Figs in space

Learning takes root as East Ridge seniors propagate plants

Story and photo by Davis Mounger

East Ridge seniors Nicole Tyman and Rachel Smithson prepare sets of plants to be tested as part of their senior project, a cooperative effort with Crabtree Farms.

I salute the efforts of our local high schools to get hundreds of lazy teenagers to do something productive with their lives before they are handed a diploma. The Senior Service Project, those dreaded 20 hours of work and presentation, is a vital part of the curriculum that continues to give a high school diploma some worth.
Seniors have all kinds of directions to pursue for their project. I like those where students both learn a skill and contribute to something bigger than they are. Not enough high school classes offer either, so the project helps round out their education.
Of course, the kids view the whole thing with disdain. So this year, I decide to work on making it fun by steering them my way with some volunteer work at Crabtree Farms.

Fall

In late September, I manage to round up some youngsters with a list of strange and exciting research projects that the farm folks have had on their to-do list. We meet at Crabtree Farms one day after school. Some of the students I’ve taught over the years. Others I’m meeting for the first time.
As Crabtree is an organic farm, the kids learn about the general methods used there. We discuss their goals with Mike and Joel, two of the farm’s managers. Some work they will do collaboratively; other small projects they will monitor on their own.
One of the seniors, Nicole, plans to go into aerospace engineering, a far cry from working with dirt. She had to endure me through French I, II and III, so I’m amazed she wants to get involved with another one of Mr. Mounger’s schemes. I soon learn the truth: Nicole is a confirmed fig fanatic, and hearing that some of the projects I’d be mentoring would involve figs brought her into the fold.
The fig is a tree abundant in lore, taste and fuzzy leaves, and after it’s been bush-hogged, it grows out like sassafras, with dozens of new shoots. We hope to take advantage of this quality of quick regeneration to propagate more fig trees, as Crabtree hopes to delve more into selling edible trees and bushes.
Here’s where the kids come in. They’ll be experimenting, testing different methods of starting new trees and bushes from cuttings. We’ll run several trials, using a variety of techniques. One involves using a rooting hormone called IBA, or indolebutyric acid. IBA is used to speed the rooting of plant cuttings. It’s available synthetically in many plant nurseries, and it is also occurs naturally in the bark of willow species. Over the summer I’d gathered willow branches from along a creek and prepared an extract, so we now have a natural source of the hormone. We’d also learned through a little research that willow bark is a natural source of aspirin. Some research has been done about these two substances in helping plant cuttings root, but much is still unknown. We start by using the hormone on some fig and blackberry cuttings.
Cody, another senior, has an interest in landscaping, and is soon helping with some of the fig work, but winds up helping Mike with the greenhouses as well.
In October, another student, Tim, joins the group. Since he’ll be finishing his volunteer hours later in the year than the rest, I decide to set him up with some new experiments, using the rooting hormone to propagate rosemary, oregano and butterfly bush.
In November, mites attack the figs. Despite heroic efforts to save them, the infection is too great, so we have to scratch that experiment as a loss.

Winter

In December, we order some equipment to help us in our experiments: a soil pH tester, a light meter and other goodies, courtesy of the Junior League’s mini-grant program. These will give us some accuracy and perhaps guide us to future experiments for next year’s seniors.
We check occasionally on the potted cuttings during the dormancy of January, but don’t expect much, since everything slows down in the cold.
In mid-February, the kids return to see if anything has survived. They are pleasantly surprised to find some success. The blueberry cuttings are taking hold in both the sand and peat. There also is some success with the rosemary cuttings. And a further treat: The buttonbush cuttings, which everyone had forgotten about, are doing well, too. In all cases, the sets treated with the hormone are showing more rooting and more vigorous new budding. Maybe we’re on to something….
Mike, the greenhouse manager, is particularly interested in the blueberries, a notoriously difficult plant to root. The growth seems the strongest in the set of cuttings that received the hormone treatment and were put in sand. We’ll continue to follow their progress into the spring, and take a look at how well the cuttings have rooted when it’s time to transfer them to larger pots and eventually, if all goes well, for the spring plant sale. We could have a new greenhouse technique in the making.
I do remind the kids that our results so far support the hypothesis, but that only future trials, carried out by future seniors, will make for a strong argument. We also discuss how all kinds of unaccounted factors could have helped cause the performance so far, and how you should always have some healthy skepticism to temper the enthusiasm.
Regardless of the final results, I think the students will have a good presentation to make before the school project committee.
They take down data of the latest progress. Then they use the digital pH tester that does all kinds of fancy stuff like record conductivity and dissolved solids, and they test samples of soils on the farm, from compost piles to potting mixes.
I hope that in our amateurish work, the kids learn a little about trying to be thorough—“Did you remember to take down the temperature of the greenhouse? And the humidity, too?”—and seeing long-term work through. When Nicole begins her R and D work to send us beyond the asteroid belt, she’ll need some of these skills, and maybe she’ll have figured out how to grow figs in space.