On Thursday, Jan. 8, a team from Ohio State University’s Chadwick Arboretum will engage in a tree-planting competition being held in conjunction with the first-ever College Football Playoff National Championship.
Included on the team will be experts from the 60-acre campus arboretum, which is part of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, and former Buckeye football player Zach Boren, an alumnus of the college and a brother of current Ohio State center Jacoby Boren.
The event goes from noon to 5 p.m. at High Oak Park, 2635 Wesley Drive, in Arlington, Texas. Reporters and the public are welcome to attend.
The activity is part of the wider Playoff Green program, which supports sustainability efforts surrounding the championship game. Teams will be rated on the speed and quality of their planting. The winner will receive trees for its campus.
Competing will be teams from the four universities that made the college football playoff — Ohio State, Florida State University, the University of Oregon and the University of Alabama — plus Tree Campus USA schools from the Arlington area.
Also on Ohio State’s team will be:
- Mike Pfeiffer, the arboretum’s horticulturist.
- Christine Voise, the arboretum’s GIS and accessions specialist.
- Dan Struve, Ohio State horticulture professor emeritus and an arboretum volunteer.
- Steve Schneider, an Ohio State landscape planner and an International Society of Arboriculture-certified arborist.
- Christy Dudgeon, an alumna of the college and vice president of business operations for Reynoldsburg, Ohio-based Grass Groomers Inc., whose founder and president is the Borens’ father, Mike.
The Texas A&M Forest Service is coordinating the competition locally, with oversight by the Texas Tree Foundation.
The championship football game itself, which pits Ohio State against Oregon’s Ducks, is Jan. 12.
Source:osu.edu