Lower Greenhouse

Last week I uploaded a large number of pictures of the upper greenhouses, so I figured I should upload some of the lower. These greenhouses are mostly for research and labs so they're not as lush as the upper rooms. It's the middle of the summer so very few classes are running and few plants are needed. As such most the the greenhouse space in the lower portion is empty. I'll only upload a few pictures of the more interesting plants.

I'll start off with some Bougainvillea cuttings. These cuttings took a few months to root and then just sat there for about another month. Then they exploded into growth, doubling in size in about two weeks, and started to flower. They were rooted in sharp sand with a misting system and general purpose rooting hormone.



Next we have the Papaya and Cotton corridor. This section of the greenhouse constantly bakes and unfortunately the cotton tends to dry out too often. The plants themselves are also quit old. As a result they're looking very sickly at the moment. The Papaya are doing relatively well but have been intentionally infected with a fungus. This fungus causes mottled green and white leaves. Researches on campus are trying to find a way to effectively treat and prevent these fungus infestations.



I love Eucalyptus trees. I'm hoping to order seeds of a hardy variety (would probably die down to roots each winter) some time soon. The next picture has two different varieties. The largest tree has oval shaped leaves and the two smaller ones have circular leaves. I forgot to get the species names but if anyone is interested I could find out. Neither one is hardy here.



The last picture I have for today is of transgenic tobacco. There are two rooms of this tobacco with various indistinguishable pot labels. I'm not sure what in particular they are using it for. I know a large number of these plants are used for laboratory experiments but that's about it. You'll notice a bit of an aphid problem. We don't use any pesticides and keep the aphids in check with a parasitic wasp species and by manually washing off the leaves. I'm glad I don't have a tobacco allergy! Does anyone have any good aphid prevention/eradication methods?