Once one of the most valuable annual bedding crops in terms of yearly sales, impatiens lost ground to petunias and geraniums thanks to the economic impacts of IDM. One project of great importance to the horticultural industry was the LIHREC staff’s work, headed by Bridgen, using plant tissue culture to develop new cultivars of impatiens that are resistant to Impatiens Downy Mildew (IDM), a devastating disease that affects garden impatiens ( Impatiens walleriana) as well as other crops. He and his staff provide insect and pest management information including diagnostics and identification services, carry out applied research to investigate new and better solutions to pest problems, and participate in education/outreach to help growers stay current on research findings and important issues of concern. Gilrein has worked at the LIHREC since 1987, first as a Cornell Regional IPM Specialist and then moving in 1995 to Extension Entomologist. These studies help alert growers to crop sensitivities, which fortunately are uncommon but can have serious consequences when they do occur, Gilrein says. The center has done considerable work, supported largely through the IR-4 Project, investigating the crop safety of new products. “This really hasn’t changed all that much over the years, though the issues themselves certainly do and our responses also evolve.” “We connect people with a much larger national (and international) network of expertise and in some ways act as sentinels for detecting new problems that pose a threat to the industry, the economy, and the environment,” says Daniel Owen Gilrein, Ph.D., Entomologist for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. The importance of the LIHREC team’s interactions with the grower community as a source of technical information, advice, and solutions tailored to each distinct situation cannot be understated.
The Founder’s Fund makes it possibleįor the LIHREC to continue to receive donations for its support. This came a year after retired nurseryman Ray Bell set up the first-ever endowment for the center. Van Bourgondien Greenhouses, generously donated $130,000 in funds to set up the endowment. Five Long Island greenhouse businesses, including Coastal Greenhouses (formerly Ivy Acres), Van de Wetering Greenhouses, Kurt Weiss Greenhouses, Otto Keil Greenhouses, and C.J. “Our stakeholders are willing to support us in many different ways, but mostly as advocates for the center,” says Mark Bridgen, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the LIHREC.Ī good example of this is the establishment of the Founder’s Fund endowment in 2020 to support the research and Extension programs at the LIHREC. Board members include grower representatives that provide counsel and keep the director apprised of major issues and concerns.
It works closely with advisory boards formed for each of the commodity groups. The center enjoys strong support from the agricultural community on Long Island. The green industry is within a 50-mile radius of the center, allowing for daily staff interactions with stakeholders for diagnosis, consultation, training, and tours. The center’s location at the heart of New York State’s greenhouse, nursery, vegetable, and grape production places its staff in a unique position to interact with its grower stakeholders on a regular basis. with scientists and professionals that represent each of the commodity interests (greenhouse/floriculture, woody ornamentals and landscape horticulture, vegetables, and fruit/grapes) and the cross disciplines (entomology, plant pathology, weed science, and plant tissue culture/micropropagation). The LIHREC is the only research center in the U.S. The 100-year-old center includes 68 acres of irrigated field research plots, a state-of-the-art 17,000 square foot greenhouse, a plant tissue culture and micropropagation laboratory, a grape vineyard, and an ornamental plant nursery. The name change to the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center would come later, in 1999. In 1922, a committee purchased a 30-acre farm, the current site of the LIHREC, that it called the Long Island Vegetable Research Farm. The LIHREC that exists today came out of a recognition that Long Island soils, climate, pest problems, and markets differed significantly from those of upstate New York and that a research center was needed to address local problems.
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