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The Rutgers Gardens at Cook College is located in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Cook College is a small, professional college of about 3,000 students owned and administered by Rutgers. Additionally, it serves as the home of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. It is important, despite a collection of trees unimpressive compared with those in the general New Jersey area, because of a Professor Emeritus with a strong passion for Metasequoia trees. Cook College has actually contributed more to the overall understanding of Metasequoias than practically any other institution in the United States, because of a single Professor Emeritus named John Kuser. This man contributed many botanical studies throughout his many years. One amazing thing that he pioneered was creating a point system for rating trees, incorporating planting dates, height, diameter at breast height (DBH), and crown spread. I have utilized this theory in creating my own Average Ratings system in my study. The Metasequoias at Rutgers Gardens have not grown as well as others in the area. There are two at the garden, one received in 1950 from the Arnold Arboretum. It is 90 feet tall with a base 28 inches in diameter. Apparently it did not develop the traditional buttressed base that many Metasequoias have because lower branches were removed early on in its development. The other tree was received from the National Arboretum in 1969, and it is only 50 feet tall with a base 20 inches in diameter. These are much smaller trees than those at neighboring sites like Princeton University and the Frelinghuysen Arboretum. |
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Professor Kuser wrote and helped alleviate a massive problem facing Metasequoias in the United States today. In 1981, it was noticed that while the trees were producing cones, they were rarely if ever producing seeds. Professor Kuser did a study on “Inbreeding Depression”, verifying that this was a problem with self-fertilization, which has happened in similar tree species before. This occurred because the American population descends entirely from three Metasequoias in one Chinese village. In 1983 he published a comprehensive study of living Metasequoias in the United States. He measured Metas at various institutions throughout the United States, collected data on them, and ranked them using his point system. In 1990 Kuser received a letter from a Professor in China, stating that there are active Metasequoia populations in three different Chinese provinces, meaning that there is a much larger genetic disparity among Chinese Metasequoias than American Metasequoias. Kuser realized that if he could acquire funds for seed packets from Chinese Metasequoias, he could fix the Inbreeding Depression problem! Kuser quickly contacted the Dawes Arboretum in Ohio, and asked them if they would be interested in funding seed collections. The Dawes was happy to help, and in 1991 Kuser received 53 seed packets from China. While the original Arnold Arboretum trees originated from a single tree, the new seedlings contained collections from 52 different trees. Kuser sent these seeds to the Dawes, where they began highly successful propagation. These young Metasequoias are alive and well, and most importantly, producing seeds. The Rutgers Gardens Cook College, Rutgers University 112 Ryders Lane New Brunswick, NJ 08901 http://rutgersgardens.rutgers.edu/ “Metasequoia Depression, Sex, and Other Useful Information.” |
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