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Water and nutrient management have consistently ranked within the top five priorities of grower organizations over the past five years (American Nursery and Landscape Association, 2004).
Prompted by a mutual concern over water supplies, four diverse green industry associations, namely, the American Nursery & Landscape Association ( ANLA ), The Professional Landcare Network ( PLANET ), The Irrigation Association ( IA ) and Turfgrass Producers International (TPI ) recently joined together and formed the Green Associations Water Conservation Council ( http://www.wateractionguide.com ). This national coalition was established to effectively address both local and regional water-use issues by these organizations.
This project intends to increase the knowledge and capacity of professionals serving the nursery and greenhouse industry in the Eastern United States. Since these intensive plant production facilities share essentially the same production characteristics throughout the US, it is likely that these learning resources will also serve professionals in the Central and Western United States.
The industry needs to take effective steps to manage and conserve resources. In order to do this, Cooperative Extension needs to effectively coordinate existing educational resources, to increase the knowledge and capacity within all stakeholder groups. The content of these programs will always be sensitive to stakeholder input, through feedback and continuous improvement of the website and educational materials. The team also intends to provide training and education activities for Spanish-speaking people over the long term.
The Knowledge Center will provide access to the specific research articles that have been used to develop best management practices for this industry. We are partnering with a number of Professional Associations and Journals to provide this free service to growers.
Partners in this endeavor include:
Each of these organizations has agreed to provide selected research publications on water and nutrient management in PDF format, so that users can download and print these reference materials. We gratefully acknowledge the support of these organizations with this project.
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