About the Research Program

The primary goal of my research program is to understand the internal and external (environmental) controls of carbon partitioning in greenhouse crops. Bulb crops are a large focus of my program. The main purpose of this line of research is to discover ways to improve horticultural crop quality by exploiting crop carbohydrate content or metabolism. My program incorporates relatively applied whole-plant greenhouse/outdoor studies with more basic laboratory experiments appropriate to the specific questions being asked. Some specific examples of projects currently underway are:

• Use of GA4+7 as practical anti-senescence agent in hybrid lily crops and testing of the hypothesis that oxidative stress enzymes and membrane deterioration as key steps in the early-senescence syndrome.
• Purification and characterization of amylases from tulip bulbs, possibly leading to an industry assay for proper temperature treatment of this crop.
• Use of controlled atmospheres to suppress stem growth in "dry-sale", retail lily bulbs and perennials.
• Industry-focused, practical research (forcing studies, growth regulators, etc.) on bulb crops.

Perhaps the single most important accomplishment of my research program was the discovery in insects of a highly unusual sugar, trehalulose. Trehalulose is a glucose-fructose disacccharide (1-O-a-D-glucopyranosyl-D-frucctose) that had been little studied up to the point of our work in the late 1980's. We (my collaborator was David Byrne of the University of Arizona Entomology Department) found that trehalulose represents as much as 50-60% of the carbohydrate excreted by certain whiteflies as they feed on host plants. This work has led to an ongoing interest in insect honeydews, and is my career "hobby project".