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- Author or Editor: R. Daniel Lineberger x
- HortScience x
A tool with enough power and versatility to communicate the depth and breadth of the art and science of horticulture has emerged with the development of the World Wide Web. First created to meet the rapid communication needs of high-energy particle physicists, the Web has proven to be a powerful information-providing tool enabling communication with all the diverse audiences of horticulture. Web-browsing software is multimedia in nature, and graphically based. Information can be colorful, interactive, commercial, amateur, or arcane, depending on the skill and objectives of the information provider. The target audience can be school children, horticultural producers, home gardeners, or academic researchers. Access to the Web is inexpensive and becoming widely available. These features enable audiences that previously had difficulty accessing the vast stores of horticultural information that reside within the confines of academic and governmental libraries to get that information from their schools or homes. The ever-growing demand for information, the need to integrate Web technology into teaching at all levels, and the adoption of the Web as a resource for distribution of peer-reviewed scholarly work has led to the development of various creative solutions among academic, professional, and avocational horticulturists. Some of these will be examined in detail during the workshop.
The World Wide Web is the most rapidly growing communication tool in use today. The Web links networked computers of all sizes and types through use of a hypermedia application known as a “browser.” Hypermedia technology allows research-based information related to plant tissue culture to be disseminated world-wide rapidly and cheaply, and to audiences that previously had difficulty accessing the information through scholarly journals (practitioners, secondary school students, consumers). The Plant Tissue Culture Information Exchange resides on the Aggie Horticulture homepage (http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu). Present contents include information on suppliers of tissue culture equipment and media, research reports on micropropagation of several ornamental species, and links to tissue culture related material at other universities. Hardware, software, and network requirements to access the Information Exchange and the construction of hypertext documents for inclusion in the Information Exchange will be presented.
The World Wide Web is regarded widely as an invaluable asset to teaching and extension programs. Data supporting this assertion can be gathered actively or passively and can be analyzed to aid decision makers in matters of personnel evaluation and resource allocation. Most Web server software applications keep a log of connections by time, location, and file size transferred. The server logs of Aggie Horticulture, the Web site of the Texas Horticulture program, are analyzed bi-weekly using WebStat 2.3.4 and the number of logins, file size transferred (total and amount per sub-site), and client domain are tabulated. The number of “hits” increased from 15,000 to 120,000 per month (mid-February to mid-March of 1995 and 1996, respectively) over the last year. The logins came from 61 Internet domains representing 56 different countries. The “net” and “com” domains exhibited the greatest increase. “Active” data acquisition through a guest register at one of the sub-sites indicated that only 9% of the visitors registered. However, the data obtained from the active registrants were useful in determining the distribution of users by state and county within Texas.
The World Wide Web and other emerging information technologies are bringing about a quiet revolution in higher education. Networked computers deliver high-quality educational enhancements to students at little per unit cost to the teacher. Slide presentations, course handouts, on-line color photographs, and interactive modules are accessible from the computer desktop via high-speed Ethernet or modem connections. Aggie Horticulture, the Web server of the Texas Horticulture Program, will be used as a model to demonstrate the impact of Web technology on delivery of enhancements to “traditional” lecture-format courses and its potential for delivery of “nontraditional” courses to large audiences independent of space and time constraints.
The land-grant system was founded on the principle that education and information make a critical difference in people's lives, and that the government plays an important role in providing education and information by funding teaching, research, and extension programs. This mission was interpreted previously as a charge to establish great educational institutions to provide a low-cost, quality education to everyone who applied, to place extension professionals within every county in the nation, and to build massive research centers to provide a continuous flow of new, science-based information to all at no charge. My thesis is that the World Wide Web and other emerging information technologies represent the only solution to the dilemma faced by the land-grant system for providing research-based, high-quality education and information to a growing clientele at a reasonable cost. Aggie Horticulture (http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu), a Web server that is modeled on the land-grant principle, will be used as an example of one approach to land-grant programs of the 21st century.
Recent studies by academic, extension, and private foundation “think tanks” have reaffirmed the land-grant philosophy as an important component of American society in the 21st century. According to Bill Campbell's dictum, successful land-grant systems will have more closely integrated educational, research, and extension programs characterized as more ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE, and ACCOUNTABLE than current models. The World Wide Web affords the land-grant professional an information delivery/teaching system that conforms to Campbell's three As. Web technology is evolving rapidly, necessitating continuous and rapid adaptation by information providers. The availability of low-cost, user-friendly Web access through home TVs promises to upset the existing paradigms of extension information delivery through county offices and undergraduate instruction exclusively in the campus classroom. Some land-grant professionals have adopted Web technology as a tool to deliver educational programs and coursework; however, the vast majority have not. Most faculty continue to distribute information in a printed form, citing as justification the very steep learning curve and time involved in formatting materials for electronic delivery. We have emphasized the need for life-long learning to our clientele and students; we must heed our own advice. The transition from a paper-based, county-centered extension delivery system and campus classroom-oriented undergraduate educational system is being facilitated by satellite and compressed video conferencing, and Web server networks. Faculty must develop the ability to integrate appropriate technology into their own programs, since it is clear that the “efficient” land-grant systems of the future will not provide them with the support personnel to do it for them.
Cooperative Extension has relied heavily on the distribution of printed materials to accomplish its mission of providing research-based educational materials to agricultural producers and consumers. As the costs of print media have escalated and budgets have been reduced, Extension has continually sought more efficient and effective alternatives. World Wide Web information servers are central to this task, since they are relatively inexpensive to set up and operate, and can deliver high-quality materials for on-screen viewing or printing on demand. Recent developments (specifically the WebTV network) indicate the Web to be the medium of choice for Extension delivery systems. In addition to providing electronic versions of publications, slide shows, and video clips, most Web browsers also support e-mail and interactive forms for obtaining information from the client. Analysis of Web server logs and guest registers can be used to determine client use patterns to address issues of access and accountability. The current and next generations of most word processing, page layout, and presentation software offer Web-ready layout as one saving option.
Abstract
Actively growing shoot tips of Prunus × ‘Hally Jolivette’ proliferated in vitro on a Murashige and Skoog medium containing 0.1 mg/liter naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) and 1.0 mg/liter benzylamino purine (BA). A 500-fold increase in shoot tips was achieved after 25 weeks in culture. Cultured shoot tips exposed to different levels of NAA and BA (0, 0.1, 1.0, 2.5, and 5.0 mg/liter of each in all combinations) formed roots, shoots, or basal callus depending on the concentrations of added growth regulators. Microcuttings rooted in vitro in the presence or absence of 0.1 mg/liter NAA and under nonsterile conditions in a sphagnum peatmoss:perlite medium. Rooted microcuttings were successfully acclimated and grown under greenhouse conditions.
Bush morning glory (Ipomoea carnea ssp. fistulosa) and the ornamental sweetpotato cultivar Blackie (Ipomoea batatas) were used to demonstrate various grafting methods to students in an undergraduate horticulture class at Texas A&M Univ. Grafting the vining species onto the upright shrubby species produced an attractive ornamental plant and illustrated that graft union formation was independent of plant morphology. Graft “take” was high, ranging from 83% to 100%. Stock plants of both species are easily maintained in the greenhouse and can be rooted readily to “batch up” plants for laboratory sessions. Cuttings from both species can also be used in various rooting experiments, with cuttings of sweetpotato rooting in days rather than weeks, as with some species. The wide difference in morphology and coloration of these two plants also creates an easily distinguishable division between stock and scion.
The genus Betula contains many important forest and ornamental species and a method of rapid clonal propagation of superior genotypes is needed. Thidiazuron (TDZ) is a potent synthetic plant growth regulator with cytokinin-like activity. TDZ was used to differentiate shoots after long term exposure to dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2.4-D) as part of a larger study on clonal fidelity. Birch calli were cultured on Woody Plant Medium supplemented with 10-5 M 2,4-D for up to 30 weeks. The calli were transferred to media containing TDZ at concentrations of 10-6 to 10-9M. Most of the tissue which had not been exposed to 2.4-D differentiated shoots five weeks after being exposed to 10-6M TDZ. Increasing the of time exposure to 2.4-D or decreasing the concentration of TDZ delayed differentiation. Calli exposed to 2.4-D for more than 18 weeks rarely differentiated shoots regardless of the concentration of TDZ used.