SPROut
Sustainable Plant Research and Outreach Center
SPROut- the Sustainable Plant Research and Outreach Center, is a program at Chemeketa that bridges phytotechnology connections between academic leaders, scientists, industry designers, policy makers, landscape managers, land-owners, and citizens who benefit from public natural resources. SPROut is involved in projects from local to international scales. SPROut works hand-in-hand with the Phytotechnology degree at Chemeketa.
Check out more at SPROutOregon.
SPROut's Ecological Approach to Phytotechnology
When the human population scraped away the moss, mulch, leaf litter, humus, and salamanders of our natural world, and paved our urban landscapes, we fragmented many aspects of our environment and began separating our natural resources 'into piles' to be managed individually by different specialists. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind became a frequent paradigm for wastewater and stormwater management, and we substituted a lot of mechanical infrastructure and expensive energy to accomplish the same functions that we fragmented/destroyed. SPROut recognizes that a single green plant can put it all back together by simultaneously linking four major media systems that define our world– water, soil, air, and sun energy. Plants freely move substances across the boundaries between soil and water, between water and air, between air and soil, utilizing a renewable energy source (i.e. no cost) and constantly renewing both the infrastructure (i.e. themselves as tools) and the ecosystem service functions/products they create. While plants are doing all this, they also attract a whole community of microbes, companion plants, tree frogs, birds, etc. With each additional component of dynamic complexity, the ecosystem improves its ability to be resilient and innovative in the face of unexpected changes. While our engineering can never hope to better the functioning of a wholly natural ecosystem, by combining our technology with plants, we can maximize a balance of functions that serves the highest and best health of both human and natural needs.