Polk County High School’s horticulture classes recently toured the Mountain Horticulture Crops Research & Extension Center in Mills River, N.C.
During their visit, the students learned about the on going tomato and ornamental plant breeding being achieved at the facility.
They toured the apple research orchard and observed the different methods of growing apples in WNC.
One of the highlights of the trip was the visit to the micro propagation or tissue culture lab.

Tissue culture is the process of taking a single plant cell or single plant growing point and creating 50 or more plants from that single cell.
Those ag students who made the trip were Will Ballard, Ellese Cash, Caitlin Edwards, Mackenzie Higgins, Brittany Jones, Jenna McInerney, Chase McMurray, Katelyn Miller, Caley Modlin, Kara Overholt, Kristin Wade, Shea Wheeler, Mackenzie McCool, Fernando Mondragon, Caitlin Britton, Harrison Fisher, Austin Holt, Ryan Morgan, Taylor Price and Daniel Walker. They were accompanied by ag teacher Chauncey Barber, AmeriCorps member Alex Rike and Polk County Extension Director John Vining.

The MHC Research & Extension Center is comprised of 273 acres and is the center of horticultural research in the western North Carolina region.
Research projects at the center focus on fruit and vegetable crops such as apples and tomatoes plus a wide range of ornamental crops for the nursery industry.
– article submitted

by Sarah Gottfried