RESUME
Name: Raul Cabrera.
Title: Associate professor and project leader in woody ornamental horticulture.
Location: Texas A&M Research and Extension Center, 17360 Coit Road, Dallas, TX 75252; (972) 952-9249; fax (972) 952-9216; r-cabrera@tamu.edu.

Do you have a response to this article? Send an e-mail to Todd Davis.

Crape myrtles have become an incredibly important nursery crop for the South. A great many cultivars and selections are available, but which ones are the best to grow? That's what they're trying to find out at the Texas A&M Research & Extension Center in Dallas. The goal is to evaluate virtually all available varieties side by side. I spoke with Raul Cabrera about the center's progress.

Q. What are the overall goals of the crape myrtle project you're leading?

A. Our vision for the overall crape myrtle research project and cultivar collection is to be an attractive, yet functional, research and education program that becomes a premier source of science-based horticultural information for the genus Lagerstroemia.

The main goals for the actual crape myrtle cultivar collection are to:

1. Provide long-term, replicated research related to the horticulture, entomology and pathology of crape myrtles in Texas.

2. Serve as an outdoor learning center for people interested in crape myrtles.

3. Provide improved visibility for Texas A&M-Dallas along the busy Coit Road corridor. More than 60,000 cars per day pass by daily.

4. Serve as an important research and education base for the Crape Myrtle Trails of McKinney, Texas.

Q. How do your collections stand now? About how many varieties do they contain, and how many are you shooting for?

A. We have a 7-acre field devoted to the crape myrtle cultivar collection for a period of at least 10 years. We are planting our collection in phases, beginning last year with the miniature, dwarf and small cultivars (those that should not grow taller than 10 feet).

So far we've managed to plant 34 miniature and dwarf cultivars and nine of the small-size cultivars, each replicated five times.

This year we're planning to plant the medium-sized class (up to 35 cultivars, replicated four times) and in 2005 we will plant the tall or large-sized cultivars (up to 30 cultivars , replicated four times). We consider large-sized cultivars those that grow 20 feet high or taller.

For the medium- and large-sized cultivars we're trying to transplant only plants growing in 5- to 10-gallon containers. For the smaller sizes we used primarily 1- to 3-gallon plants.

Q. How does your program cooperate with the one being coordinated by the city of McKinney?

A. Like I mentioned before, one of the goals of our collection is to serve as an important research and education base for the Crape Myrtle Trails of McKinney (www.crapemyrtle.org). Three of the five horticulturists in residence at our center participate as liaison members in the horticulture subcommittee of the CMTM and regularly attend board meetings.

Q. What characteristics will crape myrtles in your trials be rated for?

A. The specific research goals for our collection are:

1. Gather replicated, long-term phenological information on a wide range of crape myrtle cultivars (bud break dates, flowering dates, flowering density and display, foliage quality, overall aesthetic appearance).

2. Quantitatively compare cultivar performance under landscape conditions by measuring growth rates and parameters (height, spread, current season growth, flower density and duration, etc.) and nutrient status (nutrient analyses of leaf tissue, chlorophyll measurements, etc.). We will also evaluate qualitative parameters of quality.

3. Observe and document cultivar differences in susceptibility to insects, diseases and stressful abiotic factors like temperature extremes and soil water content.

Q. Tell me a little about the crape myrtle Web site you're developing. How will it benefit the industry?

A. The main goal for this educational site (dallas.tamu.edu/woody/cmyrtle/index.html) is to provide comprehensive and useful information about the botany, biology, uses, culture and management of ornamental crape myrtles and the Lagerstroemia genus in general.

A major feature of this site is a searchable database containing information and pictures on many of the Lagerstroemia cultivars and species of horticultural interest. This database is a work in progress. While we have almost 300 cultivars listed there, we have information and pictures on about 90 of them, most of which are commercially available in the United States.

I believe homeowners as well as people in the nursery and landscape industries will benefit from the site. For example, both the cultivar database and the pruning section will be a tremendous help to landscapers and homeowners on the proper selection and management of the best cultivars for the correct sites, while appealing to their own expectations on performance and aesthetic value.

We are inviting people from all over the world to contact us with information and illustrations of obscure, new, rare or obsolete Lagerstroemia cultivars and species to add to our database. We will, of course, graciously acknowledge their contributions.

Q. What should growers do if they have cultivars they'd like to submit?

A. We've obtained most of our plant donations from commercial nurseries in Texas, California and Georgia. We welcome the support and sponsorship of any interested growers, and they can contact me via phone, fax or e-mail.

We have a specific list of cultivars we're missing for the smaller crape myrtle sizes we planted last year. We need 'Caddo,' 'Centennial Dwarf,' 'Cherokee,' 'Conestoga,' 'Cordon Bleu,' 'Lafayette,' 'Ozark Springs,' 'Prairie Lace,' 'Powhatan' and 'Velma's Royal Delight.' We're also putting together a list of the medium- and large-sized cultivars we're looking for, too.

We're also inviting growers and breeders with outstanding and promising new, unusual or obscure cultivars to contact us to talk about the possible inclusion of these into our collection.

Q. What's going on with crape myrtles overseas? Are nurseries in other countries actively breeding cultivars?

A. As far as I know the only major breeding and selection programs for ornamental crape myrtles outside of the United States are being done in France and Italy. Efforts in France have been led over the last 50 years or so by the nursery Desmartis Pepinieres in Bergerac. During this period the nursery has released at least 30 named cultivars of L. indica.

In Italy there have been some concentrated breeding and selection efforts at the research center of the Fondazione Minoprio in the Milan area (www.fondazioneminoprio.it/default.htm), plus selection efforts at some nurseries in the Pistoia area, which is the heart of the nursery industry for Italy.

We have plans to import some of the most promising cultivars from these programs and countries and establish them for evaluation in our collection. As far as I understand, there are relatively few U.S. customs restrictions for importing Lagerstroemia into the United States.

Send this article to a friend

Enter your e-mail address:


Enter your friend's e-mail address:


Click the image below to send:

© 2002 Branch-Smith Publishing