native,
non-native.
What do all these terms mean?
Could you give us the verybasics of this?
Ryan Contreras (21:27):
Yeah, you know, that really depends who you ask
what invasiveness is.
I can tell you that thedefinition that we like to use,
that I like to use, you know,invasiveness is a plant that
develops or spreads on its ownaccord.
So without human intervention,it spreads of its own accord
(21:51):
such that it forms a monocultureand displaces all other flora
in the same location.
So if you've ever seen scotchbroom here in the Pacific
Northwest, himalayan blackberrywill do this.
But in the South and actuallyhere, english ivy is maybe the
(22:13):
worst, where it just completelycovers a dug fir and will crowd
it out and kills the dug fir.
And in the Southeast you've gotChinese privet.
It's a pretty notorious one.
Japanese honeysuckle is anotherone that covers millions of
acres.
People think about invasiveplants as being non-native and
(22:33):
that generally I would say mostof the invasive plants that we
have that we consider invasivesand all of those ones that I
just mentioned are non-nativeplants as well.
But we do have an interestingconundrum here in Oregon and the
West with western juniper.
So because of fire suppression,western juniper has started
(22:54):
running rampant and it truly hasbecome invasive and it's
because it has a deep taprootand these, these areas that were
previously grasslands and it'sdropping the water table, so
it's it's it's now exacerbatingand it's dropping the water
table, so it's now exacerbating.
You know the drought situation,so you know, yeah, so I think.
An invasive plant.
It causes ecological andeconomic harm, displaces other
(23:17):
flora.
Curt Rom (23:17):
That's real interesting.
We actually have a nativejuniper problem as well too,
when we clear cut forests, etcetera.
You know there's some greatstories about invasive plants
and I want to get kind of getback to that.
Where do these invasive plantscome from?
I mean, are they accidentalimmigrants or are they
introduced?
I particularly think about thestory of Caloriana pear, which
(23:41):
there's a link to Oregon StateUniversity, and the first report
of escaped Bradford pearmythologically occurred in my
state, arkansas, two years afterthe Bradford pear was released
by the USDA.
Where do invasive plants comefrom?
And you know, what role do wehave as scientists about this
(24:03):
have?
Ryan Contreras (24:04):
scientists about this.
Yeah, you know, I don't want topretend that I know.
You know everything there is toknow about where all of them
have come from.
But you know, ornamentalhorticulture is certainly a it's
got a black eye fromintroducing plants.
The thing is not to get toopreachy on it.
But you know we have this builtlandscape that's not native,
(24:27):
and so we've introduced plantsthat are going to be resilient
in a concrete jungle wherethere's poor soil, low soil
volume, and so we ask plants tonot just survive but to thrive
in these environments, and wewant them to flower, we want
them to fruit, we want them tobe beautiful and do all of these
things for us, and some of themdo it exceedingly well, and
(24:50):
they do it to the point wherethey are so successful that they
then escape cultivation.
But as far as you know wherethey come from, I mean, a lot of
our flora comes from Asia, from, you know, southeast Asia,
eastern Asia, uh, asia, from.
You know, southeast Asia,eastern Asia, um, you know a lot
of invasive plants are fromfrom China, but that's, that's
(25:11):
not.
That's not it.
You know, uh, we have some.
You know, prunus loris racis, Ibelieve you know it's from the
caucus region.
Uh, and it's been, uh, it'sbecome quite a bit of a problem
here in the Pacific Northwest,escaping cultivation English ivy
is uh.
So I don't think there's simplyone location, I think you know,
(25:31):
related to invasiveness.
There's what's called the ruleof tens, and so one in 10 plants
will survive without humanintervention and it might, you
know, a seedling here or there.
One in 10 of those will form anaturalized population that,
will you know, survive and itwill then become part of the
biodiversity.
It's not reducing biodiversity,actually, if it's naturalized
(25:53):
but not displacing, it actuallyis increasing the biodiversity.
But then one in 10 of thoseactually becomes invasive.
So essentially, one in athousand plants that we
introduce is going to becomeinvasive.
Plants that we introduce isgoing to become invasive.
And simply just on theprobability, we introduced so
(26:17):
many plants from Asia that mostof our invaders come from Asia.
I don't know that there'sanything inherently invasive
about Asian plants, it's justwe've introduced a lot of them
and some of them have taken hold.
Curt Rom (26:24):
Well in our reading, since you say they come from
Asia.
I know early plant explorationby the USDA occurred in Asia and
China, in a large part becausethey thought that the climate
was so similar to the UnitedStates, and so a plant that
would be adapted in parts ofAsia would readily be adapted to
(26:46):
the United States.
And it's interesting, just kindof, from the story you told us
there.
I guess it's the unintendedconsequence of good intentions.
Ryan Contreras (26:55):
Absolutely yeah, and you're right.
Yeah, you know, plant huntershave been really savvy and go
into climate appropriate regionsto search for.
So when, when Dr Reuter wasdown in in the, the forgotten
zone eight of Tifton, he likesto call it, he was really
interested in Taiwanese plants.
(27:16):
Right, very similar climate,hot, humid, and and he found a
lot of cool plants that wehadn't grown in the United
States that he brought in fromTaiwan.
So, yeah, that's fascinating.
Sam Humphrey (27:29):
So there are lots of reasons that plants can
become invasive, lots of traitsthey can have that can make them
more likely to become invasive.
I study strawberries in mymaster's research and I've never
thought about how plantbreeders try to make plants
better for people, try to makeplants that grow well, but how
(27:50):
that can actually lead to thembecoming maybe invasive.
What can plant breeders do inthe opposite direction to maybe
prevent invasiveness?
Ryan Contreras (28:00):
Yeah, you know there are a number of different
techniques and you know thatpaper you mentioned where Kelly
Bining was the lead and SteveStrauss.
It's due for an update.
Due for an update for sure.
But you know there's a numberof ways.
Wide hybrids, you know, youcross a horse and a donkey, you
(28:21):
get a mule and that's a breedingdead end, but it's a very
useful organism and so that'sone of the approaches that we're
trying is wide hybridization.
You can also use mutagenesis,right.
So you just point the shotgun,whether it's a chemical like
ethylmethane, sulfonate or gammaradiation, and you just try to
(28:44):
knock stuff out.
And we've successfully donethat in a couple of different
plants.
Haven't commercialized anythingyet, but that's a very shotgun
approach.
And then you know, on the veryopposite end of that is, you
know, precision biotechnology,you know using things like zinc,
finger nucleases to go in anddo floral ablation and you get
(29:07):
rid of the floral parts, right,you get rid of all of the
anthers or get rid of the pistol, and you just create a plant
that has nothing but petals.
And there are a number ofexamples of just selecting four
plants that have increasedpetaloid stamens or petaloid
reproductive structures.
(29:29):
What we have done mostly in mybreeding program is using ploidy
manipulation.
So we're changing the number ofsets of chromosomes that a
plant has to render themseedless, and this is the same
technique as in bananas.
So bananas are a triploid.
They've got three of the Agenome in Cavendish banana.
(29:49):
And what's interesting aboutthat technique is it is highly
variable depending on the plantthat you're working with.
So in some plants, like inbanana, it seems to be ironclad.
I have never chipped a tooth ona banana seed, so you never see
a banana seed.
But then you know, in plantslike apple.
(30:10):
So gravenstein apple,gravenstein red apple, is a
triploid.
But if you cut it open thereare seeds inside.
And so some plants it doesn'tseem to render them completely
seedless.
Some plants it does.
There's a really great paperfrom Tom Ranney's lab with
Whitney Phillips as the leadauthor on, and it looked at
(30:31):
different populations oftriploid flowering pears
Speaking of that, dr Rahmmentioned calorie pear and some
of the triploids were virtuallysterile and then others were not
that greatly reduced at all.
So those are the maintechniques that are at our
(30:51):
disposal.
The challenge with thebiotechnology thing is, you know
, it requires reliable sequence,information and regeneration
methods that we don't have formost of our woody plants.
But as sequencing goes down andmethods of gene editing and
introducing those yeah, the geneediting tools into the plant,
(31:16):
changes where it no longerrequires potentially going all
the way to a callus and thenregenerating a plant, so I think
the future is exciting forusing those more precision type
tools.
Curt Rom (31:25):
So I think the future is exciting for using those more
precision type tools.
So you believe techniques likeCRISPR, where gene editing is
kind of the new frontier on this, and a technique as opposed to
more that shotgun approach ofmutagenesis that you were
talking about?
Ryan Contreras (31:48):
I do.
I don't think it's going tocompletely replace it, because I
think you know, on the one hand, using precision tools like
CRISPR and other biotechnologytools are really useful, because
I can take a genotype,potentially that we want to
maintain that exact phenotypeand we don't want to change
anything about it other thanjust getting rid of seed
production.
So that might be a greatopportunity there.
But then, on the other hand,sometimes you know, as plant
breeding isn't that complex,it's just selecting something
better from a variablepopulation, well, maybe we want
(32:11):
to introduce some more variation.
So I think that shotgunapproach to continue creating
more variation from which we canselect is going to continue to
be useful.
But I mean, I we're reallyexcited we have Beth Rowan is
going to be starting as a newbiotechnology assistant
professor in our department thissummer and all of us who are
(32:31):
doing plant breeding are excitedto try to ride on her coattails
and bring some of those toolsinto our crops.
Curt Rom (32:38):
Of course, I suppose for something as specific as
gene editing, you then have tohave a map editing, you then
have to have a map, and sothere's a lot of kind of
backstory work before you canget to the product of that.
So that's kind of cool stuff,absolutely yeah.
Sam Humphrey (32:57):
But when you do get to the product, I wonder if
you reduce fertility, does thatmake it more challenging for
nurseries to grow and to sellthese plants?
Ryan Contreras (33:09):
You know, from the standpoint of propagation.
Is that what you mean?
Sam Humphrey (33:14):
I'm imagining if you're trying to sell the plant
to the general public, butactually, yeah, I guess the
issue would be in propagation.
Ryan Contreras (33:26):
Yeah.
So there's a couple of thingsthere.
One you know regarding thegeneral public, I can tell you
that the education efforts insomething like a Bradford pear
and Norway maple have been verygood.
People love to hate a Bradfordpear now, and so they think
anything that is a floweringpear is horrible, it's abhorrent
(33:50):
and it you know, you should belocked in prison for growing it.
And similarly, in the NewEngland states where Norway
maple has become highly invasiveand upper Midwest people hate
it and they love to hate it.
The problem with Bradford pearpeople think that it was
introduced to be sterile.
Well, it never was sterile, itwas only self-incompatible and
(34:12):
so, as Dr Rahm said, shortlyafter it was introduced, there
were other genotypes that wereintroduced.
And then there we go.
We need to educate the publicand we need organizations help
like American Hort right, and weneed organizations help like
(34:47):
American Hort right that canhelp.
The name is chastity and notonly is it an inner specific
hybrid, it is an, an interploidyhybrid, that's, it's a triploid
.
So it is, and it's beencompletely tested in the
presence of all of these fertilepollinizers over many years,
both in North Carolina and at JFrank Schmidt and other places.
What we're doing now withbreeding and introducing plants
is very different than you know,just introducing something
(35:10):
that's self-incompatible, sothat's part of it.
So, yeah, it is a challenge tointroduce a plant that is now
seedless through breeding butthe public still sees, you know,
as being terrible.
Just personally, I plantseedless butterfly bush in my
garden, but the education herehas been very good.
So I've got neighbors who walkby my front garden and they say
(35:33):
I can't believe you're plantingthese weedy invasive plants out
here and I say no, I promise you.
My graduate student actuallytested these for about three
years and we know that theyproduce little to no seedlings.
But on the propagation side,the good news is we clonally
propagate virtually all woodyplants and so there's no we.
(35:55):
If they're completely seedless,that's great.
We either use tissue culture,cutting propagation or some
other method that doesn'trequire seed.
Curt Rom (36:03):
Well, ryan, we've talked about a number of plants,
but tell us about some of thespecies you've worked on.
You've worked on fruit trees,acer species, maple species.
Tell us about some of the plantspecies that you've worked on
to kind of address theseproblems, and some of the
breeding work that you've done,the various kinds of species
that you've worked with.
Ryan Contreras (36:24):
Yeah, so folks may not know that Oregon is the
third largest nursery producingstate, behind California and
Florida.
But obviously or perhaps notobviously it's a very different
environment here and we are bigin woody plants, but, nurseries
(36:44):
being highly diverse, we work onin some degree.
We work on almost 50 genera.
That doesn't mean we have largeprojects on 50 different genera
.
Most of them are rather smallmutation, breeding, making a
cross here, there and evaluatingand so forth.
But we've done good work, Ithink, on Hibiscus syriacus,
(37:06):
widely adaptable sort oftropical feeling plant, but is
adaptable zone five to nine.
So we've been doing ploidymanipulation there.
Naturally occurring tetraploidmeans it has four sets of
chromosomes and we now have aploidy series from four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, 10.
And we've been evaluating thefertility or the seedling
(37:28):
production across that ploidyseries and we introduced one
plant in 2022 that recentlysecured a patent.
That's a Hibiscus syriacus andthe trade name is a petite pink
flamingo.
So we've introduced that one.
We've been working in spireaand so we have a good ploidy
series in spirea, mostlyfocusing in spirea japonica and
(37:53):
further specializing in thevariety alpina, which are really
quite dwarf.
You know everything is goingsmaller, lots are getting
smaller Folks are interested inmore compact and smaller plants,
and it also has benefits thenurseries because it requires
fewer touches, less pruning andjust less care in general when
you have a more compact plant.
(38:13):
We've been working you know anumber of folks Mark Brand at
Connecticut, tom Ranney at NCState been working on barberry.
But we've been working onbarberry and we've got some
seedless barberry coming as well.
But by far the most effort thatwe've put in to oh and I should
mention Prunus loricerasis.
It's still a really importantspecies.
(38:33):
It's still a really importantspecies.
And so we've actually beentrying to do interploidy,
interspecific crosses withPrunus loris erasus and Prunus
lucitanica.
That's a, from cytogeneticallyspeaking, it's the most
interesting group ever.
Prunus loris erasus is anaturally occurring 22 ploid.
Prunus lucitanica is an 8X andso we've been manipulating
(38:53):
ploidy in both directions and wenow have haploids that were
developed from Prunusloriseracus and we've got
induced polyploids fromLusitanica.
So I feel confident we're goingto get there.
But regardless of those, we'vestill put more effort into
maples than any other and we'vegot a triploid Norway maple and
a triploid Acer gennala or emmermaple that are both in tissue
(39:16):
culture We've been testing andhope to release in the near
future.
Sam Humphrey (39:21):
You've got a lot going on.
That is so many differentprojects and collaborations.
We're curious what is next foryou?
What are you excited aboutright now?
Ryan Contreras (39:32):
I am most excited about a system.
We just installed, a droughtstress phenotyping system called
a plant array.
So my current PhD student, keenMaher, is working on evaluating
standard cytotypes with ourinduced polyploids, and so this
system allows us to veryprecisely impose specific levels
(39:57):
of drought stress.
And because I've long wanted toget into this realm of drought
stress phenotyping but it'sreally hard People spend their
entire career doing nothing.
But you know the physiology ofdrought stress and trying to,
you know, accurately impose andevaluate plants under drought
stress.
Well, this is a game changer.
(40:18):
It's a, it's a, you know,computer-based module that you
tell it I want to put it at youknow 0.15 or 15% volumetric
water capacity or whatever it is, and it and it does it.
And then where it it, it, italso, uh, gives you the
physiological response in termsof biomass accumulation, water
use efficiency, transpiration,stomatoconductance, all of the
(40:41):
you know, all of thephysiological responses.
So that's been a real gamechanger.
And our we're we'recollaborating with Kelly Vining,
who is a bioinformatician andgenomicist, here at Oregon state
, uh, to look at gene expressionassociated with this, because
we've been developing thesepolyploids with the primary goal
(41:03):
is seedlessness, so they don'tescape cultivation and we can
reintroduce Norway maple intoMassachusetts and New York right
, because that's an importantmarket for our growers.
York right, because that's animportant market for our growers
.
But now there's some goodscientific evidence out there
that as we increase or inducepolyploids, we're also improving
(41:24):
the resilience to droughtstress.
You know, and I long ago, thephrase stuck with me, you know
it's like in the future, wateris going to be the new oil.
We're going to fight wars overwater in the future, and so I
hope we're not fighting warsover, but nevertheless the
(41:45):
climate change is going toexacerbate drought stress.
We've got longer, more severedrought stress, and so that's
what excites me right now A, theability to actually do the
phenotyping work and then thecollaboration and the reduction
in costs of some of these toolswhere we can potentially
identify genes that we can thenuse in future breeding.
(42:07):
So I think that's reallyexciting and I'd be remiss if I
didn't mention that we're youknow it is very buzzwordy and
you know it's the hot new thing,but we are collaborating with
some folks who are doing imagingand machine learning, trying to
use artificial intelligence asa preliminary screening tool If
we can identify some imagingcues where we can image large
(42:30):
populations of plants that maybe more drought resilient and
then do sort of a deepphenotyping using the plant
array.
That's where we're hoping to go.
So we have a collaborative teamput together and hoping to go
down that realm.
Sam Humphrey (42:47):
There's a lot to be hopeful for.
Curt Rom (42:51):
You know, ryan, it seems like you're very excited
about what you do.
I got one more quick questionthen we need to kind of wrap up
a little bit.
What do you like most aboutyour job as being a university
professor at a public land grantuniversity?
What gets you to the officeevery morning?
Ryan Contreras (43:16):
a great question , kurt, and there's a lot,
there's a lot.
I have the best job in theworld and I think it's a
combination of I don't do thesame thing two days in a row.
I love that and I love I've gotblisters on my hands right now
from running the chainsaw.
On Tuesday, I got to go up andrepresent the department at the
Caneberry Field Day yesterday.
I get to talk to you greatfolks this morning and I'm going
to go to the greenhouse andwatch my student set up this
(43:38):
plant array and test it out.
And so I get to work with otherexcited scientists, both
aspiring scientists that I getto help train, as well as
learning from people who've beendoing it four times as long as
me, doing it four times as longas me.
So I love the diversity, theexcitement.
I love the plants.
Curt Rom (44:06):
I love learning.
Ryan Contreras (44:06):
I just love every bit of it.
I slipped and fell into thebest career.
That fits me better thananything I can imagine.
Curt Rom (44:09):
Yeah, I agree with you , it's a good gig.
Ryan Contreras (44:12):
Yeah, it's better than digging ditches, but
you know, some days that's funtoo.
Sam Humphrey (44:17):
Ryan, thank you so much for this.
After this interview, I'm goingto go out and I'm going to
become an ornamental plantscientist.
Just like you, I'm so excitedabout the future.
Thank you so much for this.
Ryan Contreras (44:28):
Well, thank you for the opportunity to chat with
you today.
Curt Rom (44:31):
Yeah, it was a really good conversation, I think, very
enlightening.
Well, we covered a lot, butthanks for sharing all of this
with us and thank you, curt.
Well, sam, that was a reallyinteresting interview with Dr
(44:58):
Contreras.
I felt like I learned a lot.
You know again, as I said inthe interview, you know invasive
plants.
It's kind of one of thoseunintended consequences of
something that was intentionalto introduce new plants, of
something that was intentionalto introduce new plants, and it
also became clear to me that notall invasive plants are
(45:21):
invasive in all situations andall environments.
And then you know, climatechange might have an impact on
that.
Sam Humphrey (45:29):
Oh, absolutely.
And it's fascinating too,because there are even within
certain states like I am fromFlorida and I did a little bit
of invasive plant research inundergrad and even within this
relatively small area of Florida, these different governing
bodies have different lists ofthe worst invasive plants in the
(45:50):
state.
Some organizations might have alittle bit of a broader
definition of what counts asinvasive, and so there are all
these traits and all thisdiversity, and scientists are
just grappling with trying tokeep up.
So it's it's really amazing tohear Dr Contreras talk about how
(46:11):
he's using so much technologyin his work.
Curt Rom (46:16):
Yeah, you know, I think that it's really
interesting that they're usingboth kind of maybe 30 and 40
year old mutagenesis techniques,but they're also using some
real cutting edge molecularbiology, crispr techniques and
it's clear that scientistsworking on these plant systems
(46:36):
now and breeding and developingthese plants, they have a much
better understanding of it andthey're trying to avoid the
unintended consequence.
So very interesting interviewwe had.
Absolutely, I think thisepisode helped me understand the
value of ornamental plants andthe development of new cultivars
, but also enlightened me on theproblems of invasiveness, and
(47:01):
it's clear that scientists arenow aware of it and they're
using these various techniquesand a lot of these new
techniques to prevent invasiveplants as they introduce new
cultivars and new plants intoour landscapes.
Sam Humphrey (47:17):
To read more about this topic, check out Dr
Contreras' paper Genetic Methodsfor Mitigating Invasiveness of
Woody Ornamental Plants ResearchNeeds and Opportunities, which
is published in Hort Science,one of the open source
peer-reviewed journals publishedby the American Society for
Horticultural Science.
You can also reach out to DrContreras to ask him more
questions at ryancontreras atoregonstateedu.
Curt Rom (47:44):
If this interview resonates with you, I recommend
renewing your membership orjoining the American Society for
Horticultural Science so youcan be part of interest groups
like the ornamental plantbreeding, the ornamental
landscape and turf or thepropagation interest groups.
If you'd like more informationon the American Society of
(48:05):
Horticultural Science in general, go to our website.
Ashsorg Sam, thanks for theconversation today.
I enjoyed visiting with you.
It's always a pleasure.
Sam Humphrey (48:19):
It's amazing to see you, Kurt.
Curt Rom (48:22):
Have a great week until we meet again.
The ASHS podcast Plants, peopleand Science is made possible by
member dues and volunteerism.
Please go to ashsorg to learnmore.
If you're not already a memberof the ASHS, we invite you to
(48:46):
join.
Ashs is a not-for-profit andyour donations are
tax-deductible.
Sam Humphrey (48:53):
This episode was hosted by Samson Humphrey and
Kurt Rohn.
Special thanks to our audioengineer, andrew Sheldorf, our
research specialists Lena Wilsonand Andrew Sheldorf, our ASHS
support team, sarah Powell andSally Murphy, and our musician,
john Clark.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Plants People Science, a podcast of the
American Society forHorticulture Science, where we
like to talk about all thingshorticulture.
I'm your co-host, Curt RomUniversity, professor of
Horticulture at the Universityof Arkansas, and joining me
today is our co-host, SamsonHumphrey.
(00:33):
Welcome, Samson.
Sam Humphrey (00:36):
Welcome, Curt.
How are you doing?
Curt Rom (00:39):
I'm doing real well.
It's another great summer day.
Sam Humphrey (00:43):
I made the first homemade lemonade I've ever made
in my life this week and it wasreally incredible.
It's getting hot here.
It was very, very necessary.
Curt Rom (00:54):
It's getting hot here too.
You know, I was thinking aboutour former co-host Lara last
night because I was making basilpesto and Lara was working at
Rutgers on fungus resistantbasil.
So now, whenever I have basilin my dinner or in my salad or I
make pesto, I think about ourformer co-host.
Sam Humphrey (01:16):
See, I have the opposite problem.
When people think ofstrawberries, they think of me,
and so they always send mestrawberry texts.
But I'm at the very tail end ofmy master's, and so every time
I see the word strawberry it's alittle bit grating on my brain.
I've written it too many times.
I hope you don't feel that way,though, craig.
Curt Rom (01:36):
No, you know, I still love strawberries and I still
think highly of you, but I canmake the difference.
Sam Humphrey (01:43):
Just avoid saying the word around me, please.
Curt Rom (01:46):
I'll avoid.
You know strawberries and younotice I never ask you how's
your thesis coming along?
Sam Humphrey (01:55):
I.
You know, Curt, I appreciate somuch about you.
That's just one of the many,many things that I love about
our friendship.
It's going well.
I am in the last month of it,and so I'm trying to relax a
little bit.
Curt Rom (02:09):
I made the lemonade.
Sam Humphrey (02:10):
I made cookies this morning and I will make
cookies this afternoon.
What have you been up to?
Curt Rom (02:16):
Well, you know, again into the midst of summer at work
, I've got some fieldexperiments and a greenhouse
experiment, propagationexperiment on elderberry that
I'm doing, and then my apples inthe field and watching some
other projects that I'mcollaborating with.
My major hobby, as you know, ishome gardening, and so my
(02:36):
vegetable garden has beenplagued with a little bit of
excessive drought and not asgood as I would like to say.
I'm not going to brag on myvegetable garden.
My flower gardens are doingreasonably well.
I've got my rabbit problemunder control and my Japanese
beetle problem under control,but my flower gardens are doing
very well right now.
Sam Humphrey (02:58):
All our listeners with rabbit and beetle problems
are cursing you for your rabbitand beetle success.
That is something to brag about.
Well done, Curt.
Curt Rom (03:06):
Okay, I guess we probably ought to get into our
conversation today.
I want to welcome our audience.
Glad that you're joining ustoday.
Sam Humphrey (03:14):
Our guest today is Ryan Contreras.
Leading up to the ASHSconferences, I'm reflecting more
and more on my experiences atprevious ASHS conferences and I
actually met Ryan through one ofmy experiences at previous ASHS
conferences, and I actually metRyan through one of those
experiences.
He was talking about researchand mentorship philosophies, and
our guest today is just areally wonderful person.
(03:37):
You've actually known him for along time, haven't you?
Curt Rom (03:40):
I've known Ryan since he was a graduate student, and
he's just a rock star in theornamental world, so it's going
to be a real honor and delightto have him as our guest today.
Sam Humphrey (03:52):
Introducing Ryan Contreras.
Let's give the interview alisten.
Curt Rom (04:07):
Welcome, Dr.
Contreras.
Ryan Contreras (04:08):
How are you doing today?
I'm fantastic, Dr.
Rom.
Curt Rom (04:12):
Thanks for having me Well we're glad to have you here
.
Ryan Contreras (04:15):
Before we get started on today's conversation,
how would you like us to referto you Dr Contreras or what's
your preference?
Ryan is very comfortable withme.
You know I tell my studentsyou're welcome to call me Ryan
if you're comfortable, or DrContreras if you prefer
formality.
The only one I don't reallylike is Mr Contreras.
(04:35):
You know we worked really hardfor that doctorate, so but Ryan,
ryan will do just fine, okay,ryan, and you can call me Kurt,
and of course, I'd like you tomeet our co-host, samson.
Sam Humphrey (04:47):
Hey, Ryan, I'm so happy you're here, hey thanks
for having me.
Ryan Contreras (04:50):
Good to see you.
Sam Humphrey (04:52):
For the listeners who for some reason don't know
who you are, could you pleaseintroduce yourself?
What do you do?
Ryan Contreras (05:00):
So I am a professor, I'm at Oregon State
University in the Department ofHorticulture and I am an
ornamental plant breeder.
I've been here since Decemberof 2009.
So, for folks not familiar,oregon State University, we're
the orange and black one northof University of Oregon, so
(05:21):
we're the beavers and we'relocated in Corvallis, oregon,
north of University of Oregon.
Sam Humphrey (05:25):
So we're the Beavers and we're located in
Corvallis Oregon which is in theWillamette Valley, western
Oregon, about an hour and a halfsouth of Portland.
Ryan Contreras (05:34):
How'd you end up there?
How did you become anornamental plant scientist?
Yeah well, how did I become anornamental plant scientist is?
You know I have what I feellike is a bit of a circuitous
route, not not compared to somefolks, but I actually.
So I'm from eastern NorthCarolina and I went to NC State.
I started in 1996 and I actuallystarted my education wanting to
(05:57):
be an ag ed teacher.
So I started with ag ed andextension and a concentration in
horticulture.
So my my goal at that time whenI started was to go get my
degree and then move back toBeaufort, north Carolina, and
run the ag program and start ahorticulture program, because we
(06:18):
had a greenhouse there but itwas essentially a storage place
and we used it for a petting zooonce a year but no horticulture
was being done.
And I knew I did know that Iwanted to do something with
plants and I liked horticulture.
I during my first year I wastaking animal science and metal
shop and I took my firsthorticulture class with Bryce
(06:39):
Lane and Bryce is one of themost charismatic teachers and
one of the best instructors thathas ever walked the planet and
mine is a common story that youknow.
After that I was less interestedin agriculture, writ large and
really.
So I came to horticulture,transferred in or changed majors
(07:01):
into horticulture and was inthe standard sort of production
option.
And you know, I went throughand I took a broad suite of
classes and during my senioryear I went and did an
internship at the Center for theStudy of Early Events in
Photosynthesis at Arizona StateUniversity with Ken Huber and it
(07:25):
was a really fascinatinginternship where we were radio
labeling protein constituentsand looking at what you know the
light, harvesting complexproteins whether they were
assembling in the thylakoid oryou know how, how these
essential proteins that are thecore of life, where they were
(07:46):
assembling.
And nobody had answered thesefundamental questions before and
I was just so blown away bythat and it was an amazing
opportunity to learn new labskills and gain a little bit of
a scientific acumen.
I had an opportunity to presentto folks who had been studying
these, had been studying this,these types of things, for 40
years and I learned all of thosethings.
(08:09):
But what I learned more thananything was that I did not want
to be a solely a lab scientistfor the rest of my life.
I was in the desert, the valleyof the sun, and spent eight to
10 hours a day in a windowlessroom, you know doing doing
working with a Clamidomonasreinhardii, which is a
(08:29):
photosynthetic algae.
So so I came back and, you know, during during my senior year,
I was, I, I I ran out of ascholarship that was from my
high school.
It was a four-year scholarship.
So at the termination of that,which was 2000, I took about
(08:51):
nine to 10 months off and workedin pizza places, worked in
sandwich shops, but I mostdistinctly remember I did a lot
of landscaping off and on.
But I most distinctly rememberit was August and in Raleigh, in
the red clay and the heat ofAugust, and I was digging a
French drain and I looked overand the rest of the crew was
(09:13):
standing there, you know,chewing tobacco, drinking
Mountain Dew in the shade, and Iwas digging a French drain and
I was 19 hours from having my BSin horticultural science.
So I pulled out my phone and Icalled the owner of the company
and I gave him my two weeksnotice and I went back and got
to finish in my 19 hours that Ihad to go and during that time
(09:35):
was when I it was really a thatwas an inflection point.
So during that last term I wasthere, I took plant propagation
with Denny Werner.
During that last term I wasthere, I took plant propagation
with Denny Werner, of course asa legendary peach and
ornamentals breeder, and duringthat, during that time, well, I
(09:59):
learned you know, that could bean hour and a half conversation
just on what I learned aboutbeing a human and being a
scientist from Denny.
He's one of my great mentors.
But but during that time I toldhim that I wanted to do an
independent research project andI'm really interested in woody
plants.
I've gotten interested ingenetics and would really like
to do some independent studyproject and he put me on a
project to do chromosome countsin honeycomb buddleia and so in
(10:23):
that process he introduced me toDr Shamal Rao-Tallery, who is a
cytogeneticist in the peanutcytogenetics program at that
time and so I went over and youknow we Dr Tallery started
training me and you know roottip collection and we started
going through the whole processand I was moderately successful
(10:45):
in my work on.
You know I got some decentenough counts to show them to Dr
Werner that you know it doesn'tseem to be a triploid.
And so anyway, it was that partof it was moderately successful
.
Denny was satisfied enough andso I got my independent study
credit.
But what it did is it launchedme with Dr Tallery and so I
(11:06):
actually stayed on with DrTallery working in the peanut
cytogenetics program for twoyears and during that time it
was incredible.
I got to start doing rapids andAFLPs and we were doing
traditional crosses, we did someploidy manipulation in wild
species of peanuts, trying tointergress, disease resistance
(11:27):
and insect resistance, and itwas just, you know, a full
development of all of theseskills simultaneously and you
know field technique and just somany good things.
And it was just a reallymarvelous time to be in the
peanut breeding and cytogeneticsprogram.
It was a yeah, sort of a heyday, I think.
And you know some of the peopleI got to work with Tom Islub,
(11:51):
suzanne Amelia Lewis, who's nowa turf breeder at North Carolina
State.
She was a graduate student thenand sort of held my hand
through a lot of my own graduatework that I later did.
But anyway, but I distinctlyremember we were in Lewiston,
north Carolina, doing diseasescreening and Lewiston is well,
(12:11):
all of eastern North Carolina isflat.
But I remember standing in themiddle of a field we were doing
disease screening and I turnedto 360.
And there was peanuts as far asthe eye could see, and I'm a
horticulturist was peanuts asfar as the eye could see and I'm
a horticulturist.
And that was sort of that samedigging a French drain kind of a
moment where I then I went backto Danny Werner and I said, hey
(12:33):
, I think I'm ready to be backinto horticulture and I would
like to start breeding somewoody plants.
Do you know of anyopportunities?
And he said, oh, I think thisguy.
And he said I think this guyTom Ranney has, you know, I
think he's got an assistantshipcoming up.
And so I looked him up, senthim an email and he graced me
(12:57):
with an interview and again,never forget this that I was
about 20 minutes late to meetingwith one of the greatest
ornamental plant breeders on theplanet, because I was loading a
gel to run a rapid for the 268base pair marker for the
resistance that we were lookingat in these peanut populations,
(13:20):
and Tom has also not forgottenthat.
So anyway, I got on with DrRanney and what I will say if
there's students that arelistening what I will say is
those experiences.
It's not the coursework.
He looked at my coursework andhe did ask me why did you have
such a bad grade in quantitativechemistry?
I didn't really have an answerfor that, but what was of more
(13:45):
interest to Dr Ranney was thetwo years that I spent in a
breeding program, learning allof these real world applicable
skills and breeding techniqueand, you know, related to that.
I wouldn't have known how toanswer this question, but he
asked me what kind of work doyou want to do?
What kind of project do youwant to be involved in?
And because of all those youknow, the extensive skills and
(14:08):
or the experience of being in abreeding program I was able to
say you know, I would likesomething that I can do some
traditional breeding.
I'd like to make some crosses,try to do some improvement.
I would like to continue doingsome cytogenetics.
I really like, you know, ploidymanipulation and I like ploidy
analysis.
And then I would like to dosomething that has some
(14:28):
molecular component.
I'd like to, you know, use somemarkers and do something along
those lines.
And I think you know thecombination of having two years
with the peanut genetics programand the ability to come in and,
you know, say these are thetypes of things I want to do in
a project is why he took me on,even though I showed up looking
like a rag muffin and I was 20minutes late and I had a C minus
(14:52):
or something in quantitativechemistry.
So anyway, that's how I got onwith Tom and of course his
program is he's one of the bestgraduate advisors, you know
that's ever been and reallyhelped launch me.
And it also, again, one dooropens another, and so you know
(15:16):
my success.
I worked hard with Dr Rennie andwas then recruited by John
Reuter out of University ofGeorgia, was then recruited by
John Reuter out of University ofGeorgia, and that was a really
fun time to be with Dr Reuterbecause he was really
transitioning from being one ofthe best nursery extension
agents that's ever been toreally transitioning more to
(15:37):
germplasm plant evaluation andgetting into plant breeding more
heavily.
But was really phenomenal thathe, he, I went down to Tifton
after I did my coursework inAthens and I went down there and
he just, you know, he kind ofopened the door, you know when.
When I got there, he said youknow, I want you to do there's.
There was two projects he saidI'd like you to do these and
(15:59):
both of them were chromosomedoubling projects on some plants
he was working on.
So but other than that, youknow, I don't care how you do it
and I don't really care whatelse you work on, and he had,
you know, hundreds of generadown there and it was really fun
.
It was just like a kid in acandy store, like you get to do
whatever you want, and so itgave me a lot of free reign.
(16:21):
I spent a lot of time failing,had some successes and got to
work with amazing folks.
Peggy is Isaiah Aikens, who is.
You know, what do you say aboutDr Isaiah Aikens?
She's a brilliant scientist andeven though she is an
exceedingly kind person, herbrilliance is intimidating.
(16:45):
But so she works on apamexisand in a few different crops,
and Wayne Hanna was also a keymember of my graduate advising
team down there and neither ofthem work on ornamental plants.
So that's something else Iwould like to tell.
(17:05):
You know, if there are studentsthat are listening, don't just
look within your field.
So, if you're a grape breeder,don't just look at at grape
breeders or grape geneticistsfor help and guidance.
Um, you know, make sure you'relooking throughout, uh, not just
the horticultural discipline,but, uh, crop science and botany
(17:26):
and plant pathology or whereverit is.
So anyway, that is a very longway of saying how I became an
ornamental plant breeder.
I was, I was fortunate enoughand I think timing is a lot of
timing is everything when I hadtaken my prelims, but I was
still a year and a half awayfrom defending and this position
(17:50):
came open and I you know youhave to you got to shoot your
shot.
So I applied and I think I wasfortunate that there weren't
there, apparently was not a awhole cadre of folks coming out
of their PhD who were interestedin woody plant breeding in the
Pacific Northwest at that time.
So I was very fortunate enoughto be offered this job and they
(18:12):
waited for me to finish writingmy dissertation, defend and
drive out here.
So that's my very long story ofhow I came to Corvallis and I
can tell you there's not that'san interesting story, thank you.
There's not many places thatare more on opposite of poles
than Tifton, georgia, andCorvallis, oregon.
(18:32):
I can tell you that.
Curt Rom (18:34):
Well, you're in the heart of one of the most diverse
and intense nursery systems inthe United States, so it's kind
of a great place for you to land.
So, at Oregon State, tell uswhat do you do, what are your
responsibilities?
You obviously research, but doyou have teaching extension?
Tell us a little bit about whatyou do.
Ryan Contreras (18:56):
Yeah, my, my job has evolved a little bit over
the years, as many of these arewant to do.
So I was hired at a prettyheavy teaching appointment.
When I was hired, I had lots ofdifferent aspects, but what it
came down to was about 45%teaching, 55% research, and then
, of course, there's service inthere and things, and so I was
(19:17):
teaching plant identification inthe spring and the fall, and
we're on the quarter system herein Corvallis, so we have spring
, winter and fall quarters herein Corvallis, so we have spring,
winter and fall quarters.
So in the spring and fall I wasteaching plant identification,
and in the fall I was alsoteaching a plant growth and
development course and over theyears I picked up plant
propagation.
(19:37):
So then I was teaching fourclasses on campus, and also in
2011, anita Azarenko, who's theformer department head and
former vice president for ASHS.
She was a visionary and launchedthe first in the country
eCampus degree, so I startedteaching all my classes by
(19:59):
eCampus and, yeah, so at onepoint we had I had nine sections
of teaching that I wasresponsible for, but we
transitioned that, so graduatestudents and other faculty here
in my under my banner are takingthose on.
Yeah, so I've actually tried totaper down my teaching a little
(20:22):
bit.
So I'm trying to just stickwith plant propagation and plant
growth and development.
But in 2021, I picked up someadministrative role.
So now I am research teachingand I'm the associate head for
horticulture.
So you know, all of thosethings keep one busy.
Curt Rom (20:44):
Yeah well, thanks.
Yeah well, careers evolve overtime.
You know we're evolutionary inour academic pursuit, but thanks
for sharing that.
Sam Humphrey (20:54):
So we reached out to you because you've recently
published a paper called GeneticMethods for Mitigating
Invasiveness of Woody OrnamentalPlants Research Needs and
Opportunities.
This is a fantastic paper Toget started on this topic.
We were curious if you couldtalk to us about what
invasiveness means.
(21:15):
We were talking with someonewho's not a plant scientist but
who listens to the podcast andshe was saying invasive, native,
non-native.
What do all these terms mean?
Could you give us the verybasics of this?
Ryan Contreras (21:27):
Yeah, you know, that really depends who you ask
what invasiveness is.
I can tell you that thedefinition that we like to use,
that I like to use, you know,invasiveness is a plant that
develops or spreads on its ownaccord.
So without human intervention,it spreads of its own accord
(21:51):
such that it forms a monocultureand displaces all other flora
in the same location.
So if you've ever seen scotchbroom here in the Pacific
Northwest, himalayan blackberrywill do this.
But in the South and actuallyhere, english ivy is maybe the
(22:13):
worst, where it just completelycovers a dug fir and will crowd
it out and kills the dug fir.
And in the Southeast you've gotChinese privet.
It's a pretty notorious one.
Japanese honeysuckle is anotherone that covers millions of
acres.
People think about invasiveplants as being non-native and
(22:33):
that generally I would say mostof the invasive plants that we
have that we consider invasivesand all of those ones that I
just mentioned are non-nativeplants as well.
But we do have an interestingconundrum here in Oregon and the
West with western juniper.
So because of fire suppression,western juniper has started
(22:54):
running rampant and it truly hasbecome invasive and it's
because it has a deep taprootand these, these areas that were
previously grasslands and it'sdropping the water table, so
it's it's it's now exacerbatingand it's dropping the water
table, so it's now exacerbating.
You know the drought situation,so you know, yeah, so I think.
An invasive plant.
It causes ecological andeconomic harm, displaces other
(23:17):
flora.
Curt Rom (23:17):
That's real interesting.
We actually have a nativejuniper problem as well too,
when we clear cut forests, etcetera.
You know there's some greatstories about invasive plants
and I want to get kind of getback to that.
Where do these invasive plantscome from?
I mean, are they accidentalimmigrants or are they
introduced?
I particularly think about thestory of Caloriana pear, which
(23:41):
there's a link to Oregon StateUniversity, and the first report
of escaped Bradford pearmythologically occurred in my
state, arkansas, two years afterthe Bradford pear was released
by the USDA.
Where do invasive plants comefrom?
And you know, what role do wehave as scientists about this
(24:03):
have?
Ryan Contreras (24:04):
scientists about this.
Yeah, you know, I don't want topretend that I know.
You know everything there is toknow about where all of them
have come from.
But you know, ornamentalhorticulture is certainly a it's
got a black eye fromintroducing plants.
The thing is not to get toopreachy on it.
But you know we have this builtlandscape that's not native,
(24:27):
and so we've introduced plantsthat are going to be resilient
in a concrete jungle wherethere's poor soil, low soil
volume, and so we ask plants tonot just survive but to thrive
in these environments, and wewant them to flower, we want
them to fruit, we want them tobe beautiful and do all of these
things for us, and some of themdo it exceedingly well, and
(24:50):
they do it to the point wherethey are so successful that they
then escape cultivation.
But as far as you know wherethey come from, I mean, a lot of
our flora comes from Asia, from, you know, southeast Asia,
eastern Asia, uh, asia, from.
You know, southeast Asia,eastern Asia, um, you know a lot
of invasive plants are fromfrom China, but that's, that's
(25:11):
not.
That's not it.
You know, uh, we have some.
You know, prunus loris racis, Ibelieve you know it's from the
caucus region.
Uh, and it's been, uh, it'sbecome quite a bit of a problem
here in the Pacific Northwest,escaping cultivation English ivy
is uh.
So I don't think there's simplyone location, I think you know,
(25:31):
related to invasiveness.
There's what's called the ruleof tens, and so one in 10 plants
will survive without humanintervention and it might, you
know, a seedling here or there.
One in 10 of those will form anaturalized population that,
will you know, survive and itwill then become part of the
biodiversity.
It's not reducing biodiversity,actually, if it's naturalized
(25:53):
but not displacing, it actuallyis increasing the biodiversity.
But then one in 10 of thoseactually becomes invasive.
So essentially, one in athousand plants that we
introduce is going to becomeinvasive.
Plants that we introduce isgoing to become invasive.
And simply just on theprobability, we introduced so
(26:17):
many plants from Asia that mostof our invaders come from Asia.
I don't know that there'sanything inherently invasive
about Asian plants, it's justwe've introduced a lot of them
and some of them have taken hold.
Curt Rom (26:24):
Well in our reading, since you say they come from
Asia.
I know early plant explorationby the USDA occurred in Asia and
China, in a large part becausethey thought that the climate
was so similar to the UnitedStates, and so a plant that
would be adapted in parts ofAsia would readily be adapted to
(26:46):
the United States.
And it's interesting, just kindof, from the story you told us
there.
I guess it's the unintendedconsequence of good intentions.
Ryan Contreras (26:55):
Absolutely yeah, and you're right.
Yeah, you know, plant huntershave been really savvy and go
into climate appropriate regionsto search for.
So when, when Dr Reuter wasdown in in the, the forgotten
zone eight of Tifton, he likesto call it, he was really
interested in Taiwanese plants.
(27:16):
Right, very similar climate,hot, humid, and and he found a
lot of cool plants that wehadn't grown in the United
States that he brought in fromTaiwan.
So, yeah, that's fascinating.
Sam Humphrey (27:29):
So there are lots of reasons that plants can
become invasive, lots of traitsthey can have that can make them
more likely to become invasive.
I study strawberries in mymaster's research and I've never
thought about how plantbreeders try to make plants
better for people, try to makeplants that grow well, but how
(27:50):
that can actually lead to thembecoming maybe invasive.
What can plant breeders do inthe opposite direction to maybe
prevent invasiveness?
Ryan Contreras (28:00):
Yeah, you know there are a number of different
techniques and you know thatpaper you mentioned where Kelly
Bining was the lead and SteveStrauss.
It's due for an update.
Due for an update for sure.
But you know there's a numberof ways.
Wide hybrids, you know, youcross a horse and a donkey, you
(28:21):
get a mule and that's a breedingdead end, but it's a very
useful organism and so that'sone of the approaches that we're
trying is wide hybridization.
You can also use mutagenesis,right.
So you just point the shotgun,whether it's a chemical like
ethylmethane, sulfonate or gammaradiation, and you just try to
(28:44):
knock stuff out.
And we've successfully donethat in a couple of different
plants.
Haven't commercialized anythingyet, but that's a very shotgun
approach.
And then you know, on the veryopposite end of that is, you
know, precision biotechnology,you know using things like zinc,
finger nucleases to go in anddo floral ablation and you get
(29:07):
rid of the floral parts, right,you get rid of all of the
anthers or get rid of the pistol, and you just create a plant
that has nothing but petals.
And there are a number ofexamples of just selecting four
plants that have increasedpetaloid stamens or petaloid
reproductive structures.
(29:29):
What we have done mostly in mybreeding program is using ploidy
manipulation.
So we're changing the number ofsets of chromosomes that a
plant has to render themseedless, and this is the same
technique as in bananas.
So bananas are a triploid.
They've got three of the Agenome in Cavendish banana.
(29:49):
And what's interesting aboutthat technique is it is highly
variable depending on the plantthat you're working with.
So in some plants, like inbanana, it seems to be ironclad.
I have never chipped a tooth ona banana seed, so you never see
a banana seed.
But then you know, in plantslike apple.
(30:10):
So gravenstein apple,gravenstein red apple, is a
triploid.
But if you cut it open thereare seeds inside.
And so some plants it doesn'tseem to render them completely
seedless.
Some plants it does.
There's a really great paperfrom Tom Ranney's lab with
Whitney Phillips as the leadauthor on, and it looked at
(30:31):
different populations oftriploid flowering pears
Speaking of that, dr Rahmmentioned calorie pear and some
of the triploids were virtuallysterile and then others were not
that greatly reduced at all.
So those are the maintechniques that are at our
(30:51):
disposal.
The challenge with thebiotechnology thing is, you know
, it requires reliable sequence,information and regeneration
methods that we don't have formost of our woody plants.
But as sequencing goes down andmethods of gene editing and
introducing those yeah, the geneediting tools into the plant,
(31:16):
changes where it no longerrequires potentially going all
the way to a callus and thenregenerating a plant, so I think
the future is exciting forusing those more precision type
tools.
Curt Rom (31:25):
So I think the future is exciting for using those more
precision type tools.
So you believe techniques likeCRISPR, where gene editing is
kind of the new frontier on this, and a technique as opposed to
more that shotgun approach ofmutagenesis that you were
talking about?
Ryan Contreras (31:48):
I do.
I don't think it's going tocompletely replace it, because I
think you know, on the one hand, using precision tools like
CRISPR and other biotechnologytools are really useful, because
I can take a genotype,potentially that we want to
maintain that exact phenotypeand we don't want to change
anything about it other thanjust getting rid of seed
production.
So that might be a greatopportunity there.
But then, on the other hand,sometimes you know, as plant
breeding isn't that complex,it's just selecting something
better from a variablepopulation, well, maybe we want
(32:11):
to introduce some more variation.
So I think that shotgunapproach to continue creating
more variation from which we canselect is going to continue to
be useful.
But I mean, I we're reallyexcited we have Beth Rowan is
going to be starting as a newbiotechnology assistant
professor in our department thissummer and all of us who are
(32:31):
doing plant breeding are excitedto try to ride on her coattails
and bring some of those toolsinto our crops.
Curt Rom (32:38):
Of course, I suppose for something as specific as
gene editing, you then have tohave a map editing, you then
have to have a map, and sothere's a lot of kind of
backstory work before you canget to the product of that.
So that's kind of cool stuff,absolutely yeah.
Sam Humphrey (32:57):
But when you do get to the product, I wonder if
you reduce fertility, does thatmake it more challenging for
nurseries to grow and to sellthese plants?
Ryan Contreras (33:09):
You know, from the standpoint of propagation.
Is that what you mean?
Sam Humphrey (33:14):
I'm imagining if you're trying to sell the plant
to the general public, butactually, yeah, I guess the
issue would be in propagation.
Ryan Contreras (33:26):
Yeah.
So there's a couple of thingsthere.
One you know regarding thegeneral public, I can tell you
that the education efforts insomething like a Bradford pear
and Norway maple have been verygood.
People love to hate a Bradfordpear now, and so they think
anything that is a floweringpear is horrible, it's abhorrent
(33:50):
and it you know, you should belocked in prison for growing it.
And similarly, in the NewEngland states where Norway
maple has become highly invasiveand upper Midwest people hate
it and they love to hate it.
The problem with Bradford pearpeople think that it was
introduced to be sterile.
Well, it never was sterile, itwas only self-incompatible and
(34:12):
so, as Dr Rahm said, shortlyafter it was introduced, there
were other genotypes that wereintroduced.
And then there we go.
We need to educate the publicand we need organizations help
like American Hort right, and weneed organizations help like
(34:47):
American Hort right that canhelp.
The name is chastity and notonly is it an inner specific
hybrid, it is an, an interploidyhybrid, that's, it's a triploid
.
So it is, and it's beencompletely tested in the
presence of all of these fertilepollinizers over many years,
both in North Carolina and at JFrank Schmidt and other places.
What we're doing now withbreeding and introducing plants
is very different than you know,just introducing something
(35:10):
that's self-incompatible, sothat's part of it.
So, yeah, it is a challenge tointroduce a plant that is now
seedless through breeding butthe public still sees, you know,
as being terrible.
Just personally, I plantseedless butterfly bush in my
garden, but the education herehas been very good.
So I've got neighbors who walkby my front garden and they say
(35:33):
I can't believe you're plantingthese weedy invasive plants out
here and I say no, I promise you.
My graduate student actuallytested these for about three
years and we know that theyproduce little to no seedlings.
But on the propagation side,the good news is we clonally
propagate virtually all woodyplants and so there's no we.
(35:55):
If they're completely seedless,that's great.
We either use tissue culture,cutting propagation or some
other method that doesn'trequire seed.
Curt Rom (36:03):
Well, ryan, we've talked about a number of plants,
but tell us about some of thespecies you've worked on.
You've worked on fruit trees,acer species, maple species.
Tell us about some of the plantspecies that you've worked on
to kind of address theseproblems, and some of the
breeding work that you've done,the various kinds of species
that you've worked with.
Ryan Contreras (36:24):
Yeah, so folks may not know that Oregon is the
third largest nursery producingstate, behind California and
Florida.
But obviously or perhaps notobviously it's a very different
environment here and we are bigin woody plants, but, nurseries
(36:44):
being highly diverse, we work onin some degree.
We work on almost 50 genera.
That doesn't mean we have largeprojects on 50 different genera
.
Most of them are rather smallmutation, breeding, making a
cross here, there and evaluatingand so forth.
But we've done good work, Ithink, on Hibiscus syriacus,
(37:06):
widely adaptable sort oftropical feeling plant, but is
adaptable zone five to nine.
So we've been doing ploidymanipulation there.
Naturally occurring tetraploidmeans it has four sets of
chromosomes and we now have aploidy series from four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, 10.
And we've been evaluating thefertility or the seedling
(37:28):
production across that ploidyseries and we introduced one
plant in 2022 that recentlysecured a patent.
That's a Hibiscus syriacus andthe trade name is a petite pink
flamingo.
So we've introduced that one.
We've been working in spireaand so we have a good ploidy
series in spirea, mostlyfocusing in spirea japonica and
(37:53):
further specializing in thevariety alpina, which are really
quite dwarf.
You know everything is goingsmaller, lots are getting
smaller Folks are interested inmore compact and smaller plants,
and it also has benefits thenurseries because it requires
fewer touches, less pruning andjust less care in general when
you have a more compact plant.
(38:13):
We've been working you know anumber of folks Mark Brand at
Connecticut, tom Ranney at NCState been working on barberry.
But we've been working onbarberry and we've got some
seedless barberry coming as well.
But by far the most effort thatwe've put in to oh and I should
mention Prunus loricerasis.
It's still a really importantspecies.
(38:33):
It's still a really importantspecies.
And so we've actually beentrying to do interploidy,
interspecific crosses withPrunus loris erasus and Prunus
lucitanica.
That's a, from cytogeneticallyspeaking, it's the most
interesting group ever.
Prunus loris erasus is anaturally occurring 22 ploid.
Prunus lucitanica is an 8X andso we've been manipulating
(38:53):
ploidy in both directions and wenow have haploids that were
developed from Prunusloriseracus and we've got
induced polyploids fromLusitanica.
So I feel confident we're goingto get there.
But regardless of those, we'vestill put more effort into
maples than any other and we'vegot a triploid Norway maple and
a triploid Acer gennala or emmermaple that are both in tissue
(39:16):
culture We've been testing andhope to release in the near
future.
Sam Humphrey (39:21):
You've got a lot going on.
That is so many differentprojects and collaborations.
We're curious what is next foryou?
What are you excited aboutright now?
Ryan Contreras (39:32):
I am most excited about a system.
We just installed, a droughtstress phenotyping system called
a plant array.
So my current PhD student, keenMaher, is working on evaluating
standard cytotypes with ourinduced polyploids, and so this
system allows us to veryprecisely impose specific levels
(39:57):
of drought stress.
And because I've long wanted toget into this realm of drought
stress phenotyping but it'sreally hard People spend their
entire career doing nothing.
But you know the physiology ofdrought stress and trying to,
you know, accurately impose andevaluate plants under drought
stress.
Well, this is a game changer.
(40:18):
It's a, it's a, you know,computer-based module that you
tell it I want to put it at youknow 0.15 or 15% volumetric
water capacity or whatever it is, and it and it does it.
And then where it it, it, italso, uh, gives you the
physiological response in termsof biomass accumulation, water
use efficiency, transpiration,stomatoconductance, all of the
(40:41):
you know, all of thephysiological responses.
So that's been a real gamechanger.
And our we're we'recollaborating with Kelly Vining,
who is a bioinformatician andgenomicist, here at Oregon state
, uh, to look at gene expressionassociated with this, because
we've been developing thesepolyploids with the primary goal
(41:03):
is seedlessness, so they don'tescape cultivation and we can
reintroduce Norway maple intoMassachusetts and New York right
, because that's an importantmarket for our growers.
York right, because that's animportant market for our growers
.
But now there's some goodscientific evidence out there
that as we increase or inducepolyploids, we're also improving
(41:24):
the resilience to droughtstress.
You know, and I long ago, thephrase stuck with me, you know
it's like in the future, wateris going to be the new oil.
We're going to fight wars overwater in the future, and so I
hope we're not fighting warsover, but nevertheless the
(41:45):
climate change is going toexacerbate drought stress.
We've got longer, more severedrought stress, and so that's
what excites me right now A, theability to actually do the
phenotyping work and then thecollaboration and the reduction
in costs of some of these toolswhere we can potentially
identify genes that we can thenuse in future breeding.
(42:07):
So I think that's reallyexciting and I'd be remiss if I
didn't mention that we're youknow it is very buzzwordy and
you know it's the hot new thing,but we are collaborating with
some folks who are doing imagingand machine learning, trying to
use artificial intelligence asa preliminary screening tool If
we can identify some imagingcues where we can image large
(42:30):
populations of plants that maybe more drought resilient and
then do sort of a deepphenotyping using the plant
array.
That's where we're hoping to go.
So we have a collaborative teamput together and hoping to go
down that realm.
Sam Humphrey (42:47):
There's a lot to be hopeful for.
Curt Rom (42:51):
You know, ryan, it seems like you're very excited
about what you do.
I got one more quick questionthen we need to kind of wrap up
a little bit.
What do you like most aboutyour job as being a university
professor at a public land grantuniversity?
What gets you to the officeevery morning?
Ryan Contreras (43:16):
a great question , kurt, and there's a lot,
there's a lot.
I have the best job in theworld and I think it's a
combination of I don't do thesame thing two days in a row.
I love that and I love I've gotblisters on my hands right now
from running the chainsaw.
On Tuesday, I got to go up andrepresent the department at the
Caneberry Field Day yesterday.
I get to talk to you greatfolks this morning and I'm going
to go to the greenhouse andwatch my student set up this
(43:38):
plant array and test it out.
And so I get to work with otherexcited scientists, both
aspiring scientists that I getto help train, as well as
learning from people who've beendoing it four times as long as
me, doing it four times as longas me.
So I love the diversity, theexcitement.
I love the plants.
Curt Rom (44:06):
I love learning.
Ryan Contreras (44:06):
I just love every bit of it.
I slipped and fell into thebest career.
That fits me better thananything I can imagine.
Curt Rom (44:09):
Yeah, I agree with you , it's a good gig.
Ryan Contreras (44:12):
Yeah, it's better than digging ditches, but
you know, some days that's funtoo.
Sam Humphrey (44:17):
Ryan, thank you so much for this.
After this interview, I'm goingto go out and I'm going to
become an ornamental plantscientist.
Just like you, I'm so excitedabout the future.
Thank you so much for this.
Ryan Contreras (44:28):
Well, thank you for the opportunity to chat with
you today.
Curt Rom (44:31):
Yeah, it was a really good conversation, I think, very
enlightening.
Well, we covered a lot, butthanks for sharing all of this
with us and thank you, curt.
Well, sam, that was a reallyinteresting interview with Dr
(44:58):
Contreras.
I felt like I learned a lot.
You know again, as I said inthe interview, you know invasive
plants.
It's kind of one of thoseunintended consequences of
something that was intentionalto introduce new plants, of
something that was intentionalto introduce new plants, and it
also became clear to me that notall invasive plants are
(45:21):
invasive in all situations andall environments.
And then you know, climatechange might have an impact on
that.
Sam Humphrey (45:29):
Oh, absolutely.
And it's fascinating too,because there are even within
certain states like I am fromFlorida and I did a little bit
of invasive plant research inundergrad and even within this
relatively small area of Florida, these different governing
bodies have different lists ofthe worst invasive plants in the
(45:50):
state.
Some organizations might have alittle bit of a broader
definition of what counts asinvasive, and so there are all
these traits and all thisdiversity, and scientists are
just grappling with trying tokeep up.
So it's it's really amazing tohear Dr Contreras talk about how
(46:11):
he's using so much technologyin his work.
Curt Rom (46:16):
Yeah, you know, I think that it's really
interesting that they're usingboth kind of maybe 30 and 40
year old mutagenesis techniques,but they're also using some
real cutting edge molecularbiology, crispr techniques and
it's clear that scientistsworking on these plant systems
(46:36):
now and breeding and developingthese plants, they have a much
better understanding of it andthey're trying to avoid the
unintended consequence.
So very interesting interviewwe had.
Absolutely, I think thisepisode helped me understand the
value of ornamental plants andthe development of new cultivars
, but also enlightened me on theproblems of invasiveness, and
(47:01):
it's clear that scientists arenow aware of it and they're
using these various techniquesand a lot of these new
techniques to prevent invasiveplants as they introduce new
cultivars and new plants intoour landscapes.
Sam Humphrey (47:17):
To read more about this topic, check out Dr
Contreras' paper Genetic Methodsfor Mitigating Invasiveness of
Woody Ornamental Plants ResearchNeeds and Opportunities, which
is published in Hort Science,one of the open source
peer-reviewed journals publishedby the American Society for
Horticultural Science.
You can also reach out to DrContreras to ask him more
questions at ryancontreras atoregonstateedu.
Curt Rom (47:44):
If this interview resonates with you, I recommend
renewing your membership orjoining the American Society for
Horticultural Science so youcan be part of interest groups
like the ornamental plantbreeding, the ornamental
landscape and turf or thepropagation interest groups.
If you'd like more informationon the American Society of
(48:05):
Horticultural Science in general, go to our website.
Ashsorg Sam, thanks for theconversation today.
I enjoyed visiting with you.
It's always a pleasure.
Sam Humphrey (48:19):
It's amazing to see you, Kurt.
Curt Rom (48:22):
Have a great week until we meet again.
The ASHS podcast Plants, peopleand Science is made possible by
member dues and volunteerism.
Please go to ashsorg to learnmore.
If you're not already a memberof the ASHS, we invite you to
(48:46):
join.
Ashs is a not-for-profit andyour donations are
tax-deductible.
Sam Humphrey (48:53):
This episode was hosted by Samson Humphrey and
Kurt Rohn.
Special thanks to our audioengineer, andrew Sheldorf, our
research specialists Lena Wilsonand Andrew Sheldorf, our ASHS
support team, sarah Powell andSally Murphy, and our musician,
john Clark.
Thanks for listening.
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