Welcome to the Ornamental Horticulture Program at the Tropical Research and Education Center, in Homestead, FL. My name is Wagner Vendrame, Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Horticulture, UF/IFAS.

I lead a broad research program in ornamental plants, including the use of plant tissue culture, cryopreservation, molecular marker, and biotechnology techniques for plant production and conservation.  Species studied in our lab include orchids, palms, flowering trees, foliages, bedding plants, and more recently plants with potential for medicinal and biofuel applications.

Our current efforts concentrate on developing guidelines for the production of Jatropha curcas, a plant that has been identified as a potential alternative energy crop for biofuel production.

We have also expanded our program beyond this planet (literally!) with studies involving plant cell growth and development in microgravity. Such studies are setting the ground for the utilization of the International Space Station as the U.S. National Laboratory and may lead to significant discoveries as related to plant biology, medicine and space science.

"Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination."
~ John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty, 1929