I had announced my visit to Steve Hootman the Director, who spent a bit of his precious time ; he was leaving for China.
Denis Bottemiller is the propagator. Notice the roller pipes with white handles.
All you have to do to move the whole propagation table is to turn them. That frees a space to squeeze between two of them
as you can see on this picture. That makes for a vast gain in workable propagation space.
Notice too that all the cuttings and seedlings are in containers
1 = seedlings containers (some still have their transparent tops) ; 2 = young transplanted plants.
All the containers are put on the propagation tables and rollers.
Bottom heat is maintained at 70 F by hot water flowing through these regularly spaced rubber tubes.
The small diameter, (about 1 cm), rigid rubber tubing surprised me.
The R.S.F. sows seed on a large scale. All seeds are hand pollinated at the R.S.F.
or are seeds brought back from abroad by Steve Hootman like this rather rare species of the subsection Fortunea.
Uncompensated volunteers like Gary Becker do the different transplantations.
This is his work area.
His work.
Impressive, isn't it ?
He also provides some of the follow-up. Hired staff and interns provide most of the follow-up.
When the plants grow larger
they go in one of adjacent greenhouses to grow on
and become stronger.
The frame of these greenhouses include a special system made up of a channel and a zigzag wire.
That allows the plastic sheeting or shade cloth to be taken off or added very quickly.
Rollo Adams is another volunteer who is in charge of the pollen and seeds.
He spends his days in the park with his "toolbox" ; this special bucket.
All his hand pollinations are recorded.
Without this elementary precaution it would be impossible for him
to find all the seedpods pollinated by him.
A refrigerator in a nearby work area is entirely reserved for the seeds and the pollen.
The freezer compartment is reserved for pollen. We can order pollen through the website of the R.S.F.
Multiple packets of seed are in the box. We can also order seeds through the website.
Opposite the refrigerator there is a cupboard with the herbarium specimens brought back by Steve, mainly from China.
They were brought back in order to be examinated with more attention than in the wild. All plant hunters do that.
Thank you Gary Becker, Denis Bottemiller and Rollo Adams for this informative visit.
