Amanda Bayer

After graduating from Penn State, Mandy worked as a landscape designer and in garden centers before going to graduate school. While at the University of Illinois she worked on propagation of Chionanthus pygmaeus, pygmy fringetree. Her Ph.D. research focused on improving irrigation and fertilization in container plant production, focusing on how plant growth is affected by substrate water content and fertilizer application rate.  At the University of Massachusetts, Mandy will focus on sustainable landscape and nursery management to support the Massachusetts landscape and nursery industries. The overall goal of her research program will be to help the landscape and nursery industry adapt to climate change, changing resource availability, and/or consumer trends. Her research program will complement her extension program in serving the industry through applied research to help address industry concerns.  Areas that she will focus on include more sustainable production of container plants and best management practices for the landscape and nursery industries; with an emphasis on improving irrigation and fertilization practices. She is also interested in using irrigation as a tool for controlling plant growth and how plant growth can be manipulated via irrigation control.