Dr. Joseph Albano joins the ANLA staff team in November 2013, to direct research programs for the ANLA and the Horticultural Research Institute (HRI). Joseph comes to ANLA and HRI from the USDA-ARS-U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory (USHRL) located in Fort Pierce, Florida, where he has served as Research Horticulturist for over 14 years. He brings an impressive record of accomplishment, and deep knowledge of horticultural research and the research community in the U.S.
Albano’s research focus with USDA-ARS has been on plant nutrition, water quality and conservation, and alternative substrates. His recent research efforts were on developing Algal Turf Scrubber (ATS) technology for remediating runoff water of excess nutrients and processing the algae produced in the process into compost that could be used as an alternative substrate for growing container crops. He served as Lead Scientist on several USDA-ARS projects of national scope, including "Integrated Horticultural Production Systems for Water Quality Protection and Water Conservation" and "Algal-Based Water Treatment Technologies for Sustainable Horticultural Crop Production. He served as the lead scientist for the Floriculture and Nursery Research Initiative (FNRI) project, "Environmental and Resource Management," known as the "Water Project".
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