News

Bryan Champion died Nov. 10
Industry leader Bryan A. Champion died at the age of 47 after a four-year battle with cancer. He was a 5th generation nurseryman and president of Herman Losely & Son Nursery in Perry, Ohio.

He is survived by his children, Cara (Jacob) Grantier of Westerville and Jared Champion of Perry; sister Marcy Winnenberg of Springfield, brother Curtis (Carol) Champion of Bellefontaine; and uncle, Bob (Carol) Lyons of Madison.

He served as president of the Nursery Growers of Lake County, Ohio, the ANLA's Wholesale Nursery Growers Association and the Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association. He also received the Distinguished Contribution Award from the ONLA.

Contributions may be made in Champion's memory to Painesville United Methodist Church, 71 North Park Place, Painesville, Ohio 44077 or Pan Ohio Hope Ride, c/o cyclist Jared Champion at www.pohr.org.
 

NEWS NOTES

USDA scraps nursery, floriculture report
The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service will no longer produce a nursery or floriculture survey report. The agency cited funding reductions in fiscal year 2011 and likely reductions in FY 2012.

Charlie Hall, Ellison Chair in International Floriculture at Texas A&M, said those reports provide vital benchmark data. The reports also provided state and national associations with important data with which to combat potentially negative legislation and to help justify potentially beneficial laws and regulations, he said.

However, the Green Industry Research Consortium will continue to conduct a national survey and economic impact study every five years, he added.
 

California employers are not required to use E-Verify
Legislation was signed into law in November that prohibits the state, cities and counties from mandating that private employers use E-Verify.

E-Verify is an online program that uses federal databases to check the immigration status of workers. The state ban received broad support, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Farm Bureau Federation, which questioned the accuracy of the databases used by the federal system, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.
 

EPA revamps pesticide database
EPA's Pesticide Program has released a new online searchable database, called Inert Finder (http://tinyurl.com/83px8so). This database allows pesticide formulators and other interested parties to easily identify chemicals approved for use as inert ingredients in pesticide products. It will allow registrants developing new products or new product formulations to readily determine which inert ingredients may be acceptable for use.
 

Connecticut to conduct consumer focus groups
The Connecticut Nursery and Landscape Association is conducting focus groups this fall to find out how consumers feel about plants. CNLA plans to convene four group sessions in a specially-selected, representative sample of consumers throughout the state, using a professional market-research firm.

The firm will extract what consumers really feel about the quality of plants, the state's retail stores, service, price points and reasons why they don't buy plants, among others. Although focused on Connecticut-grown plants, the research will uncover consumer attitudes toward nurseries, garden centers, greenhouses and landscapers. The first results will be revealed at the Winter Symposium, Jan. 4-5 in Manchester, Conn.

The focus group was funded by a $35,000 specialty crop block grant from the Connecticut Department of Agriculture and the USDA.