SAN ANTONIO — A female duo from James Madison High school's FFA program is hoping their prize-winning science fair project could one day be used in floral shops across the country.
Hannah Taylor and Ashley Walker look sharp in their deep blue FFA jackets. Taylor took time between her senior year classes to meet and Walker took a break from homework. She is studying Nursing at UTSA.
The ladies arrange eight red and white roses in a floral bucket, slip some plastic tubes among the thorns, plug in a metal box and step back. The hum of a motor fills the air. Inside the bucket, the water starts bubbling, turning into a fountain of youth for the bouquet.
Behind the bucket, a board explains the invention. Gesturing to a picture of three calla lily bouquets, Hannah describes the experiment.
"Almost all the flowers remained on the stems and there was the least browning on the leaves which this we found was very surprising since this was after two weeks," Taylor said. "We implemented aeration to help to reduce that amount of bacteria so that we can preserve the life of flowers and we also found that it blooms them faster."
This Spring, the two collaborated on a science project inspired by their time as interns in HEB’s floral department. From there, an idea quickly blossomed.
"We decided to find a way to expand the life of flowers since it's worth almost $105 billion with the floral industry,” said Taylor. “Forty-five percent is going to waste and just being thrown away. So that's not efficient from an economic standpoint or a natural resource standpoint.
The device keeps bacteria from forming in the flowers’ water source. Once the ladies put their device together, they entered it in local, national and international science fairs. They placed in all three competitions.
Then the duo shared their results with H-E-B. The next task was filing a patent.
"My ultimate goal is to see this device in big companies such as H-E-B or even smaller retail floral shops. I think that it would just be a great thing to see something that Hannah and I didn't even think would be bigger than this, be out there. and hopefully get it patented and have it as our own and have it share it with other people to help them," said Ashley.