Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:

Discussion of current members on listserv and recruiting of younger faculty to join project. Personal communication is best way to let new faculty know about opportunity to participate in research committee. Dewayne suggested having an informational session at ASHS conference associated with Marketing and Economics session in Orlando. Charlie is adding some people that are in the multi-state project but not on the listserv. PIC’s at ASHS might be a possibility for finding interested people.  Charlie will check periodically to find out who has joined the hatch project and add them to the listserv. NSCU bas a new horticulture economics person who will start August 1.  They should be recruited for this committee. Hayk will reach out to that person.

Ben will line up Susan Duncan to come to the next meeting to give comments.  Charlie will add Susan to the listserv. Ben is in process with Susan to get next multi-state proposal started. She sent both replacement process and proposal process.  Ben is checking with Susan to find out which process we should use.  This project expires August 2020.  We should have the new proposal submitted by the end of 2019.

2019 Green Industry Survey Updates:

Hayk – online survey – using skip logic so after 5^th question respondents are sent to appropriate section depending on type of business. Marketing practices section split into A (everyone), B (wholesale only), C (retail only) (no marketing questions for landscape). Could not use separate blocks in order to allow respondents to click back at the end of the survey. Hayk and Alan worked back and forth on this process.  Qualtrics has a quota for mass distribution (25,000 per week).  Hayk had to submit a request to increase this number to 35,000. Qualtrics recommends sending only 10,000 at a time, so Hayk split the list in thirds (this keeps it out of spam filters). Leave email survey open until September.

Sent a reminder to everyone.  Sending a final on June 20, 2019.

Total respondents -902

Agree to participate -824

Full responses –Hayk doesn’t have numbers yet

Complete list of all growers and dealers from state departments of agriculture (except Alaska and Idaho)-94,000. Got a list from Idaho Nursery and Landscape Association. Also harvested emails from Dun and Bradstreet (using email extractor from websites). For mail survey, filtered full list to just capture growers (30,000). Randomly sampled to get to 15,000 for mailing (at least 200 from each state). Online survey sent to everyone who had an email address (28,000).

Discussion of whether we should just send online survey to all state association lists.

Report for Craig Reggelbrugge – economic contribution and jobs information – one pager. Include highlights from survey. Charlie will lead Zoom meeting of subcommittee of Alan, Hayk, Marco and Charlie (in July) to help put this together for AmeriHort to bring to Hill..

Mail survey – Update from Alan.  Print version is very similar to internet version except a few questions about marketing questions to retailers deleted for space.  First mailing in early May, reminder postcard a week later.  Second mailing went out week of June 3, 2019.  A post card will follow.  Hired a firm to enter data.  780 respondents from first mailing (as of June 10).

Minor change to both survey – dropped azalea as a separate plant group, was absorbed into category of broadleaved shrubs.

Total survey combining email and mail = 43,800.

Trend of survey burnout.  A different strategy may need to be employed in next 5-year survey. One strategy would be to break survey into sections and send out one section per year (water, employment, marketing, etc.)

Discussion of ongoing research projects:

Landscape services subcommittee – Tim communicated with Charlie about getting the NALP survey information. Kueheny and Schauwecker are co-chairs, members are Barton, Hall, Boyer, Khachatryan are members.

Labor subcommittee – Plan to submit an HRI proposal next year. Campbell (chair), Hall, Boyer, and Khachatryan. Technology adoption may be a topic for this committee.

Selection of site for Winter 2020 meeting: San Diego was suggested last year but we were ousted by a medical convention. Tim and Charlie and will investigate a 2020 meeting.

Selection of site for Summer 2020 meeting:  Consider Oregon.

Green industry survey has been launched.  The survey of green industry firms is undertaken every 5 years and allows this multistate committee to collect primary data to help fulfill the objectives of the committee.  Notably, responses will contribute to information on the industry’s economic impact, use of sustainable production practices as well as use of labor.  The survey was sent to almost 44,000 industry firms.

Impacts:

During the next year, we will finalize data collection and begin analysis of the data.  The results are reported to industry stakeholders via a number of outlets, including peer-reviewed publications, extension publications, trade press, and presentations to producers, stakeholders, and policy makers.  The material is used by industry associations at both the state and federal level.