Article from: The Scoop | NURSERY | July 2009

By Harold Pellett, Executive Director, Landscape Plant Development Center

The Landscape Plant Development Center has made great progress since its beginning back in 1990 when it started with no funds, no facilities, no staff and no money. At that time, its only asset
was a concept of an organization and an operating philosophy that has proven to be quite sound. Its goal was to develop superior new landscape plants with emphasis on plants that are more tolerant of biological and environmental stresses.
Its methodology was to use a cooperative approach to enable the Center to capitalize on the existing resources of participating researchers to efficiently and effectively develop new plants for all regions of North America. The goals and approach remain the same and have proven to be very sound. Thanks to some very generous contributors we now have a 25 acre research station in Oregon complete with an office, machine shed, a small greenhouse, a potting shed, necessary field maintenance equipment
and an efficient drip irrigation system. We also have a 6 acre station in Lake Elmo, Minnesota that was started in 2006. We have a small but very dedicated staff. Sarah Doane is a full time station manager at our Oregon station. She is very effective in providing all of the maintenance needs as well as doing some breeding, keeping records and everything else that is needed. Teri
Line is a part time administrator. She manages all of the donor records, does all of the accounting, helps with grant writing, keeps me on track and helps with anything else that needs done such as potting of plants, hybridization, etc.

Gia DesLauriers is a part time fund development officer. She also gets involved in many other duties as needed. I am a volunteer and am involved in grant writing, hybridization, managing the Lake Elmo station and coordinating the research activities. We have a good board of directors that includes many well known nursery people from all parts of North America.

To date, we have made four plant introductions and have many exciting selections in the pipeline. Our introductions include: Silver BallTM Pear, 'Center Glow' Ninebark, 'Center Star' Clematis and Cool SplashTM Diervilla. Promising selections include several
selections of Pyrus and Carpinus as well as selections of Cornus sericea, Forsythia, Physocarpus opulifolius, Cephalanthus occidentalis and Viburnum with smaller, more compact plant forms. We are also progressing in the development of hardier cultivars of Japanese maple. This research is a cooperative effort with the
Morton Arboretum as is the Carpinus breeding program. F2 seedling
populations from Acer pseudosieboldianum crossed with A. palmatum and also with A. japonicum are growing at Baileys. These were grown in a seedbed for two years and transplanted to the field last year. The plants have now been through 3 Minnesota winters. We will start making selections of individual plants for further evaluation this summer.

In addition to developing stress tolerant plants we are also working to develop sterile cultivars of plants that have a tendency to become invasive or that have large messy fruit. We have one tetraploid Acer ginnala plant that we've noticed has not set seed for the past two years while other plants from the same

population and growing in the same row have fruited heavily. In observing that plant more closely this year, it has not produced any flowers. We need to follow it further to see if for some unknown reason it is very slow to develop sexual maturity. It is a vigorous plant and other plants of the same age have fruited for several years. A couple of our promising pear selections also appear to be sterile. They flower heavily but have not set fruit even though there are many other seedlings growing nearby so they are not lacking cross pollination. A tetraploid crabapple that we developed flowered this spring so we used that in crossing to produce triploid progeny which hopefully will prove to be sterile.

Another major breeding and selection effort is developing superior cultivars of native woody plant species. In cooperation with Dr. Robert Schutzki, Michigan State University and Dr. Mark Widrlechner, USDA Plant Introduction Station, Ames, Iowa, we collected seed of native woody plants in Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota and are growing populations from those seeds for selecting superior plant forms, disease resistance and tolerance to environmental stresses and are using and will use those plants in breeding research. Initial plants of interest include: Cephalanthus occidentalis, Ceanothus americanus, Amelanchier sp., Acer spicatum, Amorpha canascens, Diervilla lonicera, Dirca palustris, Lindera benzoin, Physocarpus opulifolius, Staphlea trifolia, Viburnum acerifolium, V. nudum, V. lentago, V. rafinesquinum, Alnus sp., Cornus alternifolia, C. rugosa, and C. sericea. We are now acquiring germplasm of selected species native to the dry climates of the Southwest such as Fraxinus anomala,
Amelanchier utahiensis, Berberis sp., Shepherdia rotundifolia, Mahonia repens, Fallugia paradoxa, etc. for selection of superior plant forms and for use in crosses with other closely related species native to other regions of the U.S. with the purpose of increasing drought tolerance.

With strong support from the nursery industry, the Center can continue to develop exciting new well adapted plants for you to provide to your customers.