nonessential staff are not permitted inside the 
building. Now, our team hears only the quiet 
sounds of greenhouse doors opening as we 
check the facilities, monitor plants for water, 
and scout for insect pests and diseases. We hear 
the clatter of containers being placed on potting 
benches as we prepare to transplant seedlings 
and the swish of cutting media components 
being mixed as we get ready for winter hard- 
wood cutting season. We occasionally share the 
same workspace, but only brief, work-related 
interactions can take place. Our team meetings 
are now virtual. 
The production cycle for plants already in the 
greenhouses and nurseries has not significantly 
slowed this year, although the headhouse tables 
are bare: no collection sheets from the expedi- 
tions strewn about, no bags of fermenting berries 
or cones to go through. During this altered time, 
as we have continued with usual greenhouse and 
nursery tasks, the plant production department 
has had the opportunity to refocus our direction 
on other activities. We have made enormous 
strides to integrate our workflows into the Land- 
scape Management System, a new digital tool 
developed at the Arboretum, which combines 
horticulture and curation efforts through mobile 
applications and an internal website. 
One component of this system, PropMan- 
ager, will eventually replace the use of hand- 
written propagation cards, which are used to 
record treatments and results for propagation 
attempts, including for seeds that return from 
expeditions. Currently, when seeds arrive, staff 
record propagation methods and experiments 
on these cards. While some seeds can be sown 
immediately, others must undergo periods of 
cold or warmth. Others require treatments to 
weaken the seedcoat: sandpaper or an acidic 
solution. Data from propagation cards are then 
entered into BG-BASE, the Arboretum’s plant 
records database. Then, as germination, trans- 
planting, and other events occur, the cards are 
updated, corresponding data are input into BG- 
BASE, and the cards are refiled into a binder. 
PropManager will allow us to create a digital 
“card” on a mobile device and record events 
in real time. We observed how inefficient the 
physical card system was when Sean Halloran, 
Dana Greenhouses 9 
our plant propagator, had to transport boxes 
of binders to and from his home as he toggled 
between remote and on-site work this spring. 
Our team has also completed work that will 
help us to map, track, and communicate about 
plants in our nurseries using additional Land- 
scape Management System tools. Chris Cope- 
land, our greenhouse horticulturist, worked 
with members of the Landscape Management 
System team to acquire and upload locations of 
over 250 nursery plants. Specimens are now vis- 
ible on a dynamic map, and we can easily pic- 
ture spatial patterns and adjust maintenance of 
the next generation of Arboretum plants. Like- 
wise, when horticulture staff inherit a tree after 
it has been transplanted into the landscape, 
they can use this new set of tools to determine 
noteworthy events that transpired during the 
tree’s early life. 
We are also working with Mike O’Neal, the 
director of BG-BASE, to analyze information 
about our repropagation attempts. Each year 
we duplicate hundreds of historic Arboretum 
plants through vegetative propagation—a pro- 
cess whereby resulting progeny are genetically 
identical to the original. Halloran and O’Neal 
are in the process of creating BG-BASE sum- 
mary reports. The result will help determine 
whether the repropagation of a specimen in 
the landscape is complete. Instead of Halloran 
spending weeks at his desk writing code and 
manually sleuthing through BG-BASE tables, 
he will be able to run a quick query to have 
access to all the data needed. 
The scene at the Dana Greenhouse is certainly 
different than it was in autumn 2019. That year, 
we processed over 150 seedlots and mailed surplus 
material to over a dozen collaborating institu- 
tions. Yet the unplanned reprieve from receiving 
campaign material has allowed our plant produc- 
tion team to collaborate on projects that would 
have otherwise progressed incrementally over 
multiple years. We are now better equipped than 
ever and prepared for the onslaught of new seed 
collected by Arboretum explorers who are eager 
to be back out in the field. 
Tiffany Enzenbacher is manager of plant production at the 
Arnold Arboretum. 
