January 5, 2023 • 52 mins
In this live episode of Plants, People, Science, Sam and Lara interview Dr. Sandra B. Wilson, a Professor in the Department of Environmental Horticulture at the University of Florida, to discuss her research, her career, and her advice for young researchers.
The featured article is available on the ASHS HortScience electronic journal website at https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI16123-21.
To learn more about Dr. Wilson and her work go to https://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/faculty-profiles/sandra-wilson/.
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.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindis (00:00):
Hello everyone.
Thank you for joining us.
Can you hear me?
All right, perfect, all right.
So we have a very special guesthere who's going to play music
for us in a minute.
This is Sam Humphrey and LaraBrindisi, and this is our first
live interview, so it might be alittle bit rough.
Thank you for joining us andlet's give it away to Dr.
(00:24):
John Clark.
Dr. John Clark (00:25):
Okay, so this is a newly composed song,
especially for the ASHS podcast,so I hope you like it.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (01:56):
Wow, thank you so much.
He's running off to his nextsession, but that is a piece of
music that he composed just forthis podcast.
So when you listen to futureepisodes, you will hear that
music that has never before beenheard, except for today.
So love that.
Hello, welcome, thank you forcoming.
(02:17):
My name is Sam Humphrey and I'mLara Brindisi and we're the
co-host of Plants, people,science, the ASHS American
Society for HorticulturalSciences official podcast.
So we're going to talk aboutthe layout of our podcast and
what our, what our episodes willfeature, and then we're going
(02:38):
to get into an interview todaywith Dr Sandra Wilson.
Yeah, a little bit ofbackground about this podcast.
So we're going to be doing, youknow, a series of episodes
where we interview the leadingscientists in the field,
especially if they are membersof ASHS, and this will show a
little bit behind the scenes ofwhat's going on in the research,
(02:59):
but also presenting, you know,the latest research that is just
going on in the industry, inthe field, whoever is presenting
, and normally these shows wouldbe recorded, but we thought it
would be really fun to do a liveepisode so that we can
broadcast right here fromChicago, from this conference.
All right, so let's talk alittle bit about ourselves.
Just brief introductions.
(03:21):
Hi, I'm Sam.
I am a master's student atNorth Carolina State University
and I study strawberries incontrolled environments.
I did my undergrad at theUniversity of Florida in plant
science and I just really lovemany areas in horticulture.
I love soil science andenvironmental science and how we
can change environments to growplants better, and so I really
(03:44):
love the idea that this podcastreally will bring together lots
of different fields and increasevisibility for important work.
And I'm Lara.
I study basil mainly at thegenomics, chemistry, physiology
of whole tolerance specifically.
I also work on other crops andvertical farming systems and
medicinal plants.
Really glad to be part of thispodcast, so looking forward to
getting into the interview today.
(04:05):
This podcast started.
Well, the idea of the podcaststarted only about five months
ago.
The ASHS has several plantindustries, groups of scientists
that come together to talkabout areas of their interests,
so there are education ones andtheir communication ones, and a
couple of those plants groupsshowed interest in having a
podcast to talk about ASHS andthe important work our
scientists do, and so theyproposed the idea our wonderful
(04:27):
cerebellum, which is a veryimportant topic for us to talk
about ASHS and the importantwork our scientists do, and so
they proposed the idea.
Our wonderful Sarah Powell hasbrought this to fruition.
She transferred thatinformation and recruited us.
Several students on the podcastteam Us teammates joined.
(04:51):
We have a team behind just Laraand I and that team includes
Alex Fraser, who is our podcastproducer, who's interested in
environmental science and manyother things.
There Alex is in the wonderfulshirt.
We also have a couple of peoplewho are on the sort of research
side of this.
So Lara and I do the talkingand we also will read these
(05:14):
papers and do research on ourown.
But just to add to thatexpertise, we have other
students helping us as well.
So on our research team we haveLena Wilson, who is into
blueberry breeding.
She's a master's student rightnow at North Carolina State
University and she's interestedin biotechnology.
We also have Andrew Comatz, whoalso does blueberry breeding
(05:35):
but is interested in ecology andsustainability, and he's at the
University of Florida.
We also have, again, lots ofsupport from our wonderful Sally
Murphy and Sarah Powell again.
So our team is structured as ustwo hosts and we'll be doing
all the talking, but again wehave that team in the background
doing the important work thatsupports this podcast.
(05:59):
Yes, we're aiming to have fourto six episodes a year that's
really the rough guideline andtrying to capture all the
different aspects of port ofculture.
So different fields, differentperspectives, different crops.
I guess fields is a littlebroad.
It could mean literally in thefield or fields of research.
So I guess we'll incorporateall of it and the emphasis is to
(06:20):
look at research that waspublished in the horticultural
journals published by ASHS,especially for members.
So anyone out there in theaudience especially that would
be interested in beinginterviewed, feel free to
contact us.
If you don't have ourinformation yet, we'll share it
at the end of the podcastepisodes.
That way you can reach out tous and we can discuss any future
(06:41):
interviews as well.
Yeah, yeah, so that is one ofthe great things that we've had
in ASHS.
Right, we were just talkingabout how we've met all of these
amazing people who could be onthe podcast someday or just have
really interesting ideas aboutour research.
You met people like that today,right, Lara?
Oh, yeah, I mean I love ASHS.
(07:02):
I only just started coming,actually last year, due to Aaron
Farr convincing me in theaudience.
I'm going to give her a shoutout.
But yeah, I really love ASHS.
It's been my favoriteconference that I've attended so
far.
I mean, they're just wonderfulpeople that attend.
I've been going to so manytalks on.
Of course, basil has beenreally popular this year.
I don't have to go to as manybasil talks as possible, but
(07:24):
also controlled environment,agriculture, genomics talks and
genetics talks, medicinal plants.
It's been a riot.
Yeah, I've also really enjoyedthe ones that are not so field
specific, like there was onereally cool like workshop today
on undergrad education, therewas one the other day on
leadership, so a lot of coolstuff going on here.
(07:47):
What else have you enjoyedabout the conference?
Well, just meeting cool people,right.
So especially our you know ourinterviewee today that I would
like to introduce.
So we are thrilled to introduceour guest, Dr Sandra Wilson, who
is a professor in theDepartment of Environmental
Horticulture at the Universityof Florida.
She has received many awards asan educator and has made
(08:10):
outstanding contributions tohorticulture, and today we will
be discussing her research.
So her research is comparativeand non-native plants through a
discussion on two of her papersthat she's published earlier
this year in Hort Science.
The one we will be discussingtoday is called the evaluation
(08:32):
of native and non-nativeornamentals as pollinator plants
in Florida.
Number one floral abundance andfetus eye tonification.
Dr. John Clark (08:42):
Hi, Dr Wilson Hi .
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (08:46):
So to serve your full, I'll serve
the publication.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (08:49):
Hello everyone.
Thank you, Lara and Sam, forthis opportunity and also for
picking this paper.
You never really know thevolume of the audience.
I mean, you know how many timesthe papers download it, but you
really don't know the impact ofthe paper.
When I got the email from youthat it was selected to be
(09:13):
featured in this podcast, me andthe co-authors and the graduate
students certainly were veryexcited.
So thank you very much.
So this project was?
It included a collaborationwith a B ecologist out of the
Department of Entomology namedRachel Malinger.
It had a master's degreestudent on it, Rachel Heather
(09:37):
Kaliman, who has graduated andis now working on her Doctor of
Plant Medicine program, and thenDr Gary Knox.
He's a horticulturist here atASHS.
He couldn't be here right now,but he was an author as well and
an statistician.
So that was our team.
How did you get together?
Okay, so how did we gettogether?
(09:59):
Well, the University of Floridahas lots of opportunities for,
and they want interdisciplinaryresearch, and she had just the B
ecologist.
That was a new physician, shewas just hired and she didn't
really know how to grow plants.
I knew how to grow plants andalso we wanted it to be in more
(10:23):
than one location, and Dr Knoxis located at one of our
research and education centers,and we found this wonderful
graduate student, and then theproject began.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindis (10:35):
Thank you so much for that.
So for everyone in the audience, who the people in the audience
who might not have read thispaper, could you describe
briefly what it's about?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (10:44):
Okay, so I'll backtrack a little bit.
So we got this team togetherand before we published this
paper, one of the first thingswe did was to survey all of the
master gardeners in Florida.
We sent the survey out to 4,000participants and we wanted to
(11:04):
get an understanding of thevalue of be gardening, their
interest and also whether or notthey, how comfortable they were
in identifying the friendlyplants and what type of
programming they would mostlikely benefit from.
So we did that survey, wepublished that in the Hort
(11:27):
Technology Journal and then thatjust led to our discussions of
the science.
And really the question that wewere talking about with each
other is you know, we see allthese plants in the box stores
and at the nurseries and they'relabeled pollinator friendly.
But what does that really mean?
(11:48):
Does that mean that that plantattracts pollinators and they're
visiting but not using thosefloral rewards?
And at what level?
How do you discern if a plantis pollinator friendly or not?
So we also collaborated withJacksonville Zoo that was
interested in this type of study, and that's really what got the
(12:10):
conversation going.
What type of study would weneed to get the research to be
able to support that question?
So what did you find Okay.
Well, to give you just a tinybit of a background of the
project, so what we did was wepicked 10 different ornamental
(12:35):
species and for each of thespecies we tried to have a
native genus and a non-nativegenus, because that's something
we wanted to compare, like didit matter to these pollinators
if they were visiting a nativeversus a non-native?
And also we included pentas,and pentas do not have a native
(12:55):
counterpart, but they're a huge,they're in every pollinator
garden retail center.
And so what we did for that onewas we included an
old-fashioned pentas, sort oflike the kind that you find at
your grandmother's house, andthen we compared that with one
of the new F1 hybrid pentas andwe arranged that in a Latin
(13:18):
square design with plots ofthose 10 species.
And then we monitored the insectvisitation for five second
intervals and we recorded thatvisitation.
And we did that by groups.
It was too hard to be able toclassify it down to the exact
species, so we grouped them intonative, small and medium-bodied
(13:42):
bees, large bees, wasps,butterflies, and there was Thank
you, c, thank you.
These students are amazing.
They, of course.
They know the publication morethan I do, as Sam just reminded
(14:02):
me.
The last category was honeybees, and so those were the morpho
groups.
Again, this study was conductedin two locations, so that's
something we were looking at aswell.
And then the final element thatwe assessed was the effect of
season, like did visitationchange over time throughout the
(14:23):
study?
So that's to give you a littlebit of background information of
how that experiment was set upand, to answer Lara's question,
what we found.
So we recorded 22,000 insectvisitations in the collection
times that we made and we foundthat 55% of the visitations were
(14:46):
made by the native small tomedium-bodied bees and following
that was butterflies and thenwasps and then honeybees.
And regarding the differentspecies that we looked at, we
found the greatest floralintensity or the floral amount
(15:10):
was Lantana, both native andnon-native.
Lantana had the greatest floraldensity and we found that
Galaria both native andnon-native Galaria didn't matter
which attracted most of thebees.
They're very attracted toGalaria and pentas interestingly
(15:34):
, had a large population ofwasps that used pentas, which is
important, and I mean we sawthat that visitation decreased,
as we might expect, as theseason decreased and you know it
reminds us that when we'replanting pollinator guards we
need to consider that insectvisitation year-round and
(15:56):
provide those fallfloweringspecies and serve them in that
capacity.
So we did.
It was a great experiment.
We learned things we didn'teven think we were going to
learn.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (16:09):
So I have to ask you mentioned that
you recorded 22,000 visits.
What does it actually look likefor the team on the ground?
Are they, you know, camping out, staking out the bees and the
wasps in the background?
What does the research actuallylook like for people collecting
it?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (16:25):
Well, my graduate student's not here
because she couldn't be here,but she would just give you like
a great big sigh and she wouldprobably just I don't know have
some anxiety, as she remembersbeing in the hot field all
summer long, standing therewaiting and really hoping for
(16:45):
visitation.
Because you know we planted andwe hoped they would come, but
no one's really sure and youknow we always had to choose a
certain time of day and full sunand things like that.
So, to answer your question, itwas very hard in counting those
insects and being able toidentify those morpho groups.
(17:06):
But it was even harder in thefollow-up publication where we
had to extract the nectar andalso the pollen from those
plants.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (17:17):
But wait, hold on.
There were two whole plots.
There were two locations inFlorida separated by what?
An hour and a half over threedifferent seasons.
Right, was it just hercollecting the stator or was it
a whole team?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (17:33):
All right now Sam's making me feel bad as
her academic advisor.
It was a robust study, but shedid have a team of people that
came out to help her.
Part of that was her trainingthe team so that everybody had
the same knowledge base as shedid.
And to make her life a littlebit easier, we did it every
(17:57):
other week and then on theopposite weeks.
Then she would go to the otherlocation and do that, and the
study was a six-month study, sothat, you're right, it was a lot
of data, yeah, so collecting alot of data usually means a lot
of challenges will pop up alongthe way.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (18:18):
Can you discuss any challenges that
you might have run into incollecting this type of data?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (18:24):
So we all publish those papers where you
know in your mind what didn'tquite work and you're hoping
that that's not going to detractfrom the reviewers accepting
the publication.
So this is sort of like behindthe scenes Now that these papers
are published.
Of course, with any field study, there's going to be things
(18:48):
that you didn't expect, and wecertainly had that whether it
was weather differences,differences in the way the
fields were managed, with nearbyweed management and things like
that.
And actually probably one ofthe hardest parts was trying to
get all of that plant materialfrom different nurseries, and
(19:12):
even some of it we propagatedourselves to be at the same
maturity, to start at the sametime, and so, since you asked
the question, this is good forthe students to know that
they're not alone when thesethings happen.
So my graduate student drove tothe nursery to pick up the
(19:33):
plants.
We were scheduled to installthe experiment the next day and
everything was set up, so itneeded to be done that day.
And she got to the nursery andthese were special plants that
they had ordered for ourexperiment.
Well, somebody didn't realizethat they were for our
experiment and they didn'tbelong at the nursery, so they
(19:58):
were put to pasture, I'll justput it mildly.
And when we got there they hadthis kind of look like which
plants are you here to pick up?
And so that was one of thepentas, one of we had two pentas
that was one of the pentas, andso they actually had to go out
(20:21):
to the nurseries holding areawhere they got rid of the plants
that they weren't going to use,and it had just been that
morning so they were able topull them out, but those plants
hadn't recovered from that shock.
So what we had to do is holdthose plants and then
incorporate those plants intothe next study that we published
as part two.
(20:41):
And those things just happenand you just roll with it.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (20:48):
Yeah , so to bring up the nursery
involvement, what does thedemand look like for these
native plants in the nursery,since apparently your research
plants are really a hotcommodity for consumers?
Dr. John Clark (21:03):
I mean.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (21:03):
I feel like Lara and Sam asked the best
questions ever, because that isan excellent question.
So, even though there's a surgein popularity with native
plants, really it onlyrepresents a very small fraction
of our industry.
(21:23):
In Florida, that's 15.5% ofornamental sales are consists of
native plants, so it is a smallamount.
And many of the large scalenurseries, which Riverview Farms
was the they donated all theplant material for us and helped
us to decide which plants weshould include in the study,
(21:47):
like which ones they observedwere pollinator friendly, and
but they didn't sell the natives.
They sold improved hybrids thatmight have had some of the
native germ possum, but itwasn't just the natives.
So we had to go to anothernursery that only produces
natives and they produce thoseby seeds, whereas the other
(22:10):
plants were mostly vegetativelypropagated.
So, to answer your, I thinkthat answered your question.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (22:20):
So it sounds like a lot of people
in Florida will grow thesenative flowering plants and it
sounds like there are kind ofpollinators.
But are there any furtherbenefits to the environment or
to ecology aside from thepollinators?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (22:37):
Well, I just love native plants.
I think that they're justspecial because they've been
here before we were here.
I mean, they've survivedhardships for many, many, many
years and they're accustomed toour rainfall and to our seasons
(22:57):
of drought and all of that, andthat makes them more durable.
It makes them require lessmaintenance than some of our non
natives and also they bring agreat amount of diversity,
biodiversity, to our gardens,and there's just lots of them.
I mean, they've been usedmedicinally and historically for
(23:20):
dyes and food and fiber, andthey just have a really rich
heritage and it makes sense tosee them come back, so that
natives are kind of our new norm.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (23:34):
So I did get to go to your talk this
morning and I saw pictures thatyou put up of these native
plants and they are quitestunning, some of them really
crazy, horrible, and you'retalking about non-natives and
how they've been bred to look acertain way.
How does this influence thenumber of flowers or the flower
(23:55):
structures, and how does thatcompare to native, to non-native
plants and how does thatinfluence pollinating efforts?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (24:03):
So that was really the big question.
You know, the goal of the studyis to understand that question
and we only had 10 species inthe study.
But what we found is that,statistically, if you were to
compare natives and non-nativesjust with these plants that we
studied, they didn't.
(24:24):
Statistically the non-nativeplants didn't attract
pollinators less than the nativeplants.
But you have to remember wechose non-native pollinator
plants that the industry pickedfor us, that they saw attracted
natives.
So in a little bit we kind ofskewed the scale regarding that.
(24:45):
And what else did you ask?
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (24:50):
Yeah , I mean I think that addresses
the question.
I guess when I hear non-nativeplants, sometimes I think of
these doubly peddled flowersthat no longer have their
reproductive structures andaren't then attracting any bees.
But if you are selecting theones that are pollinator
friendly in the industry, thenyeah, that probably helps that
problem right.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (25:12):
Yeah, so exactly, that's exactly right.
So sometimes the analogy that Ilike to use is have you ever
been to the store and bought arose and been so disappointed
because the rose didn't havethat nice fragrance that you
were hoping for?
Well, sometimes that happens inour breeding efforts I mean,
(25:35):
we're breeding better plantsthat have novel flowers and
better forms and things likethat but sometimes the
consequence could be whether ornot that's changing pollinator
visitation patterns or thefloral resource of nectar or
(25:56):
pollen, and that's really whatwe were looking at.
And one of the reallyinteresting things of this study
is that we compared a nativeLantana with a Lantana that's
called Blumify Rose.
That's a University of Floridarelease of a sterile form of
invasive plant.
So in order to get that Lantanaapproved for release, they had
(26:22):
to show that it was female,sterile and had a very low
ability to pollinate the nativeplants through pollen, and so we
were very interested to answer.
That exact question is was thisbreeding that we did?
Did we somehow inadvertentlycompromise the plant?
And in this case we did not,which was reassuring.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (26:46):
Just the way you talk about this
work and reading your findings,it's clear how important this is
and it's really exciting for me, like from someone on the
outside who doesn't do anythingrelated to this.
I really love seeing whatyou've done so far and I'm
curious what are the next stepsto research or your research
program?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (27:07):
Well, every graduate student who's
watching this knows that whenthey finish a project, there's
probably at least a dozen otherprojects.
You know of questions that needto be answered by the next
student, and that's really thesign of a successful project.
So where this has gone isRachel Malinger, the bee
(27:29):
ecologist.
She wrote a separate grant andexpanded this to 30 species and
that includes shrub species.
And what's unique about thatgrant?
Not only is it looking at morespecies, but it's looking it's
during the course of two years,so we only had a master's
student, so we could only takesix months for the data.
(27:51):
This has a PhD student on it, soshe'll be monitoring those
plants and also they're studyingthe effects of floral traits
and also the effects of dropstress on pollinator visitation
and floral availability.
So it's a pretty big extensionto this project.
(28:12):
Another fun project that we'reworking on, that we have a
graduate student working on, isthe effect of pesticide toxicity
in the pollen and in the nectarof plants and whether or not we
can come up with some bestmanagement practices of spray
(28:32):
routines that isn't going toadversely affect our bee
pollinators.
Okay, thank you.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (28:40):
So now we're going to segue a
little bit into advice tostudents and young researchers
out there and we were wonderingif you could describe your
career trajectory from being ayoung student to how you became
such an important professor,especially in this industry.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (28:58):
Do you want me to tell them my story?
It all started way back when Iwas an undergraduate student.
I always loved horticulture.
I always worked outside.
I found a tremendous positiveeffect when I was outside with
(29:18):
plants but honestly, I neverknew you could make a career of
that.
I had no idea you could majorin that.
I loved animals so I majored inanimal science.
I wanted to be a veterinarianand so I wanted to diversify my
portfolio.
I applied for an animal scienceposition on the university farm
(29:42):
and they didn't have anyavailability fortunately for me,
because I'm a vegetarian andI'm not sure how that would have
really gone.
But I was willing to do what ittook to get that experience.
And the greenhouse managercalled me and he said we have a
position in the greenhouse.
And I said all right, I'll takethat position.
(30:03):
And then I start working thereand the college professors who
were teaching the plant classeswould come into the greenhouse
and they would say Sandy, whyaren't you taking my class?
And you should try this class.
And I started taking thoseclasses, fell in love with
horticulture and that's when Ireally knew that was my purpose
(30:26):
in life and that was my passion.
But I was near graduating.
So I just ended up with myundergraduate degree in animal
science and figured that thatwas just going to be it.
And then I was working at thisveterinary center and the
professor one of my professorsfrom plant science was picking
(30:51):
up dog food.
And I said, dr Frey, I'mthinking about going back to
school to get to finish mydouble major in plant science.
And he said you don't need toget a double major, you should
get your masters and I'll beyour advisor.
So that was the start of myhorticultural career.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (31:16):
I guess you could say Sounds like
mentorship really played areally big part in those first
few years.
So, moving forward, you realizeyou want to do plants.
You have gotten to this placewhere you have this offer yes,
come back to school, do plants,do plant research as a master's
student.
So what did you start workingon and how did that lead into
(31:37):
your next steps?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (31:39):
So I had a project that was we transformed
tobacco to over-synthesizecytokine in and we're trying to
measure that in plants, and butwhile I was working on that
research project, the universityit was University of Delaware
they had one teachingassistantship available and that
(32:00):
was given to me.
So while I was doing myresearch I was also teaching all
of the botany labs and so I gotthis wonderful.
At the time I thought that itwas unfair that I had to be
teaching and do my research wheneveryone else only had to do
their research.
But now, looking back, thatteaching experience actually is
(32:22):
what helped me know that Iwanted to be a teacher in my
profession and so I gotexperience with that.
And as I was teaching, therewere all kinds of opportunities
for different teaching webinarsand seminars and things like
that.
And I mean that was the dayswhen everything was in person.
(32:45):
You know you couldn't.
It wasn't really a webinar, itwas an in person seminar and I
started going to those and I wasjust very interested in
learning more about teachingpedagogy and I just wanted to be
a good TA for these botany labsand little did I know that that
was the start of my career pathin teaching.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (33:08):
I mean, from what I'm hearing, it
sounds like these opportunitieswere being presented to you in
the background and you werereally opportunistic for lack of
better words but in taking thatup and really following the
different routes as they cameyour way, are there any other?
Types of advice that you woulduse as students.
(33:29):
You maybe don't know how tospeak out those opportunities
yet or how to do it, so, thankyou, I'm going to find them and
go the other way.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (33:40):
Well, I have to say I mean look at our
role models right here with Laraand Sam, because I mean this is
leadership as undergraduatestudents and that's what we all,
that's what employers all wantto see, with smiling faces and
good ideas and willing to dosomething a little bit different
(34:00):
.
And so so, congratulations toyou on doing a great job with
that.
So I guess I'll start that bysaying that ASHS has been
pivotal to every career decisionin my life, like when I found
out when I finished my master'sthe reason why I got a PhD was
(34:24):
because I met graduate studentsat Clemson and teachers at
Clemson, and that's when I gotmy PhD.
And same for my postdoc.
I found that position at ASHSand an opportunity to go to
Japan to study.
That was found at ASHS.
And I mean ASHS is so part ofmy life that my husband and I I
(34:49):
don't even tell you guys thisstory, but we went to an ASHS
meeting, presented our research,we report graduate students,
flew to San Francisco, gotmarried and came back all in the
timeframe of the conference.
And so that is dedication.
(35:10):
I mean we fit, we fit ASHS'sconference around our elope
eloption I don't know if that'sa word or not, but to answer
your question, my advice tostudents, then.
So my advice for students, foryoung professionals, number one
(35:32):
is to get experience anddiversify yourself so that,
because you might not know whatyour passion is like, you might
not yet know what your purposeis, and the only way you're
gonna figure it out is by beingexposed to different things.
So that could be research orteaching or extension, or that
(35:52):
could mean getting internationalexposure or getting industry
exposure there's.
Sometimes we're just we do whatwe're used to doing and we
don't really have time to doanything else.
But just look for those littleopportunities.
Identify with people in yourclasses, maybe as a teacher,
(36:14):
that you really like and feelthat you are in line with their
way of thinking, and volunteerto help them.
It doesn't even have to be awhole semester, just volunteer
to.
If it's someone that has anextension program, volunteer to
help them with their program,one of their extension programs.
We all need help and it's very,very rare that an undergraduate
(36:38):
student comes into our officeand asks to be part of something
.
So that's my advice for thatget experience and get connected
, because all of theopportunities that happened in
my life were through ASHS andnetworking and you, just you
won't have that unless you getconnected.
And also to just remember toalso, once you're at that point,
(37:09):
to serve and you guys areserving the society right now
and finally to give back.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindi (37:17):
That's really wonderful and over the
years, throughout yourexperiences in ASHS and outside
of ASHS, you've been a reallybig advocate for mentorship and
mentor-mentee relationships.
Do you think you could talk alittle bit about the importance
of that in your life these?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (37:32):
guys are so great because they're helping
me remember things that it'slike they read my mind.
And yes, I totally forgot tomention that.
We have the ASHS has amentor-mentee program.
That's free, that it's just aone or two page sign-up.
Sarah back there handles it,and what a fabulous way to get
(37:58):
connected with somebody fromanother university that you
identify with.
And also, we have the resumeprogram and somebody from
another university comes andlooks at your resume and you
might think my resume is alreadygood.
I don't need help with myresume.
Well, what you might need helpand not know it is that
(38:19):
networking.
That person might know somebodywho has a job position that
you're gonna apply for later onin life.
So it's all about buildingthose relationships and taking
advantage of all theopportunities that we have here
at these conferences.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (38:37):
Yeah , I also have to emphasize the
importance of the ASHSmentorship program, because I
did it and had a phenomenalmentor of Leslie Halleick, who
is just an incredible leader inthe horticulture industry, so I
definitely think that that wasreally critical to helping me
personally understand myselfbetter and the direction that I
(38:58):
wanna move forward in.
Yeah, so just wanna emphasizethat for sure.
Yeah, I've had the sameexperience.
Actually, my mentor was DrThierry Cuboda and same very
insightful.
We went in the direction ofwhat I needed the most and so I
(39:20):
ended up asking her a lot ofcareer questions on the field
and it was incredible.
So I'm curious, from thementor's point of view, we have
a very strong mentee perspective, but from the mentor's point of
view, what is it like doingthis?
I mean, you were a student onceand now you're from the other
(39:42):
side.
What's your perspective onmentoring and how you seek out
these relationships and whatthey bring to your life?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (39:51):
Well, from my perspective, I had these
strong mentors throughout mywhole career and they're part of
where I am today and know I amtoday, and they invested time
into me.
I didn't know how to give atalk at ASHS they taught me how
to do that.
I didn't know how to teach theytaught me how to do that.
(40:14):
I didn't know anything, I wasjust a regular person that liked
working with plants in mybackyard, and they helped mold
me into the person that I amtoday, and so my personal
mentoring philosophy is to giveback, and I feel like they
invested their time into me, andnow it's my turn to invest that
(40:39):
time into students and,honestly, when I am at one of
those booths working withstudents on their resume, or I'm
in the mentor mentee programand the student gets a job that
we've been working on for awhile, it's so rewarding and you
get way more back than you everthought you would putting in,
(41:00):
so it's just a 360 degree circle.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (41:07):
Okay , so now we're wrapping up
towards the end of this.
Please stick around as wefinish the interview, because we
will have a Q&A session andthen also any feedback.
But, as we are concluding this,is there anything that we
didn't mention that you wouldlike to mention, or any other
thoughts or takeaways that youwould like the audience to have?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (41:30):
Well, I guess I just would like to say
that to offer a sense of if yousometimes it can be overwhelming
to be at an ASHS conferencewith all of these people and all
of these talks and you can feellike I'm not at that level and
(41:52):
to feel just small in a very bigsociety, and so I would
discourage that line of thinking.
That's how I felt early on.
And also just to encourage youto think about, like what impact
do you wanna make in life andwhat footprint do you wanna
(42:12):
leave?
What can you do?
Even if it's just one thing ayear, set your goals and even if
it's just one thing a year thatyou can work towards.
Try to work towards that andbefore you know it, you're gonna
have this portfolio.
That is just dynamite and itjust takes a little bit of work
(42:36):
and some patience and somereally good mentors along the
way.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (42:43):
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what
I needed to hear.
Thank you, Dr Wilson.
So, in conclusion of thisinterview, if people want to
follow your work or if they wantto reach out to you, where can
they do so?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (42:57):
Okay, I have a website that I update
pretty regularly all mypublications, courses, research,
and if you just Google SandraWilson University of Florida,
that will come up.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindi (43:10):
Thanks , and we'll be sure to include
that in the show notes.
So if anyone doesn't know whereto find that, definitely follow
up with the episode.
Okay, so now we can open thisup to a Q&A session.
Does anyone in the audiencehave any questions?
Dr. John Clark (43:27):
I have a question about the the Zegiro
study associated with theFedFIRST.
Are you going to collaboratewith them with the need of our
FedFIRST project going on?
I don't know if you went tothat talk earlier, Because it
sounds almost exactly like that,Roger.
Would they do it?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (43:49):
Yeah, that's what this is all about,
and a lot of different peopleare working on this issue of
pollinator plants becausepollinators are declining at an
alarming rate and it's somethingof urgency and there's actually
a lot of funding for it rightnow.
(44:09):
So this is a separate projectfrom that, but certainly,
certainly.
I went to one of those talksand we're in.
We know of each other.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindis (44:22):
Great .
Any other questions Come on up.
Thank you very much, sandra.
That was really interesting.
I know you only like reallytalked about the first of the
two papers about how you know ifthere was difference in oral
visitation, but I know youmentioned that you also looked
at if they were also takingpollin and nectar at the same
(44:44):
rates.
So I'm just curious what didyou find for that paper?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (44:48):
Thank you and also, I'll just mention you
know, sometimes as graduatestudents you have this really
big study that took a lot oftime and you collected a lot of
data and you feel like, wow, Ionly got one paper from all of
that work.
And what we did in this studybecause it was so robust is we
(45:10):
submitted the papers back toback, so it was the same title
then.
The first one focused onvisitation and the second one
focused on the floral rewards.
So, to answer your question, wefound different species had
more pollen and more nectar thanothers.
So pentas was a huge speciesfor both nectar and pollen, and
(45:38):
we also found that same trendthat the visitation among not
being significant among nativesand non-natives.
That was the same for pollenand nectar.
So both all of the 10 specieswere able to produce sufficient
amounts of pollen and nectar.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (46:01):
All right, and for anyone who wants
to read that paper, there isthat part two and it is part of
the same issue in Fort ScienceJanuary 2022 issue and again
that's entitled Evaluation ofNative and Non-Native
Ornamentals as Pollinator Plantsin Florida Part Two Floral
(46:23):
Resource Value.
Do we have any furtherquestions for Dr Wilson?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (46:28):
Dr Wilson, considering how relationships
at ASHS have been just sointegral in your professional
life what is your advice?
For making these friendships,relationships and not just doing
what some of us get in thehabit of.
It's just hanging out withcolleagues from our own
(46:49):
institution.
I remember my first ASHSconference and that's all I did
was hang out with my friendsbecause I didn't know anything
else to do.
I mean, I just sort of followedmy advisor around everywhere,
but he was busy doing a lot ofthe things he needed to do.
(47:10):
So so, to answer your question,I think my advice is to do your
best to get noticed, becausethat's when people I mean I go
to talks and when I hearfantastic presentations made by
students I approach thosestudents and try to, either if I
(47:31):
have a position available or ifI think they should compete in
a competition at a maybe it's adifferent meeting.
But you know, do what you canto get noticed and you do that
by serving.
So a lot of times studentsdon't realize we want you are
our future, we want to invest inyou.
(47:53):
And moderating a session, cherylwill tell you we need
moderators for sessions.
So sometimes the students don'tthink, oh, I'm just a graduate
student or an undergraduatestudent, yeah, I don't have
experience doing that.
But that's how you getexperience and also that's how
you get noticed and connectedand you're introducing the
(48:17):
speakers and it's in a differentfield.
Maybe then you're even familiarwith it.
Doesn't matter which sessionyou moderate, and so that's a
really good way.
Every time you get involved ina leadership role, you meet
people and that's how you.
It's just a natural thing thathappens with the networking.
(48:37):
But I understand your questionbecause it's not intuitive of
how you get connected and moveout of just your kind of social
group To widen that exposure.
But that's how you do it.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (48:54):
Yeah , personally, I think I just
have to always try to remindmyself people are way friendlier
than I expect them to be, andevery time I just go up to
someone new and introduce myselfI don't know, especially here
at ASHS I've just been graded sowarmly, so I think that helps
me out personally, and it's easyto learn so much to like if you
(49:15):
approach someone that you don'teven recognize that isn't even
in your field.
Just striking up a conversation, I agree, is easier than I ever
would have expected.
We only have a little bit moretime, but anyone wants to ask us
questions.
I guess now we'll open thatfloor up, sure or advice.
I don't know if I'm ready togive advice.
Dr. John Clark (49:37):
I'm not quite beyond my ears enough yet, but
my question is with this podcast, do you have any plans on doing
any surveys?
And research focused around thepodcast, so doing the past
surveys and seeing if you'regetting the impact of the
podcast on your evolution,because I do a lot of
(49:57):
agricultural marketing and thatstuff and like it needs to be
done Sounds like we'll talklater.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (50:13):
To be honest, we haven't really
thought about that part.
We've kind of just been doingwhat we can to get off the ball
and rolling.
And now that you mentioned it,I feel a little bit stupid,
especially because I'm actuallycurrently taking a monitoring
and evaluation course and thefirst part is always to do a
baseline survey.
So, yeah, we're definitelyinterested in that and it would
(50:35):
be great to work together andfigure something out.
And yeah, if there's anyone inthe audience that has feedback
for us personally, we'll alsotake that now.
So, questions feedback.
Did anyone have anything else?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (50:50):
So I've had a horticulture podcast for
four years for routine episodes,and you guys are way better.
I want to do more earlyproduced like this first episode
with the three different parts,and just great job as
interviewers, so just tremendousgood.
I really ask.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (51:13):
Well , thank you so much.
Before you sit down, you're notgoing to give a shameless plug
for your podcast.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (51:20):
Very California specific but growing
the valley.
It's about horticulture inCalifornia from extension
property extension.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindi (51:33):
Sounds good.
Yeah, what wonderful feedback.
Thank you so much.
Well, thank you everyone forattending today.
This was spectacular.
This is spectacular.
Dr. John Clark (51:46):
I need to drink some water.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindis (51:47):
Don't mind me.
And if you are into marketing,as one of our audience members
is or if you are into specialtycrops, we do have a first
episode that some of you mighthave heard, where we interview
Dr Benjamin Campbell, who talksabout this stuff froma marketing
and from an economist'seconomists perspective.
(52:10):
So you can find our podcastanywhere podcasts are found
Apple podcasts, spotify, thatsort of thing and we do actually
have a feedback form.
We also have stickers.
So I on the ASHS website youcan find a page that is for this
(52:32):
podcast and on that page youcan find the feedback form link.
You can also access thefeedback form link at the folder
that I will have up here like10 seconds from now, and you can
get a free sticker for thepodcast logo.
So thanks, so much everyone.
Thank you.
Hello everyone.
Thank you for joining us.
Can you hear me?
All right, perfect, all right.
So we have a very special guesthere who's going to play music
for us in a minute.
This is Sam Humphrey and LaraBrindisi, and this is our first
live interview, so it might be alittle bit rough.
Thank you for joining us andlet's give it away to Dr.
(00:24):
John Clark.
Dr. John Clark (00:25):
Okay, so this is a newly composed song,
especially for the ASHS podcast,so I hope you like it.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (01:56):
Wow, thank you so much.
He's running off to his nextsession, but that is a piece of
music that he composed just forthis podcast.
So when you listen to futureepisodes, you will hear that
music that has never before beenheard, except for today.
So love that.
Hello, welcome, thank you forcoming.
(02:17):
My name is Sam Humphrey and I'mLara Brindisi and we're the
co-host of Plants, people,science, the ASHS American
Society for HorticulturalSciences official podcast.
So we're going to talk aboutthe layout of our podcast and
what our, what our episodes willfeature, and then we're going
(02:38):
to get into an interview todaywith Dr Sandra Wilson.
Yeah, a little bit ofbackground about this podcast.
So we're going to be doing, youknow, a series of episodes
where we interview the leadingscientists in the field,
especially if they are membersof ASHS, and this will show a
little bit behind the scenes ofwhat's going on in the research,
(02:59):
but also presenting, you know,the latest research that is just
going on in the industry, inthe field, whoever is presenting
, and normally these shows wouldbe recorded, but we thought it
would be really fun to do a liveepisode so that we can
broadcast right here fromChicago, from this conference.
All right, so let's talk alittle bit about ourselves.
Just brief introductions.
(03:21):
Hi, I'm Sam.
I am a master's student atNorth Carolina State University
and I study strawberries incontrolled environments.
I did my undergrad at theUniversity of Florida in plant
science and I just really lovemany areas in horticulture.
I love soil science andenvironmental science and how we
can change environments to growplants better, and so I really
(03:44):
love the idea that this podcastreally will bring together lots
of different fields and increasevisibility for important work.
And I'm Lara.
I study basil mainly at thegenomics, chemistry, physiology
of whole tolerance specifically.
I also work on other crops andvertical farming systems and
medicinal plants.
Really glad to be part of thispodcast, so looking forward to
getting into the interview today.
(04:05):
This podcast started.
Well, the idea of the podcaststarted only about five months
ago.
The ASHS has several plantindustries, groups of scientists
that come together to talkabout areas of their interests,
so there are education ones andtheir communication ones, and a
couple of those plants groupsshowed interest in having a
podcast to talk about ASHS andthe important work our
scientists do, and so theyproposed the idea our wonderful
(04:27):
cerebellum, which is a veryimportant topic for us to talk
about ASHS and the importantwork our scientists do, and so
they proposed the idea.
Our wonderful Sarah Powell hasbrought this to fruition.
She transferred thatinformation and recruited us.
Several students on the podcastteam Us teammates joined.
(04:51):
We have a team behind just Laraand I and that team includes
Alex Fraser, who is our podcastproducer, who's interested in
environmental science and manyother things.
There Alex is in the wonderfulshirt.
We also have a couple of peoplewho are on the sort of research
side of this.
So Lara and I do the talkingand we also will read these
(05:14):
papers and do research on ourown.
But just to add to thatexpertise, we have other
students helping us as well.
So on our research team we haveLena Wilson, who is into
blueberry breeding.
She's a master's student rightnow at North Carolina State
University and she's interestedin biotechnology.
We also have Andrew Comatz, whoalso does blueberry breeding
(05:35):
but is interested in ecology andsustainability, and he's at the
University of Florida.
We also have, again, lots ofsupport from our wonderful Sally
Murphy and Sarah Powell again.
So our team is structured as ustwo hosts and we'll be doing
all the talking, but again wehave that team in the background
doing the important work thatsupports this podcast.
(05:59):
Yes, we're aiming to have fourto six episodes a year that's
really the rough guideline andtrying to capture all the
different aspects of port ofculture.
So different fields, differentperspectives, different crops.
I guess fields is a littlebroad.
It could mean literally in thefield or fields of research.
So I guess we'll incorporateall of it and the emphasis is to
(06:20):
look at research that waspublished in the horticultural
journals published by ASHS,especially for members.
So anyone out there in theaudience especially that would
be interested in beinginterviewed, feel free to
contact us.
If you don't have ourinformation yet, we'll share it
at the end of the podcastepisodes.
That way you can reach out tous and we can discuss any future
(06:41):
interviews as well.
Yeah, yeah, so that is one ofthe great things that we've had
in ASHS.
Right, we were just talkingabout how we've met all of these
amazing people who could be onthe podcast someday or just have
really interesting ideas aboutour research.
You met people like that today,right, Lara?
Oh, yeah, I mean I love ASHS.
(07:02):
I only just started coming,actually last year, due to Aaron
Farr convincing me in theaudience.
I'm going to give her a shoutout.
But yeah, I really love ASHS.
It's been my favoriteconference that I've attended so
far.
I mean, they're just wonderfulpeople that attend.
I've been going to so manytalks on.
Of course, basil has beenreally popular this year.
I don't have to go to as manybasil talks as possible, but
(07:24):
also controlled environment,agriculture, genomics talks and
genetics talks, medicinal plants.
It's been a riot.
Yeah, I've also really enjoyedthe ones that are not so field
specific, like there was onereally cool like workshop today
on undergrad education, therewas one the other day on
leadership, so a lot of coolstuff going on here.
(07:47):
What else have you enjoyedabout the conference?
Well, just meeting cool people,right.
So especially our you know ourinterviewee today that I would
like to introduce.
So we are thrilled to introduceour guest, Dr Sandra Wilson, who
is a professor in theDepartment of Environmental
Horticulture at the Universityof Florida.
She has received many awards asan educator and has made
(08:10):
outstanding contributions tohorticulture, and today we will
be discussing her research.
So her research is comparativeand non-native plants through a
discussion on two of her papersthat she's published earlier
this year in Hort Science.
The one we will be discussingtoday is called the evaluation
(08:32):
of native and non-nativeornamentals as pollinator plants
in Florida.
Number one floral abundance andfetus eye tonification.
Dr. John Clark (08:42):
Hi, Dr Wilson Hi .
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (08:46):
So to serve your full, I'll serve
the publication.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (08:49):
Hello everyone.
Thank you, Lara and Sam, forthis opportunity and also for
picking this paper.
You never really know thevolume of the audience.
I mean, you know how many timesthe papers download it, but you
really don't know the impact ofthe paper.
When I got the email from youthat it was selected to be
(09:13):
featured in this podcast, me andthe co-authors and the graduate
students certainly were veryexcited.
So thank you very much.
So this project was?
It included a collaborationwith a B ecologist out of the
Department of Entomology namedRachel Malinger.
It had a master's degreestudent on it, Rachel Heather
(09:37):
Kaliman, who has graduated andis now working on her Doctor of
Plant Medicine program, and thenDr Gary Knox.
He's a horticulturist here atASHS.
He couldn't be here right now,but he was an author as well and
an statistician.
So that was our team.
How did you get together?
Okay, so how did we gettogether?
(09:59):
Well, the University of Floridahas lots of opportunities for,
and they want interdisciplinaryresearch, and she had just the B
ecologist.
That was a new physician, shewas just hired and she didn't
really know how to grow plants.
I knew how to grow plants andalso we wanted it to be in more
(10:23):
than one location, and Dr Knoxis located at one of our
research and education centers,and we found this wonderful
graduate student, and then theproject began.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindis (10:35):
Thank you so much for that.
So for everyone in the audience, who the people in the audience
who might not have read thispaper, could you describe
briefly what it's about?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (10:44):
Okay, so I'll backtrack a little bit.
So we got this team togetherand before we published this
paper, one of the first thingswe did was to survey all of the
master gardeners in Florida.
We sent the survey out to 4,000participants and we wanted to
(11:04):
get an understanding of thevalue of be gardening, their
interest and also whether or notthey, how comfortable they were
in identifying the friendlyplants and what type of
programming they would mostlikely benefit from.
So we did that survey, wepublished that in the Hort
(11:27):
Technology Journal and then thatjust led to our discussions of
the science.
And really the question that wewere talking about with each
other is you know, we see allthese plants in the box stores
and at the nurseries and they'relabeled pollinator friendly.
But what does that really mean?
(11:48):
Does that mean that that plantattracts pollinators and they're
visiting but not using thosefloral rewards?
And at what level?
How do you discern if a plantis pollinator friendly or not?
So we also collaborated withJacksonville Zoo that was
interested in this type of study, and that's really what got the
(12:10):
conversation going.
What type of study would weneed to get the research to be
able to support that question?
So what did you find Okay.
Well, to give you just a tinybit of a background of the
project, so what we did was wepicked 10 different ornamental
(12:35):
species and for each of thespecies we tried to have a
native genus and a non-nativegenus, because that's something
we wanted to compare, like didit matter to these pollinators
if they were visiting a nativeversus a non-native?
And also we included pentas,and pentas do not have a native
(12:55):
counterpart, but they're a huge,they're in every pollinator
garden retail center.
And so what we did for that onewas we included an
old-fashioned pentas, sort oflike the kind that you find at
your grandmother's house, andthen we compared that with one
of the new F1 hybrid pentas andwe arranged that in a Latin
(13:18):
square design with plots ofthose 10 species.
And then we monitored the insectvisitation for five second
intervals and we recorded thatvisitation.
And we did that by groups.
It was too hard to be able toclassify it down to the exact
species, so we grouped them intonative, small and medium-bodied
(13:42):
bees, large bees, wasps,butterflies, and there was Thank
you, c, thank you.
These students are amazing.
They, of course.
They know the publication morethan I do, as Sam just reminded
(14:02):
me.
The last category was honeybees, and so those were the morpho
groups.
Again, this study was conductedin two locations, so that's
something we were looking at aswell.
And then the final element thatwe assessed was the effect of
season, like did visitationchange over time throughout the
(14:23):
study?
So that's to give you a littlebit of background information of
how that experiment was set upand, to answer Lara's question,
what we found.
So we recorded 22,000 insectvisitations in the collection
times that we made and we foundthat 55% of the visitations were
(14:46):
made by the native small tomedium-bodied bees and following
that was butterflies and thenwasps and then honeybees.
And regarding the differentspecies that we looked at, we
found the greatest floralintensity or the floral amount
(15:10):
was Lantana, both native andnon-native.
Lantana had the greatest floraldensity and we found that
Galaria both native andnon-native Galaria didn't matter
which attracted most of thebees.
They're very attracted toGalaria and pentas interestingly
(15:34):
, had a large population ofwasps that used pentas, which is
important, and I mean we sawthat that visitation decreased,
as we might expect, as theseason decreased and you know it
reminds us that when we'replanting pollinator guards we
need to consider that insectvisitation year-round and
(15:56):
provide those fallfloweringspecies and serve them in that
capacity.
So we did.
It was a great experiment.
We learned things we didn'teven think we were going to
learn.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (16:09):
So I have to ask you mentioned that
you recorded 22,000 visits.
What does it actually look likefor the team on the ground?
Are they, you know, camping out, staking out the bees and the
wasps in the background?
What does the research actuallylook like for people collecting
it?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (16:25):
Well, my graduate student's not here
because she couldn't be here,but she would just give you like
a great big sigh and she wouldprobably just I don't know have
some anxiety, as she remembersbeing in the hot field all
summer long, standing therewaiting and really hoping for
(16:45):
visitation.
Because you know we planted andwe hoped they would come, but
no one's really sure and youknow we always had to choose a
certain time of day and full sunand things like that.
So, to answer your question, itwas very hard in counting those
insects and being able toidentify those morpho groups.
(17:06):
But it was even harder in thefollow-up publication where we
had to extract the nectar andalso the pollen from those
plants.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (17:17):
But wait, hold on.
There were two whole plots.
There were two locations inFlorida separated by what?
An hour and a half over threedifferent seasons.
Right, was it just hercollecting the stator or was it
a whole team?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (17:33):
All right now Sam's making me feel bad as
her academic advisor.
It was a robust study, but shedid have a team of people that
came out to help her.
Part of that was her trainingthe team so that everybody had
the same knowledge base as shedid.
And to make her life a littlebit easier, we did it every
(17:57):
other week and then on theopposite weeks.
Then she would go to the otherlocation and do that, and the
study was a six-month study, sothat, you're right, it was a lot
of data, yeah, so collecting alot of data usually means a lot
of challenges will pop up alongthe way.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (18:18):
Can you discuss any challenges that
you might have run into incollecting this type of data?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (18:24):
So we all publish those papers where you
know in your mind what didn'tquite work and you're hoping
that that's not going to detractfrom the reviewers accepting
the publication.
So this is sort of like behindthe scenes Now that these papers
are published.
Of course, with any field study, there's going to be things
(18:48):
that you didn't expect, and wecertainly had that whether it
was weather differences,differences in the way the
fields were managed, with nearbyweed management and things like
that.
And actually probably one ofthe hardest parts was trying to
get all of that plant materialfrom different nurseries, and
(19:12):
even some of it we propagatedourselves to be at the same
maturity, to start at the sametime, and so, since you asked
the question, this is good forthe students to know that
they're not alone when thesethings happen.
So my graduate student drove tothe nursery to pick up the
(19:33):
plants.
We were scheduled to installthe experiment the next day and
everything was set up, so itneeded to be done that day.
And she got to the nursery andthese were special plants that
they had ordered for ourexperiment.
Well, somebody didn't realizethat they were for our
experiment and they didn'tbelong at the nursery, so they
(19:58):
were put to pasture, I'll justput it mildly.
And when we got there they hadthis kind of look like which
plants are you here to pick up?
And so that was one of thepentas, one of we had two pentas
that was one of the pentas, andso they actually had to go out
(20:21):
to the nurseries holding areawhere they got rid of the plants
that they weren't going to use,and it had just been that
morning so they were able topull them out, but those plants
hadn't recovered from that shock.
So what we had to do is holdthose plants and then
incorporate those plants intothe next study that we published
as part two.
(20:41):
And those things just happenand you just roll with it.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (20:48):
Yeah , so to bring up the nursery
involvement, what does thedemand look like for these
native plants in the nursery,since apparently your research
plants are really a hotcommodity for consumers?
Dr. John Clark (21:03):
I mean.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (21:03):
I feel like Lara and Sam asked the best
questions ever, because that isan excellent question.
So, even though there's a surgein popularity with native
plants, really it onlyrepresents a very small fraction
of our industry.
(21:23):
In Florida, that's 15.5% ofornamental sales are consists of
native plants, so it is a smallamount.
And many of the large scalenurseries, which Riverview Farms
was the they donated all theplant material for us and helped
us to decide which plants weshould include in the study,
(21:47):
like which ones they observedwere pollinator friendly, and
but they didn't sell the natives.
They sold improved hybrids thatmight have had some of the
native germ possum, but itwasn't just the natives.
So we had to go to anothernursery that only produces
natives and they produce thoseby seeds, whereas the other
(22:10):
plants were mostly vegetativelypropagated.
So, to answer your, I thinkthat answered your question.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (22:20):
So it sounds like a lot of people
in Florida will grow thesenative flowering plants and it
sounds like there are kind ofpollinators.
But are there any furtherbenefits to the environment or
to ecology aside from thepollinators?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (22:37):
Well, I just love native plants.
I think that they're justspecial because they've been
here before we were here.
I mean, they've survivedhardships for many, many, many
years and they're accustomed toour rainfall and to our seasons
(22:57):
of drought and all of that, andthat makes them more durable.
It makes them require lessmaintenance than some of our non
natives and also they bring agreat amount of diversity,
biodiversity, to our gardens,and there's just lots of them.
I mean, they've been usedmedicinally and historically for
(23:20):
dyes and food and fiber, andthey just have a really rich
heritage and it makes sense tosee them come back, so that
natives are kind of our new norm.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (23:34):
So I did get to go to your talk this
morning and I saw pictures thatyou put up of these native
plants and they are quitestunning, some of them really
crazy, horrible, and you'retalking about non-natives and
how they've been bred to look acertain way.
How does this influence thenumber of flowers or the flower
(23:55):
structures, and how does thatcompare to native, to non-native
plants and how does thatinfluence pollinating efforts?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (24:03):
So that was really the big question.
You know, the goal of the studyis to understand that question
and we only had 10 species inthe study.
But what we found is that,statistically, if you were to
compare natives and non-nativesjust with these plants that we
studied, they didn't.
(24:24):
Statistically the non-nativeplants didn't attract
pollinators less than the nativeplants.
But you have to remember wechose non-native pollinator
plants that the industry pickedfor us, that they saw attracted
natives.
So in a little bit we kind ofskewed the scale regarding that.
(24:45):
And what else did you ask?
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (24:50):
Yeah , I mean I think that addresses
the question.
I guess when I hear non-nativeplants, sometimes I think of
these doubly peddled flowersthat no longer have their
reproductive structures andaren't then attracting any bees.
But if you are selecting theones that are pollinator
friendly in the industry, thenyeah, that probably helps that
problem right.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (25:12):
Yeah, so exactly, that's exactly right.
So sometimes the analogy that Ilike to use is have you ever
been to the store and bought arose and been so disappointed
because the rose didn't havethat nice fragrance that you
were hoping for?
Well, sometimes that happens inour breeding efforts I mean,
(25:35):
we're breeding better plantsthat have novel flowers and
better forms and things likethat but sometimes the
consequence could be whether ornot that's changing pollinator
visitation patterns or thefloral resource of nectar or
(25:56):
pollen, and that's really whatwe were looking at.
And one of the reallyinteresting things of this study
is that we compared a nativeLantana with a Lantana that's
called Blumify Rose.
That's a University of Floridarelease of a sterile form of
invasive plant.
So in order to get that Lantanaapproved for release, they had
(26:22):
to show that it was female,sterile and had a very low
ability to pollinate the nativeplants through pollen, and so we
were very interested to answer.
That exact question is was thisbreeding that we did?
Did we somehow inadvertentlycompromise the plant?
And in this case we did not,which was reassuring.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (26:46):
Just the way you talk about this
work and reading your findings,it's clear how important this is
and it's really exciting for me, like from someone on the
outside who doesn't do anythingrelated to this.
I really love seeing whatyou've done so far and I'm
curious what are the next stepsto research or your research
program?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (27:07):
Well, every graduate student who's
watching this knows that whenthey finish a project, there's
probably at least a dozen otherprojects.
You know of questions that needto be answered by the next
student, and that's really thesign of a successful project.
So where this has gone isRachel Malinger, the bee
(27:29):
ecologist.
She wrote a separate grant andexpanded this to 30 species and
that includes shrub species.
And what's unique about thatgrant?
Not only is it looking at morespecies, but it's looking it's
during the course of two years,so we only had a master's
student, so we could only takesix months for the data.
(27:51):
This has a PhD student on it, soshe'll be monitoring those
plants and also they're studyingthe effects of floral traits
and also the effects of dropstress on pollinator visitation
and floral availability.
So it's a pretty big extensionto this project.
(28:12):
Another fun project that we'reworking on, that we have a
graduate student working on, isthe effect of pesticide toxicity
in the pollen and in the nectarof plants and whether or not we
can come up with some bestmanagement practices of spray
(28:32):
routines that isn't going toadversely affect our bee
pollinators.
Okay, thank you.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (28:40):
So now we're going to segue a
little bit into advice tostudents and young researchers
out there and we were wonderingif you could describe your
career trajectory from being ayoung student to how you became
such an important professor,especially in this industry.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (28:58):
Do you want me to tell them my story?
It all started way back when Iwas an undergraduate student.
I always loved horticulture.
I always worked outside.
I found a tremendous positiveeffect when I was outside with
(29:18):
plants but honestly, I neverknew you could make a career of
that.
I had no idea you could majorin that.
I loved animals so I majored inanimal science.
I wanted to be a veterinarianand so I wanted to diversify my
portfolio.
I applied for an animal scienceposition on the university farm
(29:42):
and they didn't have anyavailability fortunately for me,
because I'm a vegetarian andI'm not sure how that would have
really gone.
But I was willing to do what ittook to get that experience.
And the greenhouse managercalled me and he said we have a
position in the greenhouse.
And I said all right, I'll takethat position.
(30:03):
And then I start working thereand the college professors who
were teaching the plant classeswould come into the greenhouse
and they would say Sandy, whyaren't you taking my class?
And you should try this class.
And I started taking thoseclasses, fell in love with
horticulture and that's when Ireally knew that was my purpose
(30:26):
in life and that was my passion.
But I was near graduating.
So I just ended up with myundergraduate degree in animal
science and figured that thatwas just going to be it.
And then I was working at thisveterinary center and the
professor one of my professorsfrom plant science was picking
(30:51):
up dog food.
And I said, dr Frey, I'mthinking about going back to
school to get to finish mydouble major in plant science.
And he said you don't need toget a double major, you should
get your masters and I'll beyour advisor.
So that was the start of myhorticultural career.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (31:16):
I guess you could say Sounds like
mentorship really played areally big part in those first
few years.
So, moving forward, you realizeyou want to do plants.
You have gotten to this placewhere you have this offer yes,
come back to school, do plants,do plant research as a master's
student.
So what did you start workingon and how did that lead into
(31:37):
your next steps?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (31:39):
So I had a project that was we transformed
tobacco to over-synthesizecytokine in and we're trying to
measure that in plants, and butwhile I was working on that
research project, the universityit was University of Delaware
they had one teachingassistantship available and that
(32:00):
was given to me.
So while I was doing myresearch I was also teaching all
of the botany labs and so I gotthis wonderful.
At the time I thought that itwas unfair that I had to be
teaching and do my research wheneveryone else only had to do
their research.
But now, looking back, thatteaching experience actually is
(32:22):
what helped me know that Iwanted to be a teacher in my
profession and so I gotexperience with that.
And as I was teaching, therewere all kinds of opportunities
for different teaching webinarsand seminars and things like
that.
And I mean that was the dayswhen everything was in person.
(32:45):
You know you couldn't.
It wasn't really a webinar, itwas an in person seminar and I
started going to those and I wasjust very interested in
learning more about teachingpedagogy and I just wanted to be
a good TA for these botany labsand little did I know that that
was the start of my career pathin teaching.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (33:08):
I mean, from what I'm hearing, it
sounds like these opportunitieswere being presented to you in
the background and you werereally opportunistic for lack of
better words but in taking thatup and really following the
different routes as they cameyour way, are there any other?
Types of advice that you woulduse as students.
(33:29):
You maybe don't know how tospeak out those opportunities
yet or how to do it, so, thankyou, I'm going to find them and
go the other way.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (33:40):
Well, I have to say I mean look at our
role models right here with Laraand Sam, because I mean this is
leadership as undergraduatestudents and that's what we all,
that's what employers all wantto see, with smiling faces and
good ideas and willing to dosomething a little bit different
(34:00):
.
And so so, congratulations toyou on doing a great job with
that.
So I guess I'll start that bysaying that ASHS has been
pivotal to every career decisionin my life, like when I found
out when I finished my master'sthe reason why I got a PhD was
(34:24):
because I met graduate studentsat Clemson and teachers at
Clemson, and that's when I gotmy PhD.
And same for my postdoc.
I found that position at ASHSand an opportunity to go to
Japan to study.
That was found at ASHS.
And I mean ASHS is so part ofmy life that my husband and I I
(34:49):
don't even tell you guys thisstory, but we went to an ASHS
meeting, presented our research,we report graduate students,
flew to San Francisco, gotmarried and came back all in the
timeframe of the conference.
And so that is dedication.
(35:10):
I mean we fit, we fit ASHS'sconference around our elope
eloption I don't know if that'sa word or not, but to answer
your question, my advice tostudents, then.
So my advice for students, foryoung professionals, number one
(35:32):
is to get experience anddiversify yourself so that,
because you might not know whatyour passion is like, you might
not yet know what your purposeis, and the only way you're
gonna figure it out is by beingexposed to different things.
So that could be research orteaching or extension, or that
(35:52):
could mean getting internationalexposure or getting industry
exposure there's.
Sometimes we're just we do whatwe're used to doing and we
don't really have time to doanything else.
But just look for those littleopportunities.
Identify with people in yourclasses, maybe as a teacher,
(36:14):
that you really like and feelthat you are in line with their
way of thinking, and volunteerto help them.
It doesn't even have to be awhole semester, just volunteer
to.
If it's someone that has anextension program, volunteer to
help them with their program,one of their extension programs.
We all need help and it's very,very rare that an undergraduate
(36:38):
student comes into our officeand asks to be part of something
.
So that's my advice for thatget experience and get connected
, because all of theopportunities that happened in
my life were through ASHS andnetworking and you, just you
won't have that unless you getconnected.
And also to just remember toalso, once you're at that point,
(37:09):
to serve and you guys areserving the society right now
and finally to give back.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindi (37:17):
That's really wonderful and over the
years, throughout yourexperiences in ASHS and outside
of ASHS, you've been a reallybig advocate for mentorship and
mentor-mentee relationships.
Do you think you could talk alittle bit about the importance
of that in your life these?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (37:32):
guys are so great because they're helping
me remember things that it'slike they read my mind.
And yes, I totally forgot tomention that.
We have the ASHS has amentor-mentee program.
That's free, that it's just aone or two page sign-up.
Sarah back there handles it,and what a fabulous way to get
(37:58):
connected with somebody fromanother university that you
identify with.
And also, we have the resumeprogram and somebody from
another university comes andlooks at your resume and you
might think my resume is alreadygood.
I don't need help with myresume.
Well, what you might need helpand not know it is that
(38:19):
networking.
That person might know somebodywho has a job position that
you're gonna apply for later onin life.
So it's all about buildingthose relationships and taking
advantage of all theopportunities that we have here
at these conferences.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (38:37):
Yeah , I also have to emphasize the
importance of the ASHSmentorship program, because I
did it and had a phenomenalmentor of Leslie Halleick, who
is just an incredible leader inthe horticulture industry, so I
definitely think that that wasreally critical to helping me
personally understand myselfbetter and the direction that I
(38:58):
wanna move forward in.
Yeah, so just wanna emphasizethat for sure.
Yeah, I've had the sameexperience.
Actually, my mentor was DrThierry Cuboda and same very
insightful.
We went in the direction ofwhat I needed the most and so I
(39:20):
ended up asking her a lot ofcareer questions on the field
and it was incredible.
So I'm curious, from thementor's point of view, we have
a very strong mentee perspective, but from the mentor's point of
view, what is it like doingthis?
I mean, you were a student onceand now you're from the other
(39:42):
side.
What's your perspective onmentoring and how you seek out
these relationships and whatthey bring to your life?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (39:51):
Well, from my perspective, I had these
strong mentors throughout mywhole career and they're part of
where I am today and know I amtoday, and they invested time
into me.
I didn't know how to give atalk at ASHS they taught me how
to do that.
I didn't know how to teach theytaught me how to do that.
(40:14):
I didn't know anything, I wasjust a regular person that liked
working with plants in mybackyard, and they helped mold
me into the person that I amtoday, and so my personal
mentoring philosophy is to giveback, and I feel like they
invested their time into me, andnow it's my turn to invest that
(40:39):
time into students and,honestly, when I am at one of
those booths working withstudents on their resume, or I'm
in the mentor mentee programand the student gets a job that
we've been working on for awhile, it's so rewarding and you
get way more back than you everthought you would putting in,
(41:00):
so it's just a 360 degree circle.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (41:07):
Okay , so now we're wrapping up
towards the end of this.
Please stick around as wefinish the interview, because we
will have a Q&A session andthen also any feedback.
But, as we are concluding this,is there anything that we
didn't mention that you wouldlike to mention, or any other
thoughts or takeaways that youwould like the audience to have?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (41:30):
Well, I guess I just would like to say
that to offer a sense of if yousometimes it can be overwhelming
to be at an ASHS conferencewith all of these people and all
of these talks and you can feellike I'm not at that level and
(41:52):
to feel just small in a very bigsociety, and so I would
discourage that line of thinking.
That's how I felt early on.
And also just to encourage youto think about, like what impact
do you wanna make in life andwhat footprint do you wanna
(42:12):
leave?
What can you do?
Even if it's just one thing ayear, set your goals and even if
it's just one thing a year thatyou can work towards.
Try to work towards that andbefore you know it, you're gonna
have this portfolio.
That is just dynamite and itjust takes a little bit of work
(42:36):
and some patience and somereally good mentors along the
way.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (42:43):
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what
I needed to hear.
Thank you, Dr Wilson.
So, in conclusion of thisinterview, if people want to
follow your work or if they wantto reach out to you, where can
they do so?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (42:57):
Okay, I have a website that I update
pretty regularly all mypublications, courses, research,
and if you just Google SandraWilson University of Florida,
that will come up.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindi (43:10):
Thanks , and we'll be sure to include
that in the show notes.
So if anyone doesn't know whereto find that, definitely follow
up with the episode.
Okay, so now we can open thisup to a Q&A session.
Does anyone in the audiencehave any questions?
Dr. John Clark (43:27):
I have a question about the the Zegiro
study associated with theFedFIRST.
Are you going to collaboratewith them with the need of our
FedFIRST project going on?
I don't know if you went tothat talk earlier, Because it
sounds almost exactly like that,Roger.
Would they do it?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (43:49):
Yeah, that's what this is all about,
and a lot of different peopleare working on this issue of
pollinator plants becausepollinators are declining at an
alarming rate and it's somethingof urgency and there's actually
a lot of funding for it rightnow.
(44:09):
So this is a separate projectfrom that, but certainly,
certainly.
I went to one of those talksand we're in.
We know of each other.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindis (44:22):
Great .
Any other questions Come on up.
Thank you very much, sandra.
That was really interesting.
I know you only like reallytalked about the first of the
two papers about how you know ifthere was difference in oral
visitation, but I know youmentioned that you also looked
at if they were also takingpollin and nectar at the same
(44:44):
rates.
So I'm just curious what didyou find for that paper?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (44:48):
Thank you and also, I'll just mention you
know, sometimes as graduatestudents you have this really
big study that took a lot oftime and you collected a lot of
data and you feel like, wow, Ionly got one paper from all of
that work.
And what we did in this studybecause it was so robust is we
(45:10):
submitted the papers back toback, so it was the same title
then.
The first one focused onvisitation and the second one
focused on the floral rewards.
So, to answer your question, wefound different species had
more pollen and more nectar thanothers.
So pentas was a huge speciesfor both nectar and pollen, and
(45:38):
we also found that same trendthat the visitation among not
being significant among nativesand non-natives.
That was the same for pollenand nectar.
So both all of the 10 specieswere able to produce sufficient
amounts of pollen and nectar.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (46:01):
All right, and for anyone who wants
to read that paper, there isthat part two and it is part of
the same issue in Fort ScienceJanuary 2022 issue and again
that's entitled Evaluation ofNative and Non-Native
Ornamentals as Pollinator Plantsin Florida Part Two Floral
(46:23):
Resource Value.
Do we have any furtherquestions for Dr Wilson?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (46:28):
Dr Wilson, considering how relationships
at ASHS have been just sointegral in your professional
life what is your advice?
For making these friendships,relationships and not just doing
what some of us get in thehabit of.
It's just hanging out withcolleagues from our own
(46:49):
institution.
I remember my first ASHSconference and that's all I did
was hang out with my friendsbecause I didn't know anything
else to do.
I mean, I just sort of followedmy advisor around everywhere,
but he was busy doing a lot ofthe things he needed to do.
(47:10):
So so, to answer your question,I think my advice is to do your
best to get noticed, becausethat's when people I mean I go
to talks and when I hearfantastic presentations made by
students I approach thosestudents and try to, either if I
(47:31):
have a position available or ifI think they should compete in
a competition at a maybe it's adifferent meeting.
But you know, do what you canto get noticed and you do that
by serving.
So a lot of times studentsdon't realize we want you are
our future, we want to invest inyou.
(47:53):
And moderating a session, cherylwill tell you we need
moderators for sessions.
So sometimes the students don'tthink, oh, I'm just a graduate
student or an undergraduatestudent, yeah, I don't have
experience doing that.
But that's how you getexperience and also that's how
you get noticed and connectedand you're introducing the
(48:17):
speakers and it's in a differentfield.
Maybe then you're even familiarwith it.
Doesn't matter which sessionyou moderate, and so that's a
really good way.
Every time you get involved ina leadership role, you meet
people and that's how you.
It's just a natural thing thathappens with the networking.
(48:37):
But I understand your questionbecause it's not intuitive of
how you get connected and moveout of just your kind of social
group To widen that exposure.
But that's how you do it.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (48:54):
Yeah , personally, I think I just
have to always try to remindmyself people are way friendlier
than I expect them to be, andevery time I just go up to
someone new and introduce myselfI don't know, especially here
at ASHS I've just been graded sowarmly, so I think that helps
me out personally, and it's easyto learn so much to like if you
(49:15):
approach someone that you don'teven recognize that isn't even
in your field.
Just striking up a conversation, I agree, is easier than I ever
would have expected.
We only have a little bit moretime, but anyone wants to ask us
questions.
I guess now we'll open thatfloor up, sure or advice.
I don't know if I'm ready togive advice.
Dr. John Clark (49:37):
I'm not quite beyond my ears enough yet, but
my question is with this podcast, do you have any plans on doing
any surveys?
And research focused around thepodcast, so doing the past
surveys and seeing if you'regetting the impact of the
podcast on your evolution,because I do a lot of
(49:57):
agricultural marketing and thatstuff and like it needs to be
done Sounds like we'll talklater.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (50:13):
To be honest, we haven't really
thought about that part.
We've kind of just been doingwhat we can to get off the ball
and rolling.
And now that you mentioned it,I feel a little bit stupid,
especially because I'm actuallycurrently taking a monitoring
and evaluation course and thefirst part is always to do a
baseline survey.
So, yeah, we're definitelyinterested in that and it would
(50:35):
be great to work together andfigure something out.
And yeah, if there's anyone inthe audience that has feedback
for us personally, we'll alsotake that now.
So, questions feedback.
Did anyone have anything else?
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (50:50):
So I've had a horticulture podcast for
four years for routine episodes,and you guys are way better.
I want to do more earlyproduced like this first episode
with the three different parts,and just great job as
interviewers, so just tremendousgood.
I really ask.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindisi (51:13):
Well , thank you so much.
Before you sit down, you're notgoing to give a shameless plug
for your podcast.
Dr. Sandra B. Wilson (51:20):
Very California specific but growing
the valley.
It's about horticulture inCalifornia from extension
property extension.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindi (51:33):
Sounds good.
Yeah, what wonderful feedback.
Thank you so much.
Well, thank you everyone forattending today.
This was spectacular.
This is spectacular.
Dr. John Clark (51:46):
I need to drink some water.
Sam Humphrey/Lara Brindis (51:47):
Don't mind me.
And if you are into marketing,as one of our audience members
is or if you are into specialtycrops, we do have a first
episode that some of you mighthave heard, where we interview
Dr Benjamin Campbell, who talksabout this stuff froma marketing
and from an economist'seconomists perspective.
(52:10):
So you can find our podcastanywhere podcasts are found
Apple podcasts, spotify, thatsort of thing and we do actually
have a feedback form.
We also have stickers.
So I on the ASHS website youcan find a page that is for this
(52:32):
podcast and on that page youcan find the feedback form link.
You can also access thefeedback form link at the folder
that I will have up here like10 seconds from now, and you can
get a free sticker for thepodcast logo.
So thanks, so much everyone.
Thank you.
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