Students and community members who love plants will have an opportunity to purchase them at a cheap price Friday and Saturday.

In an effort to cut back its live plant collection, the Department of Plant Biology is selling a portion of its greenhouse collection.

Jason Kilgore, president of the department’s Graduate Student Organization that is planning the sale, said the need to downsize stems from the loss of greenhouses behind the Old Horticulture Building, which were torn down in August 1999 with the promise of new ones.

“While we were waiting for these new greenhouses, the plants were stored in temporary ‘polyhouses’ (plastic houses) on south campus,” the botany and plant pathology graduate student said. “But now we need space for plants that are more relevant to our research.”

Kilgore said MSU has not budgeted for the new greenhouses yet.

Frank Ewers, acting chairman for the Department of Plant Biology, said new plants that can take colder temperatures are being brought into the polyhouses to make room for research. He said the old collection was used for teaching and the department still has duplicates of the plants that will go on sale.

“It didn’t make any sense keeping more than we needed,” he said.

Cost also played a role in the decision to sell the plants, Ewers said.

“These plants had to be under warm temperatures, so we had to pay up to $50,000 this year in heating bills, which is too expensive,” he said.

But event planners say they aren’t passing the cost on to interested buyers. They say prices will be significantly lower than those at a florist or greenhouse.

Profits from the sale will be split between the Graduate Student Organization, the operating budget for the greenhouses and the American Red Cross.

The sale will take place from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday - with 9 a.m. to noon designated for the MSU community only - and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. It will be held in Room 168 of the Plant Biology Building, which is located on Wilson Road between Bogue Street and Farm Lane.