Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Meeting was called to order at 8:07 am with introductions of participants. The president presented the agenda for comments and/or changes. The minutes were reviewed as received. Behe motioned acceptance of the minutes with a second from Little. Hall gave a review of the previous day tour activities summarizing the committee visits to Carlton Plants, Monrovia, and Bailey. He expressed appreciation to McNiel for his efforts in coordinating the tour. It was agreed that Rainey would send follow-up thank you letters to the businesses that helped make our educational tour a success. McNiel mentioned a special event for Wednesday evening, a Salmon Feast, which is part of the Far West show. The committee has been invited to attend and the activity should present numerous networking opportunities for our group. Discussions concluded with a highlight of the Thursday tour plans which includes a visit to a retail establishment, garden center, for Thursday morning. Chair comments: Since we will have elections during this meeting and retirement is in his immediate future, McNiel began his presidential comments by expressing his gratitude to the group for assistance and service throughout his career. In response, Hinson and others expressed appreciation to McNiel for his lengthy, consistent participation and leadership for the committee. Hodges asked for McNiel's thoughts on the group's current status and future directions. McNiel commented on some of the trends of the committee including a decreasing number of horticulturists participating. Some discussion followed detailing some of the hurdles causing decreased participation and outlining ways to enhance horticulturist participation of the group. It was noted that decreasing travel funds seemed to be one of the factors affecting participation. Administrative Advisor's Update: Nessler provided an administrative advisor's update. He commented briefly on how his university utilized Hatch funds. Create 21 is not moving forward as originally proposed, as there are some major components of the proposal that will not be incorporated. Farm Bill is in a state of flux. He commented on potential changes to some earmarks for agriculture and how some of the resulting changes in formula funding could impact some states. There is much uncertainty as to what the final Farm Bill will look like. Nessler noted that one area of certainty was the continued emphasis on multi-state projects. He commented on the continued productivity and quality of products for the S1021 committee, but raised an issue of how our activities would fare among the competitive funding arena. He felt that our activities may not fare well given the highly competitive nature and focus on research issues. He felt that the competitive and formula funding budget would remain tight as long as Congress continues to face an ever-tightening budget. Hinson commented on what were priority areas for enhancing proposals for federal projects. Nessler remarked that accountability is a primary focus, discussing impacts on businesses and industry. He noted that projects need to document how the newly generated research knowledge influences industry. Hall commented on a recent article in Money Magazine as one example of our group documenting activity impacts. Nessler commented on stronger linkages with Extension in terms of disseminating information and promoting research findings. Nessler also said that projects should focus on identifying how industry is utilizing information. Behe commented on funding areas that the group may need to focus on. NIH has an emerging interest in translational research. The area focuses on not only identifying the new knowledge but prioritizes how the information gets translated and disseminated to the public and adopted. It means that research projects should strengthen partnerships to enhance outreach efforts. Hodges inquired would there be benefit to making our project national. Behe commented that would be fantastic. Nessler commented on a few current projects but noted the national benefit focus that our project would need. It is the NRSP, National Research Support Program, and currently there are approximately seven projects. Behe recommended selecting a sub-committee to investigate this designation for our project renewal. Behe and Hall were selected for committee. CSREES Advisor: No report. See Nessler comments. Web-Page update: Hall discussed the website. The new URL for the committee has changed to www.s1021.org. The website will move to Texas A&M. If there are changes needed on the website including contact/personal information, committee members should email Charlie Hall at chall@ag.tamu.edu. Manuscript Reports: Container and Landscape Cost manuscript (McNiel) McNiel started with the landscape cost report draft which was dispersed during the 2007 winter meeting. Hall, Haydu, Hodges and Mathers were the review sub-committee. Landscape report is in the process of revisions from previous committee edits. McNeil noted that the container report should be available by late spring. In lieu of McNiel's upcoming retirement, assistance was sought with development of the field nursery manuscript which is for zones 5 and 6. Committee members interested in providing leadership to project should contact the president. Discussions also followed concerning the conversion of the cost data to the Mississippi State Budget Generator (MSBG). Little and Rainey agreed to assist with the container project. NRAES (Hall): No further update from the previous report. Our two publications are currently being sold on the NREAS website. Economic Impact Sod (Hodges): Hodges commented on the landscape, lawn care and golf industry economic analysis. Hodges and Haydu currently have a manuscript submitted from the work and have a series of Extension publications available on their website which focus on specific sector reports. Hall commented on ANLA interests in updating the national nursery survey. They have used the resources for a number of their outreach and lobbying efforts. ANLAs Director of Research has expressed interest in our committee priorities and has interest in linking our activities with USDA and HRI research funding. Consumer Purchases (Behe): Behe noted that Money Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Tribune all picked up the committee's work on consumer perceptions. She has been working with some grad students on conjoint studies identifying the impact of colors on purchases. Palma will assist with the analysis and will have a manuscript for publication shortly. Progress on Current studies: Labor study: McNiel remarked on any specific feedback from survey participants on issues or changes in perceptions or activities or in the information that was being sought. He commented more broadly on how meanings and information are lost with translations between English and Spanish. He talked about how the issue affects labeling concerns and how different languages have various translations. Hodges noted the growing importance of this issue as the size of non-English speaking workforce and management levels continue to grow. He noted the need for us to be aware of the recognized standard for communicating in foreign languages in terms of work with surveys and publications. Business Benchmark Analysis (Hodges): Hodges noted the continued development of the benchmark analysis website. Data collections are extremely slow with only a few data entries, which are mostly Floridians. They still conduct training workshops in FL and are currently in the process of updating the website with more graphical output. Hodges commented additionally about recently successful RMA commodity partnership program proposal. He received funding for the upcoming year, applying through 3 regional centers for a project which includes 11 states. The proposal outlines trainings for a one-day program covering general risk management issues which will be conducted from Oct. through Sept. Each workshop anticipates 25 participants attending a 6-hour workshop. Collaborators will assist with not only coordinating the workshops but also developing and providing resource material for the trainings. NASS (Hodges/Hall): Hodges summarized the events of a recent meeting with USDA officials. Hodges passed out notes which detail the discussions from the meeting. They addressed the kinds of information being collected and the current gaps in collection. John Haydu, Hall and Hodges made a trip to D.C. for the meeting. The limited funding for data collection was discussed noting that no single person has sole responsibility for floriculture and nursery crops. Because of the tight budgets, efforts to expand data collection are not currently an option, but he felt that the meeting was extremely positive noting their openness to our concerns. USDA noted the intention to convert their instruments to electronic format in the near future. One issue in addition to budgetary concerns was the issue with maintaining the quality of the data collected electronically. Hall commented that they would do a follow-up with Economic Research Service (ERS) horticulture economist to examine how the survey data collections are extrapolated and to address differences with NASS and ERS data. Nessler noted the differences between USDA and academic research numbers. Hodges noted that from their national and state model experiences that USDA numbers are roughly half of what research supports. Hodges also noted that the NASS Advisory Board currently has only one person who may be knowledgeable about nursery and floriculture crops. Subsequent to the meeting, we were invited to nominate a person for the new term of the Advisory Board. Based on a recommendation by Hinson, we nominated Dr. Severn Doughty, Executive Director of the Louisiana Nursery and Landscape Association. Hodges noted that NASS was quite aware of the industry and its relative economic importance to the agriculture industry. They also welcomed additional guidance and expertise to address this issue. Hodges welcomed other committee members to participate in this activity. Current committee is Hall, Hodges, Haydu and Hinson. Container cost budget zones 8 & 9 (Hinson): Hinson provided an update on the container cost report for zones 8 and 9. Black commented that he, Richard Harkass, and Allen Owings recently met with some growers for comments and feedback. They have incorporated the production concerns and are currently working on the irrigation component. The budget should be available for review within a month. Black commented on the consensus that the growers provided in terms of labor, equipment, and machinery performance rates. Hinson commented on the importance of gathering feedback from these and other producers in terms of measuring the impact of this project's work. Other: Little noted that there was some on-going work on a sod production budget in Mississippi. Elections: Hall noted that the past chairs were assigned the responsibility of developing the slate of new officers. Hodges was nominated as Chair which was seconded by Behe. The election was held and he was elected unanimously. Marco Palma was nominated as Secretary, and he was elected by acclamation which passed unanimously. Hall welcomed the new officers and noted the assistance of the past president with developing the project's annual report. 2008 Winter Meeting: Future site for 2008 winter meeting is Austin, TX. Palma noted that tentative planning was for the middle of February, likely the 13-15 or 20-22. Hall noted that every sector of the green industry is represented in the Austin area, so possibilities are numerous for the tour. The summer 2008 meeting will be held in Atlanta, GA during the Southern Nursery Association (SNA) meeting. The SNA meeting dates are August 6-7, 2008. Sub-committee meetings scheduled: (1) Consumer Perceptions and Behavior (2) Container Cost Budget Zones 8 & 9 Meeting adjourned at 12:20 pm for lunch with sub-committee meetings scheduled for the afternoon. Submitted by Ron Rainey, secretary; Edited by Alan Hodges, chairman elect

Hall, C. R., Hodges, A. W., and Haydu, J. J. Economic Impacts of the Green Industry in the United States. 2007. Southern Cooperative Series Bulletin 406. http://www.utextension.utk.edu/hbin/scsbeconomic.htm