On October 4, students in the course Plant Science and Systems (PLSCI 1101) assisted in the planting of 40,000 daffodil bulbs into the sod along both sides of Taughannock Boulevard (Route 89) just south of Ithaca Children’s Garden.
“It only took us about two hours,” says flower bulb expert Bill Miller, a professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science’s Horticulture Section, who teaches the course. That’s because Miller and his students used a tractor-drawn bulb planter imported from the Netherlands which can plant thousands of bulbs in just minutes.
The students poured bulb mixes by the bucketful into the planter’s hopper. The blends included a variety of cultivars with different flower sizes and colors and flowering dates.
As it’s towed across the grass, the planter slices open the carpet of sod, lifts it, and drops the bulbs underneath. Then it firms the sod back over top of the bulbs. (View video.) Tractor operations were expertly handled by Lucas Thomas, Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station (Cornell AES) farm services mechanic.
