State
University of New YorkState
University of New YorkWelcome to my web page, you are visitor number .
Education
| Iowa State University | Forest Biology & Wood Science | 1980 | Ph.D. |
| Iowa State University | Forest Biology | 1977 | M.S. |
| Iowa State University | Forest Management | 1974 | B.S. |
| 1980 to present | Full professor (1994), Associate Professor (1986-1994), Assistant Professor (1983-1986), and Research Associate (1980-1983), forest genetics and tree improvement. SUNY/ESF Faculty of Forestry. |
| 1977-1980 | Research Assistant, forest genetics. Iowa State University, Forestry Department. |
| 1975-1977 | Forestry Extension Assistant. Iowa State University, Forestry Department. |
| 1974 | Field Foreman. Western Maine Forest Nursery Co., Fryeburg, Maine. |
Conference Papers & Presentations
Research AccomplishmentsIn the early 1980s, I worked closely with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Lands and Forests on their applied forest genetics program. One of my major accomplishments for DEC was to write and begin implementation of a 10-year plan, outlining goals and strategies for tree improvement by the State of New York (Maynard 1983b). Priorities were set among the different species. Existing provenance tests were remeasured (Easley and Maynard 1986, 1987; Maynard 1983a). Pesticides were tested for controlling seed orchard insects (Valenti, Abrahamson, and Maynard 1990). Seed was collected from each tree in three Norway spruce (Picea abies) seed orchards and Norway spruce "plus trees." In all, nearly 150 Norway spruce seedlots were established in field tests.
Concurrent with my forest genetics activities, I was working with a series of graduate students on developing tissue culture propagation methods for black cherry (Prunus serotina). This project led to a number of important accomplishments. We were the first to establish, multiply, and root black cherry in vitro (Tricoli, Maynard, and Drew 1985), the first to use gibberellin to break dormancy in a forest tree species - it had been used several times on woody horticultural crops (Kavanagh, Maynard, and Drew 1987; Drew, Kavanagh, and Maynard 1988), and the first to identify an enhancing effect of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) on bud break (Kavanagh, Lee, Drew, and Maynard 1993). We were also one of the first research groups to identify an inhibiting effect of blue light on root formation (Fuernkranz, Nowak, and Maynard 1990). Our nine-year-old stand on Heiberg Forest is the oldest field planting of tissue culture propagated black cherry in the country (Maynard 1994). The project, through initial field results, was summarized in a book chapter (Maynard, Kavanagh, Fuernkranz, and Drew 1991).
In 1988, I began working with American chestnut (Castanea dentata), first on pollen collection and storage techniques (Maynard 1991d), then in collaboration with Dr. William Powell, on engineering blight resistance into American chestnut. I have transformed a selectable-marker gene into chestnut callus tissue and confirmed transformation using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique (Maynard 1991a). My graduate students and I have also been working on embryogenesis from immature ovules, as well as rooting and acclimatization techniques (Maynard, Satchwell, and Rieckermann 1993). Dr. Powell has developed a small polypeptide that is capable of killing fungal spores in vitro. We tested it on chestnut, willow, apple and petunia tissue in vitro and found it to be non-phytotoxic. Dr. Powell had the gene synthesized and we are testing it along with several others for correct expression and toxicity in vivo Results to date indicate that we have successfully transferred the gene into poplar clone "Ogy."