6 Arbor Age / June 2014 www.arborage.com
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Applied
Research
Bottom
Line
Cornell Urban Horticulture Institute (UHI) researchers are attempting to fast-track propagation of alkaline-tolerant oaks that should
come onto the market in the next fi ve to 10 years.
Case studies from the
Urban Horticulture Institute
B y M i c h e l l e S u t t o n
Applied research seeks to solve a particular problem or answer
a practical need. Sometimes, the through-line from applied re-
search to its benefi ts for commercial arborists is not always clear.
With the help of one of our fi eld's most dynamic researchers,
let's follow a few lines to see how research underway now could
affect not just the arborist's knowledge base, but potentially the
bottom line — and in ways that may be surprising.
New oaks for tough sites
Dr. Nina Bassuk founded and directs Cornell's Urban Hor-
ticulture Institute (UHI) and conducts applied research in the
areas of plant improvement, transplanting technologies, and
soil remediation. "We think of everything we do in terms of
potential practical value to the fi eld," she said.
For example, owing to hybridizing work UHI has been
doing since the early 1990s, some oak introductions will be
coming onto the market in the next fi ve to 10 years that
could be game-changers: a whole series of oaks — not just
English and bur oak — that can tolerate a pH of 8.0! That
means oaks with foliage that stays green in the alkaline soil
conditions prevalent in urban settings (and we are increasingly
recognizing that in terms of plant stress, "urban" conditions are
everywhere — not just in cities.)
Beginning in the early 1990s, UHI started on the hybrid
oak quest by fi rst learning, through experimentation, how best
and the
