Resetting the table for people and plants: Botanic gardens and research organizations collaborate to address food and agricultural plant blindness

Krishnan, Sarada; Moreau, Tara; Kuehny, Jeff S.; Novy, Ari; Greene, Stephanie L.; Khoury, Colin K.

doi:10.1002/ppp3.34

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…Achieving CWR's full potential as conservation champions will require greater public awareness of these plants. While all involved organizations will need to enhance their public outreach around native CWR, botanical gardens, which receive more than 120 million visitors a year in the United States ( 33 ), could play a particularly pivotal role in introducing these species to people, communicating their value and plight, and better connecting the concepts of food security, agricultural livelihoods, and services provided by nature for the public ( 37 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crop wild relatives of the United States require urgent conservation action

Khoury

Carver

Greene

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The contributions of crop wild relatives (CWR) to food security depend on their conservation and accessibility for use. The United States contains a diverse native flora of CWR, including those of important cereal, fruit, nut, oil, pulse, root and tuber, and vegetable crops, which may be threatened in their natural habitats and underrepresented in plant conservation repositories. To determine conservation priorities for these plants, we developed a national inventory, compiled occurrence information, modeled potential distributions, and conducted threat assessments and conservation gap analyses for 600 native taxa. We found that 7.1% of the taxa may be critically endangered in their natural habitats, 50% may be endangered, and 28% may be vulnerable. We categorized 58.8% of the taxa as of urgent priority for further action, 37% as high priority, and 4.2% as medium priority. Major ex situ conservation gaps were identified for 93.3% of the wild relatives (categorized as urgent or high priority), with 83 taxa absent from conservation repositories, while 93.1% of the plants were equivalently prioritized for further habitat protection. Various taxonomic richness hotspots across the US represent focal regions for further conservation action. Related needs include facilitating greater access to and characterization of these cultural-genetic-natural resources and raising public awareness of their existence, value, and plight.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crop wild relatives of the United States require urgent conservation action

Khoury

Carver

Greene

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Building on existing collaborations between the crop preservation and botanic garden communities is an important step toward ex situ preservation of CWRs. Coordination around plant taxa or geographic region may be a way to establish more connectivity between the botanic garden and crop gene bank communities (Krishnan et al, 2019). For example, Denver Botanic Gardens provides critical expertise and support for coffee species conservation (see Bramel et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ex situ metacollection of wild species maintained in botanic gardens likely includes CWR germplasm valuable for the future of crop breeding and food security. Botanic gardens also offer world-class facilities and expertise in ex situ preservation and plant breeding and provide valuable outreach opportunities to >500 million botanic garden visitors and students each year on topics including crop diversity and food security (Krishnan et al, 2019;Miller et al, 2015;O'Donnell and Sharrock, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Botanic Gardens Are Important Contributors to Crop Wild Relative Preservation

Meyer

Barton

2019

Crop Science

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Humans rely on crop wild relatives (CWRs) for sustainable agriculture and food security through augmentation of crop yield, disease resistance, and climatic tolerance, among other important traits. Many CWRs are underrepresented in crop gene banks. With at least one‐third of known plant species maintained in botanic garden living collections, the botanic garden community serves as an important global ex situ network that supports plant conservation and research around the world. We sought to characterize botanic garden holdings of CWRs and demonstrate capacity for cross‐sector coordination in support of CWR ex situ preservation. To do this, Botanic Gardens Conservation International US (BGCI‐US), in partnership with the United States Botanic Garden, used the BGCI PlantSearch database to conduct an ex situ survey of CWRs maintained in botanic gardens. We found 28.6% of global priority CWR taxa and 75.4% of US priority CWR taxa represented in botanic gardens. By comparing with priority CWR holdings in crop gene banks, botanic gardens maintain 22 global priority and 108 US priority CWR taxa not reported by crop gene banks. A combination of crop gene bank and botanic garden holdings results in broader taxonomic coverage. Looking more closely at 10 US priority CWR species, findings demonstrate that botanic gardens have the capacity to fill critical CWRs gaps in crop gene bank collections, and botanic gardens maintain samples from wild populations not represented in crop gene banks. We call on the crop gene bank and botanic garden communities to use an integrated collections development approach for further coordination, complementarity, and duplication of ex situ CWR plant genetic resources.

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“…Globally, 3534 public gardens are listed in the Garden Search database of BGCI (BGCI, 2018). These gardens are geographically distributed across every inhabited continent and located in every major urban metropolis area as well as in rural areas (Krishnan et al, 2019). With more than 60,000 experts on horticulture, taxonomy, conservation, and public education globally, these capacities contribute to plant research, education, conservation action and policy, and community engagement with plants (Krishnan et al, 2019).…”

Section: Role Of Public Gardensmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing Consumer Horticulture’s Millennial Outreach: Social Media, Retail, and Public Garden Perspectives

Rihn

Bumgarner

Krishnan

et al. 2020

hortte

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The millennial generation, born between 1981 and 1996, is the largest demographic age group in the United States. This generation of plant enthusiasts has experienced financial setbacks; nevertheless, they collectively wield immense economic power. In 2018, this generation made one-quarter of all horticulture purchases. Consumer horticulture (CH) is challenged to develop targeted programming and outreach methods to connect with this influential and information-hungry generation. To examine the possibilities, the CH and Master Gardener Professional Interest Group held a workshop on 23 July 2019, in Las Vegas, NV, at the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) annual conference. The workshop first actively engaged participants to build points of connection by discussing nontraditional terminology that resonates with younger audiences. Suggested terminology included plant parent, plant enthusiast, plant babies, apartment-friendly, sustainable, and urban agriculture. After the opening discussion, three presentations explored innovative content, marketing and outreach in the areas of social media, retail promotions, and public gardens. The social media presentation focused on building a two-way partnership with millennials on Instagram that emphasized shared values of sustainability, local foods, and wellness. During the second presentation, the speaker highlighted retail point-of-sale promotions that appeal to younger audiences. The final presentation described creative programming used by botanical gardens to engage younger visitors. A facilitated discussion followed the presentations to identify and evaluate techniques and content that could be incorporated into CH research, teaching, and extension to reach and interact with new millennial audiences. Based on the workshop presentations and the facilitated discussions, the ASHS CH and Master Gardener Professional Interest Group concluded that more CH professionals should engage in social media outreach tailored to the needs and preferences of younger generations. To support this valuable outreach, research of consumer behavior and retail marketing should be encouraged to identify the preferred terminology and subject matter that appeal to millennials. Finally, CH can learn from and partner with public gardens as they implement multidisciplinary programming and exhibitions.

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Resetting the table for people and plants: Botanic gardens and research organizations collaborate to address food and agricultural plant blindness

Cited by 28 publications

References 27 publications

Crop wild relatives of the United States require urgent conservation action

Crop wild relatives of the United States require urgent conservation action

Botanic Gardens Are Important Contributors to Crop Wild Relative Preservation

Enhancing Consumer Horticulture’s Millennial Outreach: Social Media, Retail, and Public Garden Perspectives

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