Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 1:00pm. Agenda presented and approved by Charlie and seconded by Bridget. Bridget moved and Sue seconded a motion to approve minutes as received. Presidential comments. Bob recognized Sue for her efforts in planning the summer meeting as well as extended a thank you to her assistants, Leslie Carter and Val). All committee members expressed their gratitude for her efforts. It was agreed that Ron would send thank you notes to the assistants and tour hosts. Bob also recognized Bridgette and Charlie for the work in resubmitting the project. The committee has a new committee number, S1021, with a project date of Oct. 2005  Sept 30, 2009 . The research project also has new Administrative and CSREES Advisors, Craig Nessler and Henry Bahn. There were no administrative or CSREES advisor reports. Charlie gave a report on the webpage. He highlighted his recent updates to the site, specifically noting the change of the title to Green Industry Research Consortium. He also mentioned a link for publications noting that the administrative advisor really liked the link to highlight the committees productivity. Bob started the manuscript reports. Currently updating field and landscape price information, hopefully by early fall will have progressed extensively on manuscript. · Behe noted that Sept JEH will have an article from the landscape manuscript. · NRAES converted the Southern Cooperative Series bulletin into a for sale publication. Enhancing Profitability in Greenhouse Firms will sale for $18 available on their website.www.nraes.org Operation costs survey currently being conducted by Profit Planning Group organized by PLANET who works with ANLA on certain education programs. Sue led discussions on the labor study addressing some of the sampling issues, which included issues for small states and the focus on firms utilizing migrant workers. Charlie encouraged team to seek input from Hodges on available sampling techniques. Committee also discussed the survey design in terms of formatting and content issues. One item of note is the importance of consistency in question format and pre-coding the survey on the instrument itself. Committee has concerns with the survey design in its current state. Sue will communicate committees concerns in terms of edits to survey design, content, and formatting. Several committee members (Sue, Charlie, Behe) volunteered to participate along with all the states that are participating in a conference call with Hannah. National Nursery Survey Charlie discussed the national nursery survey indicating the data sets have been sent to all the states. The manuscript is being developed into a Southern Cooperative Series Bulletin by the end of the summer. Data sets will also be available on Charlies Green Industry website for download. Charlie indicated that the manuscript was in need of reviewers. The reviewers were selected for the manuscript: Hinson, Behe, Rainey, Stegelin. Economic Impact Study Charlie sent around the weblink for the manuscript which has just been published in Pdf format from the UT website. The report can be downloaded by chapters or the entire report. Charlie noted 1000 hardcopies of the report and 2000 executive summaries were printed and that we can download and use at our disposal. Business Analysis No report from committee members. Charlie noted that Allan was using the analysis and on-line system model with some risk management workshops across the southern region. Sue suggested Allan and John provide an afternoon seminar session at our next meeting on using the model to the committee. Committee agreed and it was decided that Bob would contact to set up the session at winter meeting. Price Study No progress in the short term. Evaluation of State Promotional Programs Forrest led discussions on this project in terms of what has been done in other states. He indicated that the number of states that were participating has increased. Sue questioned whether the project was still active. Committee agreed that the project had been completed. Cut Flower Budget Robin noted that she recently submitted a grant for the project and will know by Sept. whether or not project was funded. She also noted that there was a cut flower session at the New Jersey show discussing budget generation. New Studies Bob discussed consumer profiles since this area overlaps in the projects new objectives. Committee agreed to research this area. Behe talked about a national chestnut survey that she and Jennifer have conducted which led to some significant data on gardening practices and purchases. She asked for feedback from the committee in terms of some of the preliminary findings. She also suggested committee members contact her if they had an interest in assisting with some of the analysis for future research and publications. Charlie mentioned the Container Cost publication report development. The report is an update of the zones 7 and 8 report. Committee has begun the initial stages of the update in terms of visiting with state production specialists. Future meeting dates: The Winter 2006 meeting was agreed to be San Jose, California during mid-February. It was agreed to have two days of tours: one day for garden centers/retail sales with the other day focusing on nursery production. The Summer 2006 meeting was decided to be in Atlanta during the SNA conference. The meeting will be held at the SNA researchers headquarters on the Wednesday morning. Meeting adjourned at 3:30pm Respectfully submitted Ronald Rainey