Page 56 - MNLGA Free State Summer 2024_WEB

BY KATIE M CDANIEL
GET TO KNOW
Reprinted with permission from Nursery Management magazine, author, Katie McDaniel.

ANDREW RIST VEY

Andrew Ristvey is the principal agent and extension specialist for
commercial horticulture at the University of Maryland. He is passionate
about growing plants and helping growers solve their problems.

NM: How did you get started in with the ecology, I’m working for the Bay irrigate. And if you irrigate well, you keep
horticulture? because my area of research is nutrient your nutrients in the container and in the
AR: When I was an undergraduate, I really management. That’s how I got here. After plant. I love working with growers and
wanted to work with marine ecology. I my PhD, I got this job at the University of helping them solve their problems.
was very interested in marine zoology, Maryland extension as extension specialist
and I didn’t like plants (laughs). I got for commercial horticulture. My primary What can attendees expect to learn
my master’s degree at the University of focus is to do nutrient management work at your session?
Maryland Eastern Shore, and it was with with ornamental horticulture. My two areas AR: For the session at Cultivate’24, I’m
the marine ecology estuary and science are nutrient management and irrigation working with a colleague who’s the produc-
program because I wanted to work with management, both very much tied together tion hort advisor for nurseries, floriculture
Chesapeake Bay ecology, especially blue when you’re growing plants in containers. and CEA at UC Cooperative Extension
crabs, oysters, things like that. … During in San Diego, Gerry Spinelli. We’re going
my master’s degree, I had a summer job NM: What is your favorite part of to be focused on substrates and irrigation
doing wetland delineation, and I began to the job? management. We’re also going to have a
have an appreciation for native plants. I AR: My favorite part of the job is working little demonstration on managing fertilizer
later got a job with a shoreline restoration with growers to help them with their nutri- injectors and keeping fertilizer injectors
company in eastern Maryland. We’d go ent management and irrigation manage- calibrated and in working order.
to eroded shorelines to clean them up and ment needs. In my world, there’s a triangle
restore them. of plant production. It’s substrates, irriga- NM: What are some of your hobbies?
Then I moved down to the Eastern tion management and nutrient manage- AR: My hobbies are finding unusual plants
Shore to work at an arboretum that was ment, and in that order. I work a lot with and growing them. I have a small green-
inside a state park on the Eastern Shore of helping growers understand their substrates house attached to my house, and I grow
Maryland. I worked there for two years, so they can determine their irrigation man- some interesting stuff. I have coffee, Brug-
and I loved it. I was doing education agement; then with their irrigation manage- mansia and bougainvillea. I like watching
programs for kids and adults about plants ment comes their nutrient management. these plants grow, and I’ve actually had
and ecology. I was growing native plants So nutrient management in ornamental my first coffee harvest. I’m not going to be
because they had a little nursery. I met a container production is really irrigation able to make much coffee out of it, but I
professor at the University of Maryland, management, but you need to know your thought it was cool that my coffee plants
Dr. John Lea-Cox. He was teaching substrates in order to understand how you actually flowered and gave me fruit.
greenhouse and nursery production. I
asked him if I could take some horticul-
tural classes, and he said ‘I got something MEET ANDREW
better for you. How would you like to
At his Cultivate’24 session, “Substrate, Water, and Nitrogen Management Lab,” Andrew will
have a PhD? I have a research assistant- demonstrate the importance of management practices that will increase the control you have PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREW RISTVEY
Please note: This event is over.
ship available for you.’ So, I went back to over your production systems to ensure that your plant roots have a healthy environment to grow.
school, and I got my PhD in horticulture.
Now, instead of working on the Bay TUESDAY, JULY 16 AT 9 A.M. TO 11 A.M. | LOCATION: A120

50 | Nursery Management JUNE 2024 | www.NurseryMag.com (continued on next page)
56 SUMMER 2024 • Free State News