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Webinar Description:
This seminar will explain the effects of sudden heat spikes on plants in landscapes. The first part of the session will review weather trends and climate, explaining how heat waves during different times of the year can have different impacts on plants in the landscape. Merhaut will also explain how trends in weather patterns are occurring and how this has become a challenge in the landscape industry. Then, the seminar wil discuss plants' abilities and inabilities to tolerate heat spikes. This will include easily understood plant physiological mechanisms that occur to tolerate and/or avoid heat damage. In the second half of the talk we will discuss cultural practices that can be done to mitigate heat damage. This portion of the discussion will first focus on plant selection. We will then talk about siting of plants in landscapes: proximity to buildings, south-facing vs. north-facing slopes, hardscapes (roadways, parking lots), and integration of plant material with other plant types.
This recorded seminar from the 2022 Landscape Expo, Anaheim does not require a quiz for CEU credit, since this session did not offer LACES or ISA you do not need a quiz. You will receive a certificate of completion for watching it in its entirety.
Learning Objectives:
1. Understanding plant damage from short, sudden heat waves.
2. Mitigating heat stress in established landscapes.
3. Designing heat-tolerant landscapes.
Donald Merhaut
Don Merhaut has had a passion for plants since he was 6, watching a planting of Ostrich ferns unfurling their fronds in spring in his fern garden in Pittsburgh, PA. Since that time, he has pursued his plant passion. He went to Penn State University for his undergraduate degree in Horticulture, then studied at the University of Georgia for his Master’s degree, and attended the University of Florida for his Ph.D. He went on to Houston, TX for postdoctoral studies with the USDA. Fate brought him to California where he worked for a major nursery company before taking a position at the University of California as an Extension Specialist for Nursery Production. His research and extension programs have emphasized plant nutrition, focusing on physiological and horticultural aspects of plant growth and development. Because nutrient uptake in plants is impacted by spatial and temporal aspects, plant development, cultural practices and the environment, it was an easy transition to study drought tolerance, periodic heat spike effects on landscapes, and heat loads and/or cooling effects produced from various landscapes. Heat tolerance and the effect of periodic heat spikes has become an increasing problem in all of agriculture, including urban landscapes. This is partly due to the water restrictions imposed on landscapes. Most landscapes cannot handle additional water restrictions and still survive the periodic heat spikes we are experiencing. Therefore, my studies have revolved around drought stress and heat spike effects in plant systems, which include container production, landscapes, and natural ecosystems, especially in southern California. I will discuss the mechanisms of drought tolerance and/or drought avoidance in plants, and impacts of heat spikes on plants. This program will help you identity heat damage and how to avoid heat damage in landscapes through plant selection, plant placement and cultural management practices.
