• Wednesday, August 16
  12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

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Join us for the 2023 SCA Field Day! We will meet at 12:00 PM at Thirsty Eye Brewing Company for the Annual SCA Business Meeting and a member networking session. From the brewery, we will hop on a bus for the ABQ BioPark, where attendees can choose between one of 4 tours offered. Participants will have an opportunity after the tour to walk around the Botanic Gardens on their own, before heading back to the Convention Center for the closing night party!

 

To register for this event, please contact: isaeventservices@isa-arbor.com, or register on-site at the ISA Annual Conference.
 

Here are descriptions of each of the tours offered:

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• Tree Tour of the Botanic Garden
  Take a tour of the botanic garden with Matthew Peterson, botanic garden and heritage farm manager and ISA certified arborist.  Matthew will highlight some of the garden’s most iconic tree species as well as discuss risk management of the Albuquerque BioPark tree collection using PlanIT Geo TreePlotter, a comprehensive GIS tree management and tree inventory software.
   

• Japanese Garden Tour
  Built in 2006, the five acre Sasebo Japanese garden is sited under the shady canopy of the middle Rio Grande valley cottonwood forest. Tour the garden with assistant curator Richard Vigil and learn about how the Biopark horticulture staff overcome the challenges of managing a Japanese garden in an arid climate and under an ageing, urban cottonwood forest. Richard will talk about the use of desert-adapted plants that meet the Japanese garden design aesthetic and will demonstrate the traditional Japanese pruning techniques that he uses to maintain the iconic cloud-pine shape of the Japanese black and Scotch pine trees.
   

• Garden Tour of Botanic Garden Special Collections
  Stroll through the botanic garden with curator of plants Maria Thomas and learn about the design, construction, and management of botanic garden special collections exhibits including The Mediterranean and Desert Collections, The Curandera, or medicinal plant garden, and sustainability in the High Desert Rose Garden. Maria will also highlight several of the public arts projects along the route.
   

• Browse, Butterflies, and Bugs
  The BioPark botanic garden is home to one of the largest insect zoos in the nation and is part of the captive breeding program for the endangered Sacramento mountain checkerspot butterfly. Tour the Bugarium browse garden, butterfly pavilion, and entomology lab with BioPark horticulturist Emily Rees and Bugarium senior keeper staff and learn how BioPark Horticulture and Entomology team up to rear and maintain the living insect and arthropod collections at the BioPark. Horticulture staff will also highlight how the BioPark utilizes an integrated pest management strategy that insures the health and well-being of both the plant and entomology collections.