Jason
D. Wells
Horticulture
Project Manager
Andes to
Amazon Biodiversity Program
B.S.,
Agriculture, Kansas State
University, May
1996
Jason Wells has been
dedicated to the propagation and cultivation of plants for approximately 17
years, since about 1990, just after graduating from high school in Manhattan, Kansas. During his undergraduate training at
Kansas
State University during 1991-1996 he worked in
greenhouses of the KSU Department of Agriculture, caring for ornamental plants
as well as crop plants. He also gained experience working in botanical and
ecological projects on the Konza Prairie Research Natural Area, a NSF-funded
long-term ecological research site outside of Manhattan, Kansas. After graduating with a B.S. in
Agriculture from KSU in 1996, Jason worked for almost a decade in the wholesale
production of plants in greenhouse and nursery settings. While working for the
Lawyer Nursery in Olympia,
Washington, during 1999-2004, Jason
was responsible for the planting of about 20 million seeds per year of hundreds
of species of trees and shrubs. An annual harvest of 7 million, 1 to 3 year old
seedling trees were then shipped bareroot to hundreds of wholesale and retail
nurseries in the United
States, Canada and
Mexicol
Jason became involved
with the BRIT-AABP horticulture project in June 2005 and since then, while
living and working in the field in Peru, he has managed the propagation
and cultivation of more than 100 native ornamental plant species being
investigated by the project. Jason works closely with John Janovec and Renan Valega to accomplish the
objectives of the horticulture project. He participates with Janovec and the
BRIT botany team on expeditions into the forests of Madre
de Dios, where botanical and horticultural collections are made.
And he then manages the propagation and cultivation of the plants that are
collected for experimental trials in the nurseries and greenhouses of the
project. Jason is currently completing descriptions of the many potential
ornamental native plant species that he and the team have discovered and are
studying in the departments of Madre de Dios and Cusco,
Peru.
Publications:
John Janovec, Jason D. Wells, Renan Valega, Daniel Lam, Amanda K. Neill, and Collaborators. Native Plant Species from the Peruvian Amazon and their Potential in Ornamental Horticulture: A Case Study in Madre de Dios, Peru.