Get to Know Your Professors

AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID ZLESAK, PROFESSOR OF HORTICULTURE

If you spend some time talking to the professors on The University of Wisconsin River Falls campus, you may find out some pretty interesting information about them. Word on the Street recently had the opportunity to spend some time with David Zlesak, a professor of Horticulture. We found out that not only is he a professor, but he is involved in student organizations (including Street Level Ministries which publishes this mag), and he also breeds new varieties of roses. Keep on reading to get to know one of your professors! It might make you want to get to know more of them.

How did you end up as a professor at the University of Wisconsin River Falls?

David Zlesak (D): I graduated from UWRF in 1993 and the campus had a great impact on me. I benefited from the clear priority of undergraduate education here by faculty and staff. This is seen in the well-developed coursework across the various programs, and the commitment of faculty and staff to provide great extracurricular activities for students and truly get to know the students.

What is your favorite thing about teaching?

D: My favorite part is building relationships with students and helping them find and develop their passions and career paths in their

discipline. I often pray, asking God to help me be a good teacher and to show His love to the students through me.

What is your favorite class subject you’ve taught at the university?

D: I am grateful to teach all my plant-related courses, and each one is rewarding in unique ways. Content-wise, I especially love Plant Propagation. The freshman-level courses taken by a wider group of majors give me the unique advantage of getting to meet and know a wider range of students and hopefully have an impact on fostering an initial appreciation and understanding of plants.

Can you tell us more about Horticulture, and what the department looks like on the River Falls campus?

D: Horticulture is helping make the world a better place through plants. It involves the care, multiplication, and culture of plants for purposes including food, landscaping, houseplants and floral work, and restoration. The UWRF Horticulture program has a strong reputation and the support of the industry. Students utilize the UWRF greenhouses, labs, and field plantings for hands-on components in their curriculum and visit many regional industry members on field trips throughout the Twin Cities area.

Are you a part of other groups/organizations on campus?

D: Besides Street Level Ministries (SLM), other student groups I work with/advise are the Horticulture Society and the honorary horticulture society Pi Alpha Xi.

Why have you chosen to advise with these organizations, and what do you like about being a part of them?

D: I love helping students take the lead in developing community outside of class, imagine and implement meaningful club events, and gain experience and confidence in their social and leadership skills. With Jonah and Jess (non-student leaders of SLM) and all they do, I have a smaller role with SLM than the other two groups.

What is your favorite thing about advising Street Level Ministries?

D: I love that SLM draws students together across various career programs on campus that may not otherwise cross paths because of their shared commitment to Christ.

We heard that you do plant research in addition to being a professor. Can you tell us about this?

D: I love learning about plants and working to develop new ornamental plant varieties that are well adapted to our region. I also love using traditional plant breeding methods to generate hybrids between parents to generate diverse seedling populations and then select within them for individuals having combinations of traits of interest. The breeding efforts go hand in hand with identifying and characterizing disease resistance genes/factors as well as inheritance of other valuable traits (e.g., foliage color, flower color, repeat bloom, etc.). Working on projects with colleagues at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere, along with undergraduate students, has been very rewarding. It has allowed for more to be accomplished than working alone would. With limited time for research after all the teaching responsibilities, working collaboratively is what allows progress to be made and makes projects more fun, satisfying, and dynamic.

What is your favorite type of plant you’ve bred?

D: Roses have been the key plant I’ve been breeding for the past 35+ years. I love them and started breeding them as a kid. They are the plant I devote most of my attention to. There is a vast amount of diversity among roses and many opportunities are still available to make progress in breeding beautiful roses well adapted to our region. I love combining genes from our native roses with beautiful commercial roses to work towards this goal. There is a strong group of professional and hobbyist rose growers and researchers that I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the years on many volunteer and professional projects. We share plants and ideas, and the relationships that we build bring a lot of joy to the journey. Very few of my new rose seedlings ever make it to market, but that is okay (~1 in 10,000). The joy is in the journey and learning along the way with friends. Over the years opportunities with other crops have come to the forefront and include breeding projects with ageratum, elderberries, and heliopsis.

Where does all of this take place?

D: Most of the breeding work is done at home. I have plant stands in the basement I start thousands of roses and other plants each spring, and then I plant them out in the yard. The disease resistance work mainly happens with colleagues in the nearby University of Minnesota labs. With the pandemic, I’ve done more of the pathology work at River Falls in our teaching labs. Roses for specific student projects to answer questions and learn skills are grown in the greenhouse here on campus for them to have access to do their undergraduate research.

What are your future plans for rose breeding?

D: I look forward to continuing to pursue characterizing disease resistance genes in roses with colleagues to strategically breed roses that are more sustainable landscape additions and continue the general ongoing plant breeding efforts. I’m working with colleagues at the University of Minnesota and Texas A&M on a grant to help fund more research in disease-resistance gene discovery. The grant would help support one of our UWRF graduates that is now working on her MS degree studying rose black-spot resistance at the University of Minnesota.

We hope this inspires you to get to know your professors. Also, if you want to see some of the roses David breeds go here: www.starrosesandplants.com/breeder/david-zlesak/