A whisper came from a small shadow that had just appeared in Janel Chou's room for the night.
"Janel, it's 6:30."
"Janel?"
It was Melissa Kenney, Environmental Sciences Organization president, beckoning Chou to join her to watch the sunrise. Their arrival Friday at Blandy Experimental Farm inspired them to wake up early to experience the daybreak that Chou, a third-year biology major, described as "so beautiful. Here you feel like you're getting away. I think all U.Va. students need to get away like this."
The ESO used a grant from the Arts and Sciences Council to bring two groups of ESO members and other interested students to Blandy Farm, located in Boyce, Va., near Winchester. The first group spent the night last Friday, and the second group arrived the next morning.
|
When the students visited Blandy, they were doing more than just taking a retreat - they were investigating a place where they possibly could do their own scientific research in the future. In fact, Blandy is not a traditional farm at all - in the sense that there are no cows, chickens or crops there.
Graham Blandy left the 700-acre farm, a pre-Civil War plantation, to the University in 1926 as a place to teach students how to farm, since the University did not have an agriculture department.
Under the direction of Dr. Orland E. White, Jr., it became a botanical research station with him supervising the planting of a scientific collection.
Blandy Farm contains 170 acres of land, which was officially named the State Arboretum in 1986. The arboretum contains over 5,000 specimens of plants.
Blandy provides community activities, K-12 school programs as well as hosting a summer research program for graduate and undergraduate students. Through Blandy summer programs, college students have the opportunity to learn how to research and produce their own results, possibly for publication. Some past projects involved tracing the spread of fungus to isolated dogwood trees and studying the movement of small mammals.
The second group of students arrived Saturday just in time for lunch, and afterwards embarked on a tour of the expansive farm. Farm Director and Environmental Sciences Prof. Michael Bowers led the tour with Farm Curator Dave Carr. At every step in the Arboretum, there were new plants with tags identifying them.
Upon filing into the humid greenhouse, Carr explained his latest research project on the effects of genetic variation on defense traits in plants. So far he has found that plants with less genetic variation are more susceptible to some insects, including xylem-sucking spittle bugs, which suck water and nutrients from plant water transport tissues.
The greenhouse contained many land plants as well as several large tanks of contaminated water used in an experiment testing the ability of plants such as cattails to filter different contaminants from water. The goal of the Environmental Protection Agency-funded experiment is to devise new methods of sewage treatment.
"I was completely captivated," said first-year College student Maria Pace after the greenhouse tour. "I really liked hearing about their various experiments and the history of the farm."
Later while looking over a large field subdivided into grassy patches, Bowers explained his research on the dynamics of mole populations in fragmented habitats. Upon observing the vast area the study included, it was no wonder Bowers called it one of the largest scale controlled fragmentation experiments ever performed.
"This is one of the really great things that Blandy Farm can do. It can provide a researcher with a 150-acre field," Bowers said.
The remainder of the tour continued in a van, since the wind had picked up and the clouds brought rain to disrupt the sunny Saturday. The tour showed the tremendous number of programs and projects Blandy offered. Besides the ESO group, other visitors were scattered about the Arboretum, and there was even a 10K run during the morning.
In spite of the plethora of educational opportunities available at Blandy, Prof. Bowers still said he feels the farm's resources have not been fully explored.
"Blandy is an underused yet great resource of the University, and I think the University should use it more," he said.
Read More
Department of Education reverses course, awards Federal Executive Institute to U.Va.
By Ford McCracken | 2 days agoThe ED had previously awarded the institute to Charlottesville City Schools.
Students reflect on the life and legacy of Pope Francis
By Bertie Azqueta | 2 days agoAt the University, students shared a range of perspectives on his legacy of reform, inclusivity and his impact on the global Catholic community.
What does the University’s contract with dining service Aramark entail?
By Brandon Kile | 3 days agoThe Cavalier Daily submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the University for its contract with Aramark to understand the specific terms of the agreement.
