If you attended the annual Patriots & Pioneers show at I-Center this weekend (July 11th), then maybe you noticed the floral arrangements on stage. A few of the flower center girls along with Sister Cox and Brother Romney put the floral pieces together right there on the stage Friday afternoon before the show was filmed. This year’s Master Gardner Conference took place June 25th and 26th. It seems everyone enjoys coming to campus and enjoying our beautiful gardens as their classroom. All who attended had a great day of learning and revitalization. What better way to learn how to improve your own gardens while basking in the glory of well-established garden? We’re already looking forward to next year’s event. A group of students traveled to the City of Roses to participate in creating the floats for the annual rose parade. Here's what Jadice Rhead had to say: I am so grateful for the amazing opportunity I had to design floats for the Portland Rose Festival Parade this past week. For approximately 14 hours a day, we designed flower arrangements for six of the fifteen floats, and assisted where needed on four more. At first it was intimidating to create such large pieces. The five of us had to communicate with one another in order to match our designs on each float. Although this was challenging at times, we quickly got the hang of it and designed some pretty fun arrangements! Read an article about the event here. I am in Ruskin Florida working for the company Ag Reserves Inc. with Deseret Farms of Ruskin. They have around 680 acres of Citrus consisting of two varieties of juice oranges, Valencia and Hamlin. The majority of my time has been spent caring for these trees. The citrus industry is being plagued by a disease called Greening. It is spread through psyllids feeding on the leaves and it affects the overall development of the tree. The tree loses 30% of its root system, the leaves are smaller and yellow colored, the fruit is small, discolored, and low in pound solids and sugars. There is no cure for this disease so I've been experimenting with different fertilizers and heat treatment to try to push the disease back into the roots. That would allow the tree to grow unhindered for a few years before the disease migrates back into the leaves. Along with that I've learned how to operate a backhoe, tractor, and fertilizer spreader. |
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