- November 27, 2024
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Students in Wendy Vidor’s horticulture class at Matanzas High School have teamed up with the University of Florida to plant more than 1,000 sea oats to be grown in the school’s greenhouse.
Professor Dr. Michael Kane and Research Assistant J.J. Sadler delivered the sea oats to the students, Friday, Nov. 18, for planting.
The plants, which were produced in a lab using tissue cultures, originally came from five local beaches: Sebastian, Gamble Rogers State Park, Little Talbot Island, Anastasia Island and John D. MacArthur Beach State Park.
“One of the areas of research we’re looking at is developing a library of genotypes from all over the state,” Kane said. “What we find is the different individual plants, the genotypes, grow differently.”
The classes will be looking at the effects of the source of the plants while they grow in the greenhouse by examining plant height, the number of leaves and the number of shoots.
“It’s an important project locally because of hurricanes we have had in the past,” said Josh Lamont, one of two Matanzas students who will be heading the project.
Senior Han Kanier, who wants to be an environmental engineer, will be the other project head.
In the spring, the class plans to take the project one step further by planting the transplanted sea oats on local beaches.
“That, I think, helps bring it home for the students in terms of sensitizing the issue that the dunes are so important in Florida,” Kane said. “Sea oats are very important for stabilizing dunes. They are the primary plant in dune stabilization and restoration.”
Kane said they would like to plant the transplanted sea oats on Flagler Beach, or another local beach, and will be working with the Florida Sea Grant Extension to determine if that is a possibility.
Contact Shanna Fortier at [email protected].
