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Hoping An Idea Grows

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 10, 2008

BALM - Rows of plants slump in the sandy soil behind the laboratories at the University of Florida's research station, craving nourishment.

They're getting plenty of water, but no fertilizer.

Other purple salvias, melempodium, loriope and lantana are thriving, having received megadoses of nitrogen, along with their regular irrigation.

Somewhere in the middle may lie the answer researchers seek. Just how much nitrogen do common varieties of garden plants need in Central Florida?

The answer could guide home gardeners to clump high-maintenance plants together in an effort to reduce fertilization, and, thus, the tainted stormwater runoff fertilizer chemicals create.

"There are lots of different plants in the same landscape," Assistant Professor Geoff Denny said. Being able to separate them in the garden will be an advantage to the homeowner and the environment, he said.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District is underwriting the first two years of the study, being conducted at UF's Gulf Coast Research and Education Center on County Road 672.

With Florida-friendly species numbering more than 400, testing every plant would be impossible, said Assistant Professor Amy Shober, so scientists chose some of the most common varieties. Eventually, the research will include cool-weather varieties, vines, ground covers and shrubs.

"We already know a lot of what trees and turf need," said Shober, a soils scientist. But, information on houseplants is, for the most part, anecdotal.

"People may have gotten information from their grandmother, who may be from Northern England," said Denny, a horticulturist. And what worked there may not work in Central Florida.

"We need science-based recommendations we can give homeowners," he said. "We've got to make sure we've got good, solid science."

The key is to find an amount of fertilizer that will make plants healthy and aesthetically pleasing with minimal maintenance, Shober said.

"For tomatoes and berries, you want the most yield from every plant," she said. "You don't necessarily want that in your home landscape."

In the field, biological researcher Gitta Shurberg uses what is known as a SPAD meter to measure the amount of chlorophyll, or greenness, in each plant. She also uses a garden-variety hole punch to get leaf samples to run through sophisticated equipment that will break down the chemicals and pollutants in each plant.

Both water and soils are sampled.

"We're looking for the minimum acceptable level of fertilizer for each plant," Denny said.

Once the results are in for Central Florida, Denny and Shober say they hope to expand the research statewide. UF labs in Davie, Apopka and Gainesville could replicate the study to regionalize the results.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or yhammett@tampatrib.com.

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