This week on Arizona illustrated a trip back in time to the plants on the University of Arizona campus, trying to identify plants that could be used in urban landscapes that were resource conscious.

Technology that helps the fight against foodborne and illness.

What I feed to my family.

For me, you know, nobody should be getting sick from foodborne illness in my house.

When the summer days come to an end.

The bats come out and flying out at night and gather the food that they need to feed their babies and start the process all again.

Looking for lizards and sabino Canyon.

What's important is that when you see one, you know, you feel like you get excited about it.

And Tucson's one and only quad guy.

Then I took my quad to karate and L.A.

Fitness.

And then I realized that it was fun Hello, and welcome to an all new episode of Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We are joining you from the University of Arizona campus where the trees and plants and grow here can tell you a lot about why Arizona looks the way it does.

You see, for 100 years, the campus has been a laboratory for testing which plants from arid countries around the world are suitable to grow here for food and landscaping.

So take a walk around the campus arboretum and step back in time.

[upbeat piano music] (TANYA) A lot of the early researchers wanted to identify plants that could be used as agricultural commodities.

And so they traveled around the world, brought plants back to the main campus, and used the campus grounds as an experiment station.

And as a result of their research, many plants were identified like cotton and citrus that were useful as a commodity crop in Arizona.

As a byproduct of the research, many of those plants remained on campus and have grown to this day.

Later in the midcentury, the needs of the state shifted more towards dealing with issues relating to resource conservation, especially concerns about water as well as urbanization.

Trying to identify plants that could be used in urban landscapes that were resource conscious.

And if they were successful, they were then introduced into the nursery trade.

You probably recognize plants like Bottle Brush.

Callistemon.

Maybe you know vitex, the monk's pepper.

Many of the landscape plants that you find in arid cities throughout the world were tested here.

[bells chiming] Kind of by chance, we develop this incredible botanical resource and many of these plants are on campus.

So there was a feeling that there should be advocacy for their preservation and proper care.

And so at that point, 20 years ago, the Arboretum was formally established.

We consider it a living laboratory, meaning it's a dynamic place for people to learn.

So trying and testing new and interesting things that are not just adapted to our past climate, but which are going to be better adapted to our future climate.

We've inventoried all of the plants on main campus and all of those plants are mapped on an interactive tree map.

But we also have select plants with botanical signage installed.

And not only do those plaques now have the name of the plant and the origin, but it also has a QR code embedded.

Participants can scan it and it will then connect them to a web page that describes what that plant is.

So it gives a really rich experience for people who just happened to be walking through the campus grounds.

[soft piano music] The Campus Arboretum collection houses specimens from every continent on the planet.

We have approximately 1200 unique species of plants that are growing on campus.

Some of the most famous plants in our collection are now designated as University of Arizona Heritage Trees.

And there's 22 of them.

One of the most well-known of the heritage trees, though, is the baobab tree.

And the baobab is the only flowering specimen of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

Another really famous heritage tree in the collection is a date palm and typically date palms that we see and in landscapes have a single trunk.

This one has been allowed to grow naturally.

It was a tree that was gifted to the university in the 1950s by the Iraqi government.

[birds chirpping] This is a really cool thing about trees that they were here before us and they are usually here long after us.

And so it's a way of giving us this broad perspective about where we are in time.

As you can see, a lot of the experimentation that took place here on campus helped to make Arizona the agricultural center it is today.

Another example, these beautiful orange trees of Second Street, this sit between the dorms, you know, many of the winter salad vegetables will be eaten around the country.

This winter will be grown here in Arizona.

Professor Sadhana Ravishankar has dedicated her life to making sure those vegetables are safe.

In fact, she just won inventor of the year from tech launch Arizona for a new natural anti microbial wash for produce An E Coli contamination linked to lettuce has now spread here to California.

An e coli outbreak linked to baby spinach.

And that outbreak of the stomach bug known as cyclospora.

In the 2000, fresh produce emerged as a huge vehicle of outbreak.

And nobody thought that, you know, people will be becoming sick from eating salads.

So all this was new to the food industry.

This warning does keep expanding.

It's getting bigger and bigger and what the CDC is saying tonight is that you not eat any kind of romaine lettuce.

It is really important to have appropriate decontamination measures for these salad vegetables.

And that is why the work we do in our lab with all these natural plant based decontamination measures is really important.

Hi Elizabeth.

Hi, Doctor.

So, how's it going?

So, what are you guys doing now?

So we just finished sample 33.

I'm Sadhana Ravishankar I am a professor at the School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences at the University of Arizona.

My expertize is in food safety, and in our lab we are focusing everything based on a farm to fork approach.

So some of the studies we are doing are looking at what are the cross-contamination potential of environmental matrices such as soil and dust, as well as irrigation water onto the edible portion of the crop, simulating the conditions that can occur in a field in a laboratory condition.

We are looking at how these different bacteria attach on the surface of various fresh produce, such as, you know, cantaloupe versus a honeydew melon versus leafy greens.

You're just starting today right?

And did you clean all these coupons already?

Yes, So I have all the clean coupons here.

We do some pre harvest studies in the lab in which we have to apply our treatments from.

The plants are growing, for example.

So we do grow leafy greens and we do the treatments at different stages.

And on the post-harvest side we are looking at how to decontaminate produce commodities such as leafy greens, melons using plant based anti-microbial washes.

And then we are also using anti-microbial edible films as either a wrap or as an ingredient going into salad bags for their decontamination potential against foodborne pathogenic bacteria.

[Inspirational music] So I was awarded the inventor of the year and I was chosen by the tech launch Arizona.

And I like being an entrepreneur.

And I would say that's not that easy because I have to wear several hats in a day.

And I think because of my passion, I'm able to multitask and I'm able to do whatever it needs to be done, both as a professor, as an administrator, as a teacher, and also as an entrepreneur.

So, you know, being in the food safety field and understanding how pathogens survive in the food products and, you know, what are the points of contamination.

When I make my own salad, I have to make it.

I will not eat salad made by anybody else.

And I know my my family knows that because what I feed to my family, for me, you know, nobody should be getting sick from foodborne illness in my house.

As a researcher and as a scientist, what I believe is I should be doing research that could be put to good use for the community.

So it should have an impact in the society.

And that is the reason I chose this career, because food is something that everybody loves, everybody eats.

And we want to produce a safe food.

[Inspirational music] well, as you can see all around me, the students are back in full force, fall semester, well underway, days getting shorter, temperatures getting cooler time to say goodbye to summer.

And it's also time to bid farewell to about 200,000 Mexican free tailed bats that spend the summer living under our bridges.

In fact, we spent a recent evening at dusk under one of those bridges as the bats came out to feed Oh, wow.

[laughs] I mean Where where can you go to be so surrounded by a creature as magnificent as a bat.

I mean, who ever thought of a flying mammal to begin with?

And they're so stealth.

They are so swift and so capable of catching things just by echolocation that they're really, really a wonder to behold.

I come out probably a half a dozen times or so during the summer months to watch the bats come out from under.

[bats screeching] I have my daughter and my granddaughter in town, and we wanted to come out and see the bats because it's a great opportunity for them to see something that's very unique to this area.

Well, these bats come up from Mexico, come up from the south.

It's interesting that they're all females that they travel up here with sperm that has not been implanted yet into their eggs.

And once they arrive here, so that they don't have to worry about excess food being pregnant, they do impregnate themselves and they set up nursery colonies under about four bridges here in Tucson.

And we get to enjoy the results of their giving birth and flying out at night to gather the food that they need to feed their babies and start the process all again.

They'll fly back south in fall and then they'll start coming back the females again in April, the following year.

We're just in one of those biodiverse locations on the planet and certainly in the United States.

For me, this is my Eden.

I mean, I just can't believe, you know, the wealth of wildlife that's here just makes the whole experience of living here just all that more exciting for me.

Tucson is a terrific place, if you like nature.

We're very rich in biodiversity, and we're not just talking about animals that fly.

We'd like you to meet the turtles that inhabit the pond on campus here.

They're a big draw right along Park Avenue.

And there are many native creatures that scurry under foot and you'll see them if you're quick enough.

That's exactly the goal of the Sabino Canyon naturalists who do this, as you'll see in this segment during their lizard walks Should be a good lizard day, we hope.

And we've got lots of eyes.

So if anybody spots a lizard, please stop everybody and don't run up to it because it'll they'll be gone before we get a chance.

they'll be gone before we get a chance.

[sound of footsteps on gravel] Yeah, there's two of them.

Yeah.

This was designated a lizard walk, so we're looking for lizards.

And you never know what you're going to see when you come out here.

Our plan is to go down from here to lower Sabino Canyon, where the dam is and back.

So it's about three miles and probably a couple hours.

[bird sounds & relfective music] The naturalist stuff is my life.

I'm a retired dentist and I also have a Ph.D. in oral biology.

So I when it came to doing naturalist things, it kind of came natural to me.

Oh, he stopped.

Oh, there he is.

I see him moving.

Okay.

Tiger whip tail here.

Probably a female.

Their, they look very similar the males and the females.

But the the females are smaller.

The males have big heavy heads and shoulders.

So they're just bulkier.

You can tell the adults from the juveniles because the juveniles have blue tails.

And when they're very small, they have iridescent blue tails.

[sound of footsteps on gravel] Lizard walks happen the first Saturday in May and June and September and October.

And sometimes we also do them first Saturday in July and the first Saturday in August, because that's when the lizards are out.

because that's when the lizards are out.

[music] That's a zebra tail.

If you get the right angle behind the front leg is the vertical two vertical stripes.

That's a side blotched lizard and it's a female.

The blotch is there's sort of a black spot behind the front, behind the front leg.

When you see a whip tail, the the length of the tail is greater than the length of the body actually part these guys, the tail is shorter.

They may look a little bit like a whip tail, but they these are ones that will go on rocks.

And we he's on the rock.

We as humans are endothermic so we can control our own body temperatures by our metabolism and so on.

Lizards can't do that.

Or reptiles in general.

So they are ectotherms because they rely on their environment to warm them up or cool them down, to control their temperature.

And they do a pretty good job of it.

Okay.

Yeah, just below the collars, I've got sort of my finger on them further down.

So the second one down, the one below the collared is a Zebra Tail.

And I think in the photograph you can see these behind the front leg are two black vertical bars.

You could decide you want to learn the Latin names of them or maybe not.

I mean, it's not what's important is that when you see one, you you know, you feel it, you get excited about it.

It is an odd looking, ornate tree lizard.

So maybe we'll see some other ones that look a little bit more like trees.

If you want to get into lizard watching, go to a place such as Sabino Canyon where you know there are going to be lots of lizards and start looking for them there and also look for them in your own backyard.

And you can see these now.

You can see for more information on the Sabino Canyon Naturalist and for a list of their upcoming events check out this story on our Web page for more information.

It's always a thrill to spot something rare or unusual in the wild.

And in this next story, you'll meet someone who sparks the same kind of joy in Tucson, and so are navigating the urban environment.

You may have seen him downtown in the foothills, roaring through Gates Pass or even as far away as Bisbee.

He is known as the quad guy.

And one thing's for sure, there's more to him than meets the eye (Eddie) I am George Edward Rodieck, Junior.

I go by Eddie.

Never like being called George.

(off screen woman) And what do other people call you in town?

(Eddie) The quad guy.

[loud rock music] [telephone ringing] (robot voice) Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.

(Woman 1) Guess who I just saw?

With his hands in the air, his bandana waving.

It was Quad Man!

[phone message beeping] (Woman 2) I just saw him when I was grabbing a Presta coffee at the Mercado this morning.

[phone message beeping] (Woman 3) Tucson Quad Guy comes around the corner and all of a sudden my bad day became a good one.

[phone message beeping] (Man 1) When I'm driving down the road and my eye catches a glimpse of Quad Man.

I know it's going to be a good ----ing day.

[phone message beeping] (Woman 4) I just love this grown man living his life the way he wants.

[phone message beeping] [rock music ends] (Eddie) I classify myself as a Europeanized Persian American.

My parents traveled a lot.

[jazzy music] My dad was a pilot Full Bird colonel in the United States Army Air Corps, and then he was a commercial airline pilot.

And he met my mother in Iran.

She was a stewardess.

He was a captain.

And I love to tell everybody it was coffee, tea or me conceived in the cockpit.

When he retired, we were supposed to go to Colorado.

He was going to buy a fishing resort.

Can you imagine?

That would have been awesome, you know.

But he came here and he bought a liquor store and then they got divorced and I was shipped off to boarding school in England and then 11th grade in Iran.

And then my mother shipped me off here to a private boarding school, Fenster in Sabino Canyon.

And you talk about culture shock.

You you go to an English boarding school for two years with uniforms, barbers, very strict.

And then you go to a Fenster boarding school that was coed.

The girls were just across the lawn on the other side in a dorm.

And, you know, I.

You know, I enjoyed Fenster Boarding School.

I was married twice.

First time was three years.

Debbie left, and my mother came over.

She goes, I told you she would leave you, you know?

And I said, I know.

Impetuous as I was, I had this photograph of a family friend in Iran.

Next thing you know, I'm on the phone.

I said, You want to come to America and get married?

She goes, Oh, I don't know you.

I said, Will come to America.

We got married two months later and then.

So anyway, she divorced me.

It's kind of devastating for me and my routine changed And I've taken up karate, I got my black belt and I took my quad to karate and L.A.

Fitness.

And then I realized that it was fun and I got there a lot faster.

It was much more maneuverable in traffic, and that's how I got on the quad.

And my lifestyle changed so much.

[rock music] The more I drove around Tucson, the more interesting it became.

You can drive around downtown and pass by several bus stops and people are shouting and smiling at you.

And you experience that and you smile inside and you turn the corner and somebody goes, loser!

Mixed motions around town, yeah.

During the day, Bruce Wayne and Batman persona.

I get up and go to work and I run a company about with 30, 40 employees.

We're landscape contractors.

(Danny) Everybody who talks to him likes him.

People that don't talk to him, they just look and wonder.

Yeah, because he's driving a little wild sometimes.

(Yari) It's great to talk to him about world experiences.

He has a very, a lot looser look on life than most people, and I find that very refreshing.

He encourages you to just enjoy life.

(Eddie) Apparently it was a couple of girls and they started the Instagram page for the Tucson Quad Guy and I was a bit flattered.

And then every once in a while I get tagged, you know, there's a picture of me on Fourth Avenue or somewhere in town it's like Sasquatch sightings.

There was a young kid from Turkey.

He was going to school here and he saw me.

And first time I saw him.

He was wearing, you know, Dockers and a polo shirt.

And I suddenly showed up here one day and he jumped out of his seat and he was dressed exactly like me.

And it was the strangest thing in the world.

And then he'd say, Let's go get pizza.

And I go, Not together.

[engine starting] [engine revving] Depends on what kind of mood I'm in.

If I head down the drive and down the mountains and head into town.

If my ass is shaking back and forth.

I'm listening to Shakira.

If I'm leaning forward in my head is bobbing up and down.

I'm listening to AC DC.

If it's a stormy night and I'm headed back at night, I'm either listening to Pink Floyd or Enya.

[light moody music] People go, Why do you go in the desert when it's 110?

I go because there's nobody else out there.

And it's a surreal experience.

The Earth is like scorched crack mud and there's no live vegetation.

And all of a sudden you see that dark cloud coming in and you hear the sound of thunder, kaboom.

And it comes and it moves in fast and it's a deluge.

And you sit down on the side of your quad and you put your feet into two inches of water.

The entire desert is now a shimmering lake of mercury, with these apparitions of ghosts like dead mesquite trees coming out of the ground.

And you're sitting there with a can of sardines and a military poncho in the rain.

And you feel like it's the movie Apocalypto.

You pray, you think about the day and you think about how you handle things.

Part of the growth process in life, I guess you sit on the side of a mountain and look over the valley and you know the spirit of the ancient one.

She's sitting right next to you while you watch (Robotic voice) your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.

(Man 1) Quad Guy is what I love about Tucson, Arizona, encapsulated in a man.

The incarnation of the word freedom.

before we go, here's a sneak peek at a few stories we're working on.

It's incredibly special because not only is it like you walk in and you feel like you're going back in time, which a lot of our parishioners dress in 1800 garb.

But I mean, you just think of the only time what has transpired in there, you know, down to the ages.

The people who have worshiped there and I believe it is because Jesus is not only this man's physical condition, but the condition of his soul.

Well, it didn't go away, but the years pass.

I make a lot of salsas.

I still make all kinds of different salsas.

I love salsas.

Salsas are endless.

It uses all different types of fruits, you can make so many salsas.

So, energy was focused on the kitchen.

In the beginning, well, Nogales, we are in Nogales, Arizona.

There's no seafood here.

We don't have an ocean nearby, nothing like that.

The population of Nogales, Arizona wasn't used to eating seafood.

So I began with meat first, but I have always incorporated seafood.

thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara and we'll see you next week for another all new episode.