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At the completion of a Montgomery Botanical Center expedition, seeds,
documentation, herbarium specimens, and photographs are given directly
to the Collections Development (CD) Department for critical evaluation.
The CD team confirms that the seeds are wild-collected and that all
data required to make the germplasm scientifically valuable are
present. If the seeds will increase the scientific quality of MBC's
collections, they are accessioned and their data are entered into the
plant database. To ensure that financial
resources are not used to grow more plants than
required for the future development of the collection, Collections
Development determines how many seeds should be sent to the
Horticulture Department for permanent inclusion in MBC’s collection.
Any extra seeds are immediately released and donated to botanical
gardens and plant societies..
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MBC's greenhouses and palm
shadehouse.
MBC's cycad shadehouse and
full-sun nursery area.
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MBC’s nursery curator
then processes and evaluates the collection locality data and any other
available horticultural information to design germination and growing
procedures specific to the needs of the new accession. After years of
experimenting with various types of germination procedures and growing
media, several propagation protocols and soil recipes are now being
used.
For every accession in
the nursery, the nursery curator documents plant-care
procedures in the nursery propagation log. Daily records are kept of
the number of seeds germinating, chemicals used for disease and insect
problems, fertilization regimens, when and how repotting occurs, and
bench relocations. Those data are submitted weekly to the CD
Department, where they are added to the propagation records in the
database. Working with the CD team, the nursery curator undertakes a complete
seed and plant inventory every September to guarantee that the database
remains accurate.
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