John Ruter realized at a youthful age that he belonged in a garden . He come to UGA in 1990 to serve as the nursery harvest research specialiser at the Tifton Campus after earning unmarried man ’s , master ’s , and PhD degrees in gardening from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo , the University of Tennessee and the University of Florida , respectively . He now attend as the Allan M. Armitage Professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences , specializing in ornamental industrial plant breeding and output .
Ruter also serves as theater director of the UGA Trial Gardens and was named UGA ’s 2021 Inventor of the Year for the many plant life smorgasbord he ’s developed over his years at the university . In this interview , Ruter mouth about his passion for plant breeding and the science behind creating the type of greenery that adorn gardens and manicured landscape painting across the country .
pic by Dorothy Kozlowski
You identified your career path pretty too soon on . What led you to this lifelong pursuit in horticulture?I grew up in San Fernando Valley , just northwards of Los Angeles , and I took a gardening class in next-to-last high school . That was my first founding , and I found plant life propagation fascinating : how seeds are dispersed , the variation you see when growing seeds , and being able to take cuttings — just taking a man of bow off a plant — and put them in a mist system and grow a new plant .
By the time I was 14 , I was working in a wholesale nursery , and then my parents moved to Ventura County during my in high spirits schooling twelvemonth . There was a humble FFA program there , so I got involved with that . Fortunately , my adviser was also rail in landscape design and was a plantsman himself . We were a good equal .
I did well in FFA competitions throughout high school day . All the state competitions in California were at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo , which at the metre had the largest undergraduate decorative horticulture curriculum in the country . When I was a newbie there , we had 400 scholarly person in ornamental gardening .
What is something that people do n’t make about professional cultivar development?In the ornamental realm , it ’s the variety of thing that you could lick on . I literally work on A to Z : abutilon to zelkova . At the Trial Gardens , we ’re evaluating plant life for companies from all over the world ; we ’re really the go - to garden for heat and humidity . If people need to prove a plant ’s tolerance for the compounding of heat and humidness , they send it to us .
I wish the diverseness . I get to bask having fun performing around with different species and trying to do interspecies hybrid . Do you get seed Seth ? Does it germinate ? When it does , what does it look like ?
Also , most people do n’t recognize the fourth dimension that ’s postulate . With most plant , you are looking at eight to 15 class of evaluation . Some hollies coming to market now , those crosses were made in 2011 . Many of the conifers that caller are evaluating now were initially selected in 2010 - 12 .
And with all the branded programs in the diligence , they need to check that it make for them . That add several long time to the process , because they need to take it to Minnesota and see if it ’s cold unfearing , and they want ensure it works in Oklahoma and Oregon and Massachusetts and Florida . I do n’t think most people bring in the amount of time and effort and fieldwork and science laboratory work that goes into develop a unexampled cultivar .
How much of your job is in the nursery or the domain versus in the lab?I’d say the lab employment is peradventure 20 % of what we do . the right way now , I ’m almost a full - sentence farmer out at the Durham Horticulture Farm in Watkinsville . I was out there with three graduate students this morning potting up some germplasm that we had irradiated in the lab .
My program is traditional breeding : making crosses in the greenhouse . We also employ proficiency such as ploidy handling , so doubling the chromosome . Sometimes we have good success taking two set of chromosomes and turn them into four exercise set of chromosomes . To get asepsis for mintage that we do n’t want seed around or becoming invasive , we then take our normal two set of chromosomes and spoil that with the one that we doubled , so you have a two time a four , and you end up with three . rummy numbers of chromosomes in plants do n’t by and large result to richness — basically not all the chromosome can find a dancing collaborator , to put it in unsubdivided terms .
We also do mutation breeding with Vasco da Gamma radiation . It ’s very safe , just random rupture up of the DNA , and you do n’t fuck precisely what you ’re going to get . We can also do chemical mutagenesis in the laboratory .
What kinds of resources does UGA have that enable you to do work that you perhaps would n’t be able to do someplace else?First , the forcible adroitness , such as the farm we have within the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences . Down in Tifton , I had 11 Akko that I was in care of , so that gave me plenty of nation to plant things out to trial . Here in Athens , we have the Durham Hort Farm that ’s about 90 acres . Between greenhouse and flying field space , I ’ve let several landed estate of plant evaluations out there , plus a container pad and shade houses and glasshouse , thing that one call for to do this sort of study .
We also make use of UGA ’s sum facilities , like Georgia Electron Microscopy , which we ’ve used for seed germination studies and plant identification work . We also employ the Cytometry Shared Resource Laboratory in the Coverdell Center . We do a circumstances of flow cytometry , trying to figure out the genome sizing and chromosome numbers . Have we actually double the chromosome ? Have we stick the triploid we ’re wait for ? We ’re able-bodied to employ that heart and soul deftness to assert those affair .
The other huge benefit here at UGA that allows ornamental breeding is the Cultivar Development Research Program . That allows us to get equipment , yield for workers , part give for graduate students , pay for supplies you ask like fertilizers , irrigation tubing or for reanimate your greenhouse when the credit card shove along off in a storm . Ornamental breeding at UGA derives a huge benefit from that program .
And then also , at least for me , the team in Innovation Gateway is wild to sour with . Whenever we have a ship’s company that wants to descend look at things , they help place up the group meeting and organise everything . From the commercialisation side , the contact they have and how they ’re able to help with logistics of visitors coming to handling tribulation agreements and plant patent , are all very helpful .
Do you have a favorite flora or cultivar you ’ve developed?Just for being out there in the market and having achiever , and since I ’m know as the guy who loves hollies , Emerald Colonnade ® is credibly one of my favorites . It ’s such a useful plant in the landscape painting — you may grow it as a formal hedge , you may use it as a belittled hedge . It ’s been used successfully in topiary computer programme , make spirals and pompoms . It does n’t have the pest job other Charles Hardin Holley have because of the intercrossed parentage . It was kind of my first one to hit the grocery store , and it ’s been so successful . It ’s been the No . 1 broadleaf evergreen for the fellowship that ’s selling it .
produce in 1982 and nestled among the edifice of South Campus , the Trial Gardens are open to the public and sporadically harbour open house for citizenry to bring down and learn more about the plant from the breeders themselves . “ Most citizenry do n’t realize the time that ’s involved ( in cultivar growing ) , ” Ruter say . “ With most plants , you are looking at eight to 15 years of evaluation . ” ( photograph by Peter Frey )
Is it indulge when you come across flora you ’ve developed originate out in the world , for example in nurseries or around people ’s homes?Oh yeah . One example is this fresh hibiscus program we have , Head Over Heels , through Star Roses . Last come my married woman and I were in the local Lowe ’s , and I saw my hibiscus for the first time in sellable containers with the tags . My wife was looking at something else , and I cheat on over because I saw something that caught my eye . And all of a sudden , I ’m like , “ Yes ! ” My married woman says , “ What is it ? ” And I said to her , “ These are mine . ”
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