Anthony Garza Jr. is the supervisor of horticulture and grounds at the botanical garden. He runs a class on horticultural methods and is responsible for the transition to more organic methodologies at the garden.
Transcript
Speaker 1: Hi, this is Rick. We edited this file on April 30th, 2013 in order to fix file upload problems we had within earlier copy
Speaker 2: spectrum's. Next then
Speaker 3: [inaudible].
Speaker 4: [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and [00:01:00] technologists.
Speaker 5: My name is Rick Karnofsky. Brad swift and I are the host of this show. Today. We are pleased to speak with Anthony Garcia jr who will discuss the UC botanical garden at Berkeley. He's the supervisor of horticulture and grounds at the botanical garden and oversees a large number of employees there. He runs a class on horticultural methods and is responsible for the transition to more organic methodologies at the garden, including the recent adoption of compost tea.
Speaker 1: Anthony Garza Junior. [00:01:30] Welcome to spectrum. Thanks for having me. Brad. Give us a, an overview of your responsibilities at the botanical garden. Sure. I'm the supervisor of horticulture and grounds and so I work very closely with [inaudible]. My boss who is the associate director of collections and horticulture and our director. I supervise about 10 area horticulturists. Okay. A lead building, maintenance employee, and a groundskeeper. [00:02:00] And I do a lot of interfacing with physical plant campus services here to support the infrastructure at the garden. I run a class called horticultural methods, which is IB one 12 l. Yeah. So I'm all over the place doing a lot of things. So it keeps it interesting every day.
Speaker 1: How old is the garden? How, what's the history of the garden? Sure. The garden actually started down here on campus. I have an old black and white picture, my office of Palms and bananas and, and other interesting [00:02:30] plants out in front of I believe North or South Hall. Well that was pre 1930 because the gardens started moving up the hill, uh, to its current site, which is a former sheep and cattle farm in 1929. So it's been there that long. We actually have collections, uh, plant collections in the garden, say from the new world desert that date from the early thirties that are still alive. What's your favorite place in the garden? [00:03:00] Oh, that's hard to say. The garden is such a beautiful place and there are several spots where when you're up in the canyon you have views of the Golden Gate Bridge, um, which is unique to University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley.
Speaker 1: I'd have to say my favorite place is probably out in the farthest reaches of the collection in the Mesoamerican or the Mexican and Central American collection because it, it's sort of wedged down in, uh, [00:03:30] Strawberry Canyon. So he can be out in that collection among plants from, uh, Mexico and feel like you're really out in habitat and cause you're seeing very little other built structures around you. It's, it's a really fine collection and probably the least visited because it's the furthest out from the front entrance. Is there any activity that the garden does to try to preserve certain species? Yes, absolutely. Might be in danger. Most of that work is, has been done just because of where [00:04:00] we are here in California with California native plants. And a lot of that conservation work is done by our curator, Holly Forbes and Barbara Keller. And, uh, for example, uh, there are several, uh, there's a recent case of a, an Arctic staphylococci or, uh, a Manzanita California Manzanita being rediscovered, uh, in the Presidio on Doyle drive.
Speaker 1: They were, um, doing some road construction and found one individual, a plant that [00:04:30] was thought to be gone. And so, uh, that plant was before it was dug up and moved to another side and the Presidio, a bunch of cuttings were taken a vegetative cuttings. So we were involved in that and we received a lot of those cuttings and have propagated those and grown those on for, you know, growing back out at the Presidio or other botanical gardens. And we're growing some in the ground. So we're involved in sort of these, what you could call in the plant where [00:05:00] at these care charismatic rescues of very rare individuals and on campus there's the ability for researchers to apply to the garden to do, do, use your space and or do something on the grounds. Yes, we have both indoor and outdoor space available to students, postdocs, faculty, uh, indoor greenhouse space can be utilized.
Speaker 1: [00:05:30] Um, if someone wants to study plants in an indoor setting for a particular reason, we also have a research plateau, which is outside and this can be used for growing plants in the ground. Uh, so yes, uh, that those two areas are available to, uh, anybody on campus who's doing research. Um, they usually just run it through our curator and our associate director of collections and horticulture. Uh, we make sure we can accommodate the plants and the type of work [00:06:00] and uh, Eh, that's been well utilized over the years. Alright. We also do other types of research or support other types of research in the garden that one might not think would happen in a botanical garden. Uh, for several years we had, uh, a magnetometer up on the research plateau that was run by, I believe, the physics department. And they were, uh, working to develop a very sensitive machine, almost like an MRI. So they were picking up, uh, [00:06:30] magnetic impulses from all over the bay area. And so they needed a quiet space away from a lot of noise. So they, uh, they use that. There's a people from campus doing research on on bees and how far they migrate and what types of plants they they travel to in pollinate. So it can be a a a wide ranging, uh, okay. Wide ranging types of research. It doesn't have to just be a plant or plant genetics based
Speaker 6: [00:07:00] [inaudible]
Speaker 3: [inaudible] you are listening to spectrum on KALX we are speaking with Anthony Garcia jr about the UC botanical gardens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, compost tea has been around for a while. [00:07:30] Most of the work on compost, he started with a group called the soil food web. They were doing and still continue to do research on compost tea as mostly an organic replacement for synthetic fungicides for disease suppression in agriculture, horticulture and landscaping. So weed heard about it and we had some colleagues at other gardens starting to use compost tea with good results. [00:08:00] And so that's how we first started to hear about it. And what were the challenges in terms of embracing the process [inaudible] well, compost tea takes some specialized equipment. It's, it's a new approach that, like I mentioned before, it is not just pulling out the, the chemical fungicides to treat a problem. It's more, it's a more holistic approach where you're trying to get beneficial biology out into the environment and on your plants [00:08:30] to suppress diseases.
Speaker 1: So it takes a while. So there's a, there's a learning curve and uh, an a by n curve with, you know, even my staff in terms of believing that this a new organic approach to disease suppression and introducing organic fertility will actually work. So, but it helps to have other botanical gardens Arboreta and other colleagues who have worked with this and have had good results from it. Talk [00:09:00] about the brewing process. Sure. So [inaudible] we were fortunate to get a grant from the Green Initiative Fund here on campus that paid for our compost tea brewing equipment. This includes a 100 gallon tank brewer with a motor that blows air into the tank. And we also bought a large commercial grade worm composting bin and started off with some bulk ingredients to make compost. [00:09:30] And so essentially what, what the process is, is taking hot compost or what we call thermophilic compost that is cooked down from organic biomass.
Speaker 1: And then taking worm compost. The done the castings, uh, from the worms. Uh, both of these things end up looking like soil when they're fully done. And we take these two things and we put them in a fine mesh bag and we can suspend them in the [00:10:00] tank of water or we can put them in a five gallon bucket of water. And we, it's like kneading dough. We need all this material a and w a water solution. And what we're doing is if you have a healthy compost, uh, what you'll get in that water is a very rich mix of beneficial fungi, bacteria, nematodes, protozoa, uh, along with some nutrients. And so we take this [00:10:30] slurry, this comp, this t from compost, put it into the larger unit, fill that with water. We add some humic acids to sort of bind up the chloramines that are in the East Bay mud water.
Speaker 1: And then we add some extra fish, emulsion and Capitol Kelp emulsion. The fish and Kelp emulsion are used to feed the biology that we've put in that water. We fill the tank up a hundred gallons and we airaid it with the motorized blower for 24 to 48 hours. [00:11:00] So what happens here is that all that beneficial biology propagates with the in the, in the water and with the air and the extra organic food provided by the fish and kelp. And so during that airation process, all this biology multiplies many, many fold. And so that's our basic brewing process.
Speaker 1: So the real benefit will be how healthy you assess [00:11:30] your plants to be. And it, I guess over time you can make that assessment. Yes. Uh, at this point we have mostly been using our compost tea and our Rose Garden. We have a garden of old roses and this is a small collection and so it's been easy to apply, um, are relatively limited equipment, uh, to this collection. Also roses, uh, particularly cultivated roses are classics for having [00:12:00] Fungal Pathogens, like a black spot, powdery mildew, things like that. So we've been using it in there and some things have responded well. Some things haven't responded so well. And we've also been using the compost tea in the Rose Garden, not just for disease suppression on foliage, but to build the health of the soil in terms of the biology of the soil, the fertility in the soil. And so it can take time to convert a soils from [00:12:30] a conventional methodology where you're using synthetics, uh, and then changing into using organics that that can take time and that is pretty well supported in their literature. Going from conventional methodology to organic methodology. Um, it certainly takes some time to convert uh, soils and plants.
Speaker 3: [inaudible]
Speaker 6: [inaudible] [00:13:00] you are listening to spectrum on k a l x. We are speaking with Anthony Garcia jr about the UC botanical gardens.
Speaker 1: Right now we have a student intern who has started and uh, there will be doing the brewing and helping with the brewing and application process in [00:13:30] afforded cultural methods. IB One 12, I'll be exposing my students to the process. There is a student run course on campus, uh, called decal. And so we'll also be bringing the decal classes up for demonstration of how we brew in our methodology. So, and we're certainly at this point, mostly getting the word out about compost tea, um, to students and, and other groups right here on campus. Yeah. [00:14:00] But it helped to broaden that out reach as again, as we see positive results from our, from our program. What does the volunteer program at the Botanical Gardens, the volunteer program comprises several, several arms. Uh, you can volunteer, uh, in horticulture with the area horticulturist, we have a very large volunteer pool of plant propagators who propagate plants for our plant sales, both our plant [00:14:30] deck, which is open daily and our two big plant sales in spring and falls. We have a very large volunteer plant propagator program. We also have volunteers who work in our, with our curators doing all types of, uh, things that curators do in museums. Um, and then we also have very large and active docent volunteer program as most museums do. So that docents, um, lead tours, uh, adult tours, [00:15:00] children's tours, and a free tours to the public as well.
Speaker 7: Now the, the Volunteer Program embraces the university faculty, Staff Students, and it's also open to the community as well. Is that right?
Speaker 1: The volunteer program, right? Oh yes. Uh, the volunteer program is open to anybody who's got the time, uh, to commit. I believe we do ask for a certain, uh, time commitment, um, before we'll, [00:15:30] we'll, uh, you know, give you your badge and your parking Pasch as a, you know, a lot of people come and go. But, uh, we've, we really couldn't do what we do without our volunteers. They do an amazing amount of work from the docenting to the volunteer plant propagation working in horticulture and curation. Uh, because the garden is, is understaffed and underfunded. Unfortunately we rely heavily on the work and the services of our volunteers.
Speaker 7: And within that volunteer program, the kinds of opportunities there [00:16:00] are to learn about if someone doesn't have a great deal of experience, how much training is involved in that program where people who are interested but don't have expertise, could be of great assistance to you essentially learn how to do it all.
Speaker 1: There's a very specific, uh, training program for the docents. In fact, that is, uh, that is fee-based. The docents actually have to pay to come and be trained for the docent program. And that runs [00:16:30] for several months. Uh, volunteer propagation training program is a little more casual, but there we have section heads in the volunteer propagation program who grow certain groups of plants and they'll, uh, train new people who come in along with our volunteer plant propagation program coordinator. Uh, they'll also do some sort of hands on training. Um, horticultural volunteers are a little different. We do prefer horticultural [00:17:00] volunteers that come in with us, some bit of knowledge, um, at least general knowledge about horticulture and landscaping and, um, tools and things like that. Uh, but horticultural volunteers, you know, it's mostly about time and having the interest and, uh, they'll come in and work with the horticulturist and, uh, and certainly learn quickly.
Speaker 4: [inaudible] [00:17:30] you are listening to spectrum on KALX we are speaking with Anthony Garcia jr about the UC botanical gardens.
Speaker 7: Are there other ways that the garden is reaching out
Speaker 1: to the community or involving the community and activities? Uh, yes, we have programs that we run through the year and they may not specifically be on, [00:18:00] uh, you know, growing a particular plant. Uh, we try and broaden the interest range with our programs. It can be things like succulent wreath making. We have a concert series during the summer. We have children's programs that may or may not have to do with plants. We have, uh, classes on botanical illustration. So we really try and broaden, uh, the interest, um, and appeal to other groups besides people who are just specifically interested [00:18:30] in growing plants. Uh, one of the audiences we're reaching out to right now are our people, uh, who are interested in, in the arts are artists themselves. Uh, we have a very unique, uh, installation in the garden right now by Shirley, uh, Alexander Watts. And this is a installation that has to do with, uh, bringing awareness to the plight of, uh, honeybees and California native beast.
Speaker 1: A very interesting [00:19:00] physical installation that you can come and see in our Mediterranean basin collection just above the Rose Garden. So that, uh, is a trend we're seeing in botanical gardens in particular is, is broadening the appeal to other audiences, including art installations. And so we're trying to be thoughtful and tasteful about it. And in this case with the, with the bee installation called a garden of mountings, which is a reference to a Sylvia Plath poem. We're trying to cross [00:19:30] link that art with, uh, the mission of the garden. And so this is a nice fit because it is about, uh, being aware about native bees and their role in the ecosystem and their relationship with plants. So that was a nice fit. And so a unique opportunity to come and see a unique piece of art, uh, in the botanical garden. So we're doing things like that to, to draw in other people besides just what we call plant people.
Speaker 1: And how long will that installation be up? Well, it's been in for a couple of months [00:20:00] now and I think the duration was roughly about six months. Um, it will eventually probably succumb to the elements and so we'll have to take it down at some point, but it is something you can actually walk up, walk under, sit in a, there's a poem in there, there's pictures of the bees with their names and their roles in the environment. So it's a very interesting and educational, uh, art installation, which also happens to be I think, beautiful and appealing and in a unique setting in the garden.
Speaker 1: [00:20:30] Great. And other artists out there that might be listening who would want to run an idea by you? What's the way to get in touch? Uh, they would probably get in touch with Vanessa Cruz, uh, who is on staff and she's been working with surely. And in fact, Shirley Watts is, um, working on bringing in more artists in the next year to do multiple installations in the garden. So we're looking forward to that. [00:21:00] And do you have a funding source for that? Is it, I believe that one is a, the fundraising is being done by, uh, the groups of artists who are actually coming in, uh, to do it. So we, yeah, we at this point, um, wish we, we did, but we don't have a lot of money to support the arts, but we like to promote the idea of the arts. Um, so we hope it's a good cross-collaboration in, um, having interesting [00:21:30] art in the garden for people to see and also giving the artists, um, some good exposure to their audiences.
Speaker 1: Well, any point that you would like to make about the garden that I haven't, uh, covered? Yeah, I think one of the things that always surprises us at the garden is, um, how many people, even people who have lived in Berkeley for years and years, uh, have never been up to the botanical garden. It really is a hidden gem here in the greater bay area. There's nowhere [00:22:00] else where you can come and visit for relatively, uh, a cheaply where you can experience plants from around the world, grown in naturalistic assemblages, um, and have a view of the golden gate bridge places to have a picnic. It's really a unique setting in the bay area and um, and still underutilized even by, uh, the campus. So that that would be my one. Uh, shout out if you will for the garden is to please come and visit, [00:22:30] uh, and support, uh, the botanical garden and its mission. Correct. Anthony Garza, thanks for coming on spectrum. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 6: [inaudible] that was Anthony Garza Jr. You can find out more about the UC botanical garden botanical garden.berkeley.edu
Speaker 5: [00:23:00] irregular feature of spectrum is presented a calendar of the science and technology related events happening in the bay area over the next two weeks. On the third Friday of every month. The Chabot space and science center located in the Beautiful Oakland Hills at 10,000 skyline boulevard hosts night school from seven to 11:00 PM guests 18 years or older are welcome to enjoy full access to exhibits, special activities, workshops, open labs, discussion [00:23:30] forums, alive, planetarium show, film screens, and telescope viewings. If weather permits, food, beer and wine are available for purchase. Tonight's theme is home-ec and we'll feature DIY projects including a green gift, bizarre holiday kitchen science fix it. Workshop discussions with they local monthly meetup group that craft intellectuals and mold wine. Who is it? www.chabotscience.org for more details. [00:24:00] Okay, tomorrow is Saturday, December 17th the director of the UC Wide Institute for Nuclear and particle astrophysics and cosmology. Bernard [inaudible] Dulay is giving a talk for the free monthly science of cattle lecture series. This talk will be 11 to noon in room 100 of the genetics and plant biology building here at UC Berkeley. Okay. Shedding light on the dark side of the universe. He will share current attempts to detect the weekly [00:24:30] interactive massive particles which could make up the dark matter. That makes up five times as much of the energy in the universe as ordinary matter. Visit science@caldotberkeley.edu for more information.
Speaker 5: Nerd night is the discovery channel with beer on the third Wednesday of the month in this case, December 21st nerds of all walks of life gather at the rickshaw stop. One 55 fell street at Vanessa in San Francisco. [00:25:00] Plunk down their hard earned $8 drink, mingle and here three talks this month. Senior, UC Davis medical student, Erica Lee will present genes, gonads and genitals, the miracle of human sex differentiation. Anna Quillo, capital co-founder Adam Bristol. We'll discuss the future of personalized medicine and predictive bioinformatics. There'll also be a third surprise Speaker, sf.nights.com for more information [00:25:30] and now with some news headlines. Here's Brad Swift.
Speaker 7: The surprising discovery of a new way to tune and enhance thermal conductivity gives engineers a new tool for managing thermal effects in smartphones and computers, lasers, and a number of other powered devices. Science daily reports. The finding was made by a group of engineers headed by day you, Lee, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University and published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. [00:26:00] On December 11th Lee and his collaborators discovered that the thermal conductivity of a pair of thin strips of material called Boron nanoribbons can be enhanced by up to 45% depending on the process that they used to stick the two ribbons together. Although the research was conducted with Boron nanoribbons, the results are generally applicable to other thin film materials according to lead. The force that holds the two nanoribbons together is a weak [00:26:30] electrostatic attraction called the Vander vols force. Professor Lee stated traditionally it is widely believed that the phone ons that carry heat are scattered at vendor vault interfaces which makes the ribbon bundles thermal conductivity the same as that of each ribbon.
Speaker 7: What we discovered is in sharp contrast to this classical view, we show that the photons can cross these interfaces without being scattered, which [00:27:00] significantly enhances the thermal conductivity. In addition, the researchers found that they could control the thermal conductivity between high and low value by treating the interface of the nano ribbon pairs with different solutions. One of the first areas where this new knowledge is likely to be applied is in the thermal management of micro electronic devices like computer chips and nano composites that are being developed for use in flexible electronic devices and structural [00:27:30] materials for aerospace vehicles.
Speaker 5: Joe Cordeiro and the Economist pointed me to an article that appeared in the October 17th issue of the Journal of Agricultural and food chemistry in it. French researchers, Caroline Molet and her team studied the quality of Miele duck foreground. France produces 73% of these fat duck and goose loaders. One undesirable issue is that some lovers seem to have larger amounts of fat loss during cooking than others. Market regulation limits fat [00:28:00] loss to 30% and lower fat loss leads to more highly priced delicacies. A proteomics study got to the biological cause of this fat loss. Intense anabolic pathways lead delivers with low fat loss by dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry showed that deliveries were rich in proteins that help with the digestion and storage of food, the less desirable livers that lost a lot of fat or in a different physiological stage and had unique proteins including fatty acid binding protein for this is a marker for [00:28:30] a nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in humans. This suggests that the liver quality is dictated before the slaughter of the animal. One practical aspect is that the yield of four gras is improved by reducing the duration of overfeeding. Understanding the biological mechanism can increase yield and thus improve the humane production of fatty livers. It should be noted that the state of California health and safety code and acted in 2004 prohibits the force feeding of birds for the purpose of enlarging their livers or the sale of such products. [00:29:00] Starting on July 1st, 2012
Speaker 6: [inaudible]
Speaker 4: the music credit. Today's program was the track petite to leap off of list on a David's 2011 album entitled folk and Acoustic [00:29:30] and is released under the creative Commons attribution license version 3.0 thank you for listening to. We are happy to hear from listeners. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot k a l s@yahoo.com and join us in two weeks at this same time.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
