Barborinas Family Fund Grant Program

This research should focus on developing root systems and trees that are planting ready at the time of transfer to the landscape installation industry and not dependent on root-ball corrections so they can grow properly and become well established long loved, mature trees.

The focus of the Jim and Annie Barborinas Fund is to study the processes of the nursery industry with the goal to research how to create a root system and above ground structure of the tree that is planting ready and require no additional work on the part of the installer to manipulate the roots or stem structure. Grants should study the production of root and stem system from the first steps of seedlings, tissue culture, and the various methods of cultivar propagation to liner production and onto final tree production that lead to the sale and transfer of the tree to the landscape installation industry. This includes the various parts of the transfer process of including re-wholesale ‘nurseries’, and the various root package options including: B&B, containers, fabric growbags, tree spade, bareroot root, gravel bed and other root packages that are part of the production and transfer of trees from the nursery industry to the landscape installation industry.

TREE Fund welcomes research proposals and applications from a wide range of academic and technical disciplines, of both a qualitative and a quantitative nature. TREE Fund does not fund the following types of projects, and will not accept applications for such work:

Grants to individuals;
Projects that are primarily municipal tree surveys or assessments;
Tree planting programs;
Studies of individual tree species for the primary purpose of agricultural or timber/forest planting yield;
Commercial tree- or soil-related product testing primarily for the benefit of the company that manufactures the product.