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Introduction
The Virginia Tech Department of Horticulture currently consists of 23
faculty members with 16 housed in Saunders Hall, two at VBI on campus,
three at Hampton Roads, one at Winchester and one at Painter. The total
FTE for research is 9.0 with 6.8 on campus (2 at VBI) and 2.2 at the experiment
stations. Of the 23 faculty, 19 have research appointments ranging from
5 to 100%. The breakdown for commodities is 2.8 in the area of nursery
crops/floriculture, 0.5 in fruit crops, 2.0 in vegetable crops and 3.7
in cross-commodity/basic. The breakdown generally reflects the relative
importance of the different commodities in the state economy, except that
fruit crops is underrepresented due to recent retirements. Nine technical
staff support research activity on campus. In addition, we have one adjunct
faculty member currently working at VBI and integrated into the strawberry
genomics project. Cross-commodity research is a catch-all that includes
work with Arabidopsis as a model system, development of potato germplasm
through biotechnology, the core facility (microarrays, genomics) at VBI
and faculty who work on crops in more than one commodity (Nowak, Veilleux).
Five research laboratories, plant tissue culture and genetics, seed physiology
and biotechnology, plant molecular biology, plant nutrition and fruit
quality, occupying 3639 sq ft, are located in Saunders Hall. Through the
integration of two Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) research faculty,
one adjunct professor to our program, and collaborative research projects
involving other VBI faculty, our graduate students and faculty have direct
access to two analytical laboratories (including GC-MS and an array of
molecular biology analytical equipment) and bioinformatics facilities
at VBI. VBI will be relocate to two new buildings now under construction,
situated in proximity to Saunders Hall and our greenhouse facilities.
VBI also provides office space to the jointly supervised graduate students.
Through collaborative projects, and/or fee for service arrangements, we
have access to most of the modern analytical facilities on campus, including
the Fralin Biotechnology Center
(http://www.biotech.vt.edu/).
Farm
The College Farm Operation is composed of six tracts of land totaling
3,200 acres, all located in the Blacksburg area. The Department of Horticulture
field experiments are located in historic Kentland
Farm (http://www.vaes.vt.edu/colleges/kentland/collegefarm.html),
with 400 acres of field plots and over 600 acres of wild life sanctuary,
20 min from campus. The Farm accommodates tree fruit orchards (primarily
apple, peaches and pears), small fruit trials (primarily strawberry) and
vegetable research plots under traditional and heavy life mulch no-till
permanent bed system. Since 2002, we also initiated organic horticulture
research program and in 2003 additional five acres was allocated for the
organic transition program. Our facilities include two general-purpose
buildings located near orchards and site irrigation stations. The current
Farm administration building has been allocated to us for the organic
horticulture program (anticipated occupancy, 2005).
Greenhouses
Virginia Tech greenhouse facilities consist of 36,000 sq ft glasshouse
space with environmentally controlled compartments and approximately 16,000
sq ft fiberglass covered hoop houses, without environmental controls.
Our eepartment is the largest user of this space, 9,700 sq ft glasshouse
space and 11, 000 sq ft fiberglass. The facilities (greenhouse space allocation
to individual departments in particular) are managed by the University
Greenhouse Committee, representing the major users. The greenhouse manager
(responsible for the entire complex) is a technical position within Horticulture.
Virginia Tech Urban Horticulture Center
The Urban Horticulture Center (UHC) of Virginia Tech, located about three
miles from campus on Prices Fork Road, was established in 1989. The purpose
of the UHC is to provide an indoor work area, field space, and equipment
for research that supports the nursery and landscape industry as well
as other commodities. There are currently eight different faculty members
with projects at the site. The site, a former research orchard, initially
included about 4 acres of land, and a 32’ x 50’ research building.
Recent additions to the building include a 32’ x 25’ laboratory,
rest room, 10’ x 12’ walk-in cooler, and a 20’ x 45’
equipment storage building. We have also recently added a new graveled
pad for container growing. Unheated poly houses for winter protection
of container-grown plants as well as a pot-in-pot growing area exist.
There is an adjacent 10 acres available for expansion as the need dictates,
of which one acre was recently fenced to provide growing space to evaluate
new plant introductions collected on plant expedition trips as well as
from breeding programs within the department.
Off-campus Research Facilities
Off-campus Horticulture research facilities are located at the Agriculture
Research and Extension Centers at Eastern Shore – vegetable research
plots and a food quality laboratory, Hampton Roads – field and container
research areas for nursery production, landscape management and urban
tree care, a greenhouse designated to phytoremediation research, and two
research laboratories in a newly completed building, Southern Piedmont
- grapes and small fruit (blueberry and brambles) research plots and access
to the greenhouse and laboratory space, Winchester (Alison H. Smith) -
tree fruit and grape orchards, modern pesticide residue handling facilities,
greenhouse and analytical laboratories, including a newly established
molecular biology lab. Virginia Beach AREC also maintains two arboreta
(Tidewater Arboretum and Utility Arboretum), demonstration gardens (Bayscape
Garden, All American Selections Trial Garden, Perennial Garden, Seashore
Garden and Accessibility Garden) used for research, extension and outreach
programs.
