Katie Trozzo, graduate student in Virginia Tech's Dept. of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, is using the Catawba Sustainability Center to experiment with native edible plants in riparian zones.

Virginia Tech graduate student Katie Trozzo is using the Catawba Sustainability Center as the site for her master’s project on using native edible perennial plants as part of a riparian zone scheme.  The project, which is being partially sponsored by the USDA National Agroforestry Center, will evaluate the ecological and economic value of using such plants as part of the vegetated buffer strips along the Catawba

Members of Catawba Landcare fed the hungry volunteers lunch at the Catawba Valley Methodist Church.

Creek and will be available as a demonstration site for landowners interested in such an approach.

In order to get the more than 200 trees and shrubs in the ground, Katie and Kim Thurlow, the Assistant Director of the Catawba Sustainability Center organized a volunteer work day which brought out more than 50 volunteers from the community and the university.  Click here to see pictures from the planting day.