News

Feds ask for nationwide ban on cellphone use while driving

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called for the first-ever nationwide ban on driver use of personal electronic devices (PEDs) while operating a motor vehicle.

The safety recommendation specifically calls for the 50 states and the District of Columbia to ban the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices (other than those designed to support the driving task) for all drivers. The safety recommendation also urges use of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) model of high-visibility enforcement to support these bans and implementation of targeted communication campaigns to inform motorists of the new law and heightened enforcement.

"According to NHTSA, more than 3,000 people lost their lives last year in distraction-related accidents," said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman. "It is time for all of us to stand up for safety by turning off electronic devices when driving. No call, no text, no update, is worth a human life. The data is clear; the time to act is now."
 

News Notes

Association mulls 2013 perennial of the year

Sedum reflexum ‘Angelina’. Photo by Mike Sikes.

Members of the Perennial Plant Association are in the process of naming the 2013 Perennial Plant of the Year. They are voting on four nominees:

Polygonatum odoratum 'Variegatum' is a Solomon's seal cultivar with upright, arching stems, which are 2-3 feet tall. White bell-shaped flowers on short pedicels dangle in the spring from the leaf axils along and underneath the arching stems. Flowers are followed by blue-black berries in the autumn. Cold hardy in USDA Hardiness Zones 3-9.

Panicum virgatum 'Northwind' is a tall ornamental switchgrass cultivar. Olive-green to bluish-green foliage forms a compact, narrow, erect, 4- to 5-foot-tall clump of foliage that is topped in late summer by finely-textured, yellow flower panicles. Hardy in Zones 4-9.

Chelone lyonii 'Hot Lips' is a long-blooming perennial that thrives in moist conditions. This cultivar has bronze-green foliage that turns a deeper green than the species, but is equally as showy. Short spikes of rosy-pink flowers that look like a turtle's head with its mouth open occur in late summer. Hardy in Zones 4-7.

Sedum reflexum 'Angelina' is an easily grown and quick-spreading ground cover with needle-like foliage. Leaves emerge with a chartreuse color and then turn to a golden yellow in the sun. In the fall the leaves turn to shades of orange and red. Hardy in Zones 3-8.

For more: www.perennialplant.org.

Texas heat yields better rose varieties for research

At least one person admits that the extreme heat in Texas this year was beneficial. "Some people will complain about the heat, but from my viewpoint as a breeder, I love stress," said David Byrne, Texas AgriLife Research rose breeder.

With maximum mean highs of 107 degrees for weeks near Mansfield, Texas, and 104 at College Station, Texas, where Byrne has research plots, numerous rose varieties were put to the test.

Texas A&M will continue to breed heat-tolerant roses.

"Mother Nature is wonderful but not always steady. Right now we're conjuring up plans to make a 'torture test' for roses where we put them in a box with a certain temperature, leave them there 2-3 weeks, then bring them out and see what their response is," Byrne said.

For now, however, the wacky weather has benefited his research. In the same plots, some roses couldn't take the heat, while others had lots of flowers and good growth.

Many of the plants that handled the heat well were from lines Byrne has been breeding for four rose generations, or about 10 years.

But even though this summer helped the researcher make better plant selections, extreme heat is not on anyone's annual wish list, he said. Because research requires consistent, repeated evaluations, Byrne is building a handmade heat chamber.

"That will put them through a stress test and help us be able to select the better ones to confirm in field tests. We hope this helps us go through them earlier so we have a better sense of which ones will do well and which ones won't," he said.

Byrne will continue to evaluate "the survivors" and select some of them for further testing with commercial partners. In his research, about 20,000 seed a year is produced, planted and evaluated every year.