WisconsinOrnamentals.com

May 2, 2011 Newsletter

In This Issue
Energy Grant
Plant Diagnostics
Gen X and Y
Time. . Value. . .Money
OFA Short Course
Wholesale Value
Soil Fumigants
Training New Workers
Plugging the Leak
Merchandising
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Eileen Nelson
UW-Madison Department of Horticulture
608-265-5283 
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Holland -- I had hoped to have a brief slideshow

ready for you of my trip to the gardens and

flower auction in Holland. However, not yet

. . .I'll have it ready next time. 

 

The flowers were gorgeous! 

 

Energy Grant -- Deadline June 15 

 Source:  Ball Publishing

If a grant of $500,000 or even $3,000 would help your greenhouse or nursery invest in better energy efficiency or renewable energy projects, then now is the time to act. Applications for the USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grants are due on June 15.

You can ask for up to 25% of the total project cost, receiving a maximum of $500,000 for renewable energy projects and up to $250,000 for energy efficiency projects. However, a note on the USDA's website suggests that proposals for grants under $20,000 are favored during the selection process.

More information is available at www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/busp/9006grant.htm, and you'll need to contact your local rural development office and apply through them.

 

Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic Update 

PLANT/SAMPLE
TYPE

DISEASE/DISORDER

PATHOGEN

COUNTY

HERBACEOUS
ORNAMENTALS

 

 

 

Begonia

Bacterial Blight

Xanthomonas campestris pv. begoniae

Columbia

Blue-Eyed Grass

Root Rot

Pythium sp.

Oneida

Fuchsia

Gray Mold

 

Root/Crown Rot

Botrytis cinerea

 

Rhizoctonia sp.

Oneida

 

Oneida

Geranium

Gray Mold

Botrytis cinerea

Jackson

Jade Plant

Root/Crown Rot

Pythium sp.

Dane

Marigold

Bacterial Blight

Pseudomonas sp.

Dane


For additional information on plant diseases and their control, visit the PDDC website at pddc.wisc.edu.

Gen X and Y 

 Source:  Garden Center Magazine

 

Garden Writers Association survey shows Gen Y and Z aren't bypassing gardening until they reach middle age.

 

In a surprising trend, the younger generations are gardening in numbers similar to other age groups, according to a survey commissioned by Garden Writers Association (GWA), conducted in December 2010 and January 2011.


A sneak peek from GWA's recent report...
From earlier surveys, it was found that 66 percent of the entire U.S. population has some form of lawn or garden. In the most recent survey, when the under-40s were asked if they grow or take care of plants, 64 percent indicated "yes." Those in the 25-40 age bracket had the same response as the average of the entire population (66 percent). No longer should we assume that Generation Y and Z are bypassing gardening until they reach middle age or older. The survey shows that those in the 25-40 age group is just as engaged in gardening as older folks.
 

Rest of the article

 Time/Value/Money

 Source:  Garden Center Magazine - Chad Harris

 

What product or service do I sell that requires the least amount of Time, while creating the most Value for the customer and returning the most Money to the business?

Pinpointing your biggest sellers seems to be an important task. But the real question you need to ask is this: What product or service do I sell that requires the least amount of Time, while creating the most Value for the customer and returning the most Money to the business? Success really can be that simple.

Finding the best TVM (time, value, money) products or services starts with research. If you are using a POS system, estimating software or spreadsheets, use the data you collect to determine the following:
  1. Top 10 selling products
  2. Top 10 most profitable products
  3. Space required to sell each product (square footage)
  4. Inventory turns per product (number of times you deplete inventory on hand in a year)
The data collected will help you determine what products are selling-and selling in a cost-effective manner. I realize this is elementary, but this exercise should be performed over and over to make sure you are focused on results and not using DBM (dart-board mentality). DBM is hoping you hit the bulls-eye every time you throw that dart. It's easier to consistently nail the bulls-eye with research about customer behavior.
OFA Short Course 

Registration for OFA Short Course opens Tuesday, May 3, at 11 a.m. EDT. Attendees can register online, through fax or standard mail on this date. Phone registration will be available starting May 5 at 11 a.m. EDT.

The 2011 OFA Short Course offers education, products, and events for all areas of the industry: growers, garden centers, florists, interior plantscapers, and the next generation of horticulture professionals:

Wholesale Value of Floriculture Crops Increased
 

The 2010 wholesale value of floriculture crops is up 3 percent from the revised 2009 valuation. The total crop value at wholesale for the 15-State program for all growers with $10,000 or more in sales is estimated at $4.13 billion for 2010, compared with $4.00 billion for 2009. California continues to be the leading State with crops valued at $1.01 billion, up 8 percent from the 2009 value. Florida, the next largest producer is down 1 percent from the prior year to $810 million in wholesale value. These two States account for 44 percent of the 15-State total value. For 2010, the top 5 States are California, Florida, Michigan, Texas, and North Carolina, which account for $2.75 billion, or 66 percent, of the 15-State total value.

 

The number of producers for 2010, at 6,126, is down 7 percent in the 15 States compared with the revised 2009 count of 6,561. The number of producers with sales of $100,000 or more dropped 7 percent to 2,706 for 2010 from 2,918 in 2009. In the 15-State program, total covered area for floriculture crop production was 725 million square feet. However, these data are not comparable with the 2009 revised area of 807 million square feet because the 2009 data was collected in conjunction with the Census of Horticultural Specialties and included area used for production of nursery crops as well as floriculture crops.

For the rest of the report, click here.

Federal Regulations - Soil Fumigation Pesticides

he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is requiring extensive new safety measures for soil fumigants to increase protections for agricultural workers and those who live, work, or otherwise spend time near fields that are fumigated. The safety measures will occur in two phases: some measures will begin appearing on product labels in December 2010, while the remaining measures will appear on product labels in late 2011.

Soil fumigants are pesticides that, when applied to soil, form a gas to control pests that live in the soil and can disrupt plant growth and crop production. Soil fumigants are used in controlling a wide range of pests, including nematodes, fungi, bacteria, insects and weeds. As gases, however, fumigants move from the soil to the air at the application site and may move off site at concentrations that pose health risks to people from hours to days after application.

The safety measures are for products containing any of the following active ingredients:

    • chloropicrin
    • dazomet
    • metam sodium
    • metam potassium
    • methyl bromide
More Details 
Training New Greenhouse Workers
 

Are you hiring labor this spring that needs training on greenhouse production basics? Then this one-hour online training course may be the perfect compliment to your training program this spring.

 

The video-based training is entitled Introductory Employee Training Program for Greenhouse Crop Production, and is offered by the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture at Texas A&M University. It provides introductory-level information about the greenhouse industry plus learning models on greenhouse crop production from beginning to end, controlling insects and diseases, and shipping and handling procedures.

One of the unique features of this training is that it is offered in English and Spanish. With the increased number of Hispanic workers in the green industry, this training module provides a valuable service to the industry by providing employees who are new to the industry with an overview of what greenhouse production of floral crops is all about.

Video quizzes are used throughout the course sections, and the instruction is available in both languages with transcripts available for downloading.

The course costs $55 and is available through eXtension, an online collaboration among the Cooperative Extension System. Growers can enroll at any time and will receive an "enrollment key" to the site which is valid for 90 days in order to facilitate training multiple employees during that time frame.

 

Registration for the course may be completed by going to http://agrilifevents.tamu.edu and clicking on "Online Courses" or by clicking here for the direct link.  After successfully registering for the training, the user will be automatically directed to the eXtension website where the course is administered (under the "Greenhouse" section). Simply enter the enrollment key and the training begins automatically.

Plugging the Customer Leak

 Source:  Sid Raisch, Green Profit

 

While finding new customers is critical, there really is no point in doing so if they'll be lost in the course of events following their acquisition. The churn of adding and losing customers is futile, expensive and out of control. Identifying the factors that cause customers to leave is the first step toward keeping our remaining clientele intact.

Consider the cost of customer acquisition. Divide the amount of your advertising by the number of new customers, and you'll see we've spent a fortune to acquire each of them.

Typically we don't measure such things; we just throw advertising money (and lots of it) at the problem of getting people through the door and "hope for the best." Hope is a strategy, but it's not meant to be used alone.

What we need is a powerful strategy and several tactics to keep customers from becoming disinterested, or preferably to keep them interested in what we have to offer.    Rest of the article.

Merchandising - Less is More

 Source:  Green Profit

 

Different theories exist regarding how many products to include in retail displays: "There's minimalists and everyone else," says Steve McShane, owner and general manager of McShane's Nursery & Landscape Supply in Salinas, California. The non-minimalist retailers have a tendency to want to put one of every product in a display and fill it to capacity-or in some cases beyond capacity.

Rather than showcasing a store's options, cramming too many items into a display is more likely to confuse or frustrate a shopper. "Customers are so time-pressed. They come into a store, and they spend less than 30 minutes. You don't want to frustrate them," says Larry Pfar, director of merchandising and product development at Bachman's in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area.

Rather than oversaturating a display, a good rule to follow is keep it simple, says Larry. "Use fewer items, but more of them is best," he says. "It's easier to understand, and quantity creates impact."

The goal of grouping different items together is to get shoppers to purchase more than they initially expected to buy, says Bob Phibbs, CEO of The Retail Doctor, a retail consultancy firm. "When you load your store with merchandise and stack it all together, customers see gobs of individual products face-out, just like the big boxes do. To compete, you must not look like them," he says.  Rest of the Article 


Please forward this newsletter on to others. 

Thanks. 
Eileen Nelson  ([email protected])