Identifying and Collecting Transplant Material

Identifying and Collecting Transplant Material

The first collection was from an area in Saluda Shoals Park where renovation was in progress. There is a new paved trail behind the Education building with handicap access that has been constructed. Some of the vegetation being cleared for that construction included rivercane. Several plants were ‘rescued’ and moved to the University of South Carolina greenhouse. These plants were placed in pots under a misting system to recover and grow until they could be planted in experimental plots at the Saluda Shoals research sites.

Our next search for plants took us along the Congaree River below the Blossom Street Bridge. This trip included undergraduate research assistant, Hayden Dale. We started on the Columbia side of the river at Granby Park. We didn’t find any healthy, larger plants, or a number of plants that would make transplanting worthwhile. In addition, English Ivy is prevalent at that site and would make collection more difficult (Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Rivercane found at Granby Park, Columbia, SC.

We then went to the Cayce Riverwalk on the opposite side of Congaree River. Again, undergraduate research assistant Hayden Dale went as well as Taylor Kehoe, another undergraduate research assistant. Wow! We found beautiful, healthy rivercane, 4 to 6 meters tall and in the 20 mm range in diameter (Figure 2a, 2b.).

Figure 2a. Hayden is about 2 meters tall and one of the rivercane plants near him is about 5 meters tall. This is the rivercane we found at Cayce Riverwalk and will be using for transplant material.

 

Figure 2b. This is again at Cayce Riverwalk with Hayden showing some of the healthy and tall rivercane.

Very nice size for rivercane. We needed permission from the City of Cayce to collect any plants and so we went by the city offices to see what we could find out. We spoke with Mr. James Denny, the Cayce Parks Manager, who approved our requests. Hayden, Taylor and I were able to go back and collect about 25 – 30 plants. These were planted in the greenhouse with the plants collected from Saluda Shoals (Figure 3.) until we are able to transplant them to the experimental sites.

Figure 3. Transplants growing in the University of South Carolina greenhouse.