Report of the SHRS Miami to the WLPCGC  for 2005-6

Prepared by Alan Meerow and Tomás Ayala-Silva

• From May 2-13, 2005, horticulturist Tomas Ayala-Silva and Geneticist Alan W. Meerow visited Puerto Rico as part of a two man team plant exploration.  The main focus of this collection trip was Tabebuia haemantha, a rare Puerto Rican endemic that has many features of interest to horticulture. Sixty-two collections including 45 species of trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials were obtained.  The team, sponsored by the Plant Exploration Office (PEO) and assisted by Dr. Ricardo Goenaga and Dr. Brian Irish (TARS, Mayaguez), assessed many new subtropical/tropical species for evaluation and possible introduction. 
• New field plantings were established for three populations each of Tabebuia haemantha and T. heterophylla, one of T. chrysotricha and 4 populations of Thespesia grandiflora, all material collected in Puerto Rico by Tomas Ayala-Silva and Alan Meerow.
• Three hurricanes in succession caused a great of damage to the collections at the SHRS.  We lost approximately 10% of accessions, and several evaluation fields of ornamentals were severely damaged.
• The Repository hosted two meetings this past year: the annual Friends of Chapman Field meeting on 11 February 2005, at the repository in Miami, Florida; and the Tropical Flowering Tree Society meeting held at the Miami Repository on March 12, 2005.
• Approximately 100 woody ornamental distributions were made from the National Germplasm Repository.
• An outstanding subtropical ornamental shrub, Polygala myrtifolia ‘Chapman Field’ was released this past year, and we have received numerous requests for material.  Unfortunately, severe hurricane damage to the stock planting delayed distribution of cuttings until this summer.
• Post-doc Margarita Mauro Herrera isolated 13 WRKY gene loci from Cocos nucifera and is using them to characterize ornamental coconut germplasm.  She is also in the process of isolating resistance gene homologs (RGHs) from coconut as well.  We hope that to be able to identify alleles associated with varieties that are resistant to the lethal yellowing phytoplasma..
• We established replicated field evaluations of several seedling selections of the ornamental shrub Tecoma guarume for possible cultivar release.
• Alan Meerow completed analysis of 83 Plumeria cultivars using 21 microsatellite DNA loci, and numerous Halesia tetraptera accessions at the Woody Ornamnetals Germplasm Collection in Glen Dale, MD (a collaborative project with Mark Roh).  Analysis of Puerto Rican Zamia populations with 20 SSR loci is ongoing.
• Scientists associated with the ornamentals CRIS project at the Miami NCGR authored or co-authored 4 abstracts, 6 non-refereed proceedings or trade journal, and 13 refereed publications.