News

ANLA, OFA to form new trade association
The Board of Directors of OFA – The Association of Horticulture Professionals has voted to begin the process of organizing a new association with ANLA. The new association will replace OFA and ANLA. The timeline is to have a new organization established no sooner than July of 2013 and no later than January 2014.

OFA and ANLA announced in January 2012 the formation of a joint venture to support business education and government relations activities. Since June 2011, OFA’s executive committee has been meeting with ANLA’s leaders about the opportunity for and viability of a formal relationship between the two organizations.

“This is not a merger. This is taking the best of what both associations do to create a new organization that will advance the industry and better serve our members,” said Michael V. Geary, OFA’s chief executive officer.

Following ANLA Executive Vice President Bob Dolibois’ scheduled retirement at the end of the year, Geary will become the chief staff executive of both ANLA and OFA beginning Jan. 1, 2013. The organizations will continue to be governed separately, but Geary will lead the day-to-day operations of both associations.

To keep the industry up to date on the formation of the new organization, visit www.OneVoiceOneIndustry.com.

Industry mourns Bonnie Lee Appleton
Horticulturist Bonnie Lee Appleton died Sat. July 21.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1985, Appleton was based at the Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center. She was instrumental in the development of the department’s off-campus graduate degree program. She was an instructor of many graduate classes and as major advisor to more than 60 master’s degree students.

She served the nursery, landscape and tree care industry of Virginia and beyond through extensive applied research and extension programs. In 2010, she conferred the “professor emerita” title by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

Her colleagues will plant a tree in her honor at the Virginia Tech Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center this fall. Donations in her memory can be made to the Virginia Master Gardener Coordinator Endowment or a charity of your choice.

Boxwood blight found on pachysandra in Connecticut landscape
A natural infection of pachysandra in the landscape by Cylindrocladium pseudonaviculatum, the boxwood blight fungus, was confirmed by Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station plant pathologists June 29. The pachysandra sample had been collected by a CAES inspector while visiting a residential property in Fairfield County that had installed B&B boxwood plants in May 2012.

House committee approves farm bill
The House Agriculture Committee approved a five-year farm and nutrition bill. The 35-11 committee vote came three weeks after the Senate passed its version of the half-trillion-dollar bill and shifts the focus to the full House as Congress seeks to come up with a consensus bill before the current farm bill expires at the end of September.

Craig Regelbrugge, ANLA’s vice president of government relations, said plant pest and disease prevention, national clean plant network, specialty crop block grants and research provisions in the bill attracted little controversy and few amendments.

Correction
In the July issue, the two cutlines were reversed on the photos at the top of page 24 in the feature “Better roots.”