SePPCon 2024: Management, Planning, & Reintroduction

SePPCon 2024: Management, Planning, & Reintroduction   The Grassland Connection: Plant and Pollinator Biodiversity Under Tennessee Valley Authority Powerlines on the Cumberland Plateau Theo Witsell* (1), Adam Dattilo (2), JoVonn Hill (3), Dwayne Estes (1), Ashley Bennett (4), Christine Fortuin (5), Zach Irick (1), and Brittney Georgic (1) (1) Southeastern Grasslands Institute, Austin Peay State […]

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SePPCon 2024: Conservation Tools and Programs

SePPCon 2024: Conservation Tools and Programs   Drones for natural resource management, research, and restoration planning Susan Cohen, Peggy Mullin*, Troy Walton, Andrew Zachman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Drone Lab Remotely sensed data can inform natural resource management, help address challenges around ecosystem services, and assist in planning for future resilience. […]

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Creating Best Practices for Terrestrial Orchid Propagation

Temperate orchid propagation methodology is largely decentralized, pragmatically unachievable and frequently unverified by replication. The Plant Conservation Program at UMLA is working to create a centralized resource for native orchid propagation for regional native orchids in a way that is available to groups that want to work with native orchids for conservation purposes but may […]

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Advancements in the Symbiotic Culture of Native Orchid Species

Growing native orchids from seed is a challenging and long-term task with many research opportunities. Symbiotic germination, where orchid seeds are inoculated onto an actively growing culture of known orchid mycorrhizal fungi (OMF), is the primary way to ensure that laboratory propagated orchid seedlings establish a fungal relationship. Despite reports on increased and faster germination […]

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Putting Magnify In Magnificent 🧐

To appreciate the scale of this endeavor, the leaf in this shot is about the size of your thumbnail! Cute as a button, you’ll need a hand lens to appreciate the flower of Lepanthes rupestris. This orchid native to Puerto Rico was recently collected and seed banked at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. […]

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Orchid Micropropagation: What it is, How to Do it, Methods & Challenges

Screenshot of Atlanta Botanic Garden's video on orchid propagation

Orchids are known to be quite difficult to propagate as they typically require fungal symbionts during their germination. In this video, Jason Ligon and Tito Tomei explain how to propagate orchids in the lab using sterile micropropagation techniques. They show each step and emphasize how important sterility is for the process. This video was made […]

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Canopy Thinning and Death Impacts Growth and Reproduction of Isotria medeoloides – a Federally Threatened orchid

Screenshot of Canopy Thinning and Death Impacts Growth and Reproduction of Isotria medeoloides - a Federally Threatened orchid video

Dennis Whigham, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Long-term monitoring of Isotria medeoloides at two sites in Virginia have been combined with observations from an understory thinning experiment at one site and death of a large canopy tree at a second site. New plants emerged at both sites following increased light levels and flowering and fruit production increased. […]

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