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July 23, 1999 Newark, Delaware
Members Present: Everett Emino (administrative advisor), Steve Turner (GA), Susan Barton (DE), Charles Hall (TX), Bridget Behe (MI), Tom Fernandez (SC), PJ van Blokland (FL), Robert McNiel (KY). Carol X , a new faculty member of the University of Delaware, and Brian Maynard (RI) participated in the pre-meeting tours. Tours: The committee heartily thanked Susan Barton for the great tours, reception, and meal she arranged. We visited one of the retail locations of Waterloo Gardens, a large retail garden center. This was followed by a guided tour of the gardens at Chanteleer, the estate gardens of the Rosenberg family. On Thursday, we visited Angelika Nursery, a large field nursery, Conard-Pyle, wholesale supplier of roses, perennials, and selected nursery stock, and North Creek Nurseries, a perennial propagation nursery. The tours were followed by a delightful supper at Susan Barton's home. Charlie Hall called the meeting to order at 8:20 am by commenting to the group what an "Outstanding pre-meeting tour we had. This was, one of the finer events we've had since the inception of S103." Minutes were approved as amended with a correction in the spelling of PJ van Blokland's name. We have some new additions to the membership. Bruno Moser (IN) was added to our committee. Brian Maynard is a second new addition from RI. Dr. Emino suggested Win Fai Ulma as a possible addition to the committee from Cornell University. Ben Posadas was added from Mississippi State at our last meeting. Larry Burt, agricultural economist, will be replacing Jim Green from Oregon. Charles Hall received a letter from Jim Aiken stating that he was honored to participate on the project, and enjoyed the relationships he developed there. However, he is no longer with the committee since his recent retirement. The committee recognized the contribution Jim Aiken has made to the committee. We thank him for all his efforts. Jim Faust may be a possible replacement from SC to replace Tom Fernandez who is moving to Michigan State. Comments from Everett Emino, administrative advisor. Dr. Emino reiterated superlative comments on the excellent program of tours in which the group participated the previous two days. The committee met as DC-97-01, development committee. We will no longer be able to use the S-103 designation. The new project has been approved, with the exception of the last stage of approval which comes from Washington, DC. The executive director of the Southern Region needs to approve the project by October 1, 1999. Not having the new project approved before the old one expired caused some problems with members outside the Southern Region. Dr. Emino will assist members with any difficulties they encounter with their Director until the new project is approved. Members are reluctant to accept a new number with the new project approval, since the committee has operated as S-103 for many years with several new projects. Dr. Emino encouraged Southern members to communicate the strong desire to retain the S-103 designation to the Southern Region Director, the individual who will make the committee number designation. The committee thanked Charlie Hall for his tremendous efforts to get the new project to its current status. We commended him highly in this endeavor. Charles Hall telephoned John Brooker to determine the status of the national survey. Several large states did not send out the survey forms. John Brooker reported that all of the data have been input into SAS and cleaned. Twenty-two states participated, excluding Ohio, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania. There were 10 people who agreed to cooperate and failed to meet their commitment. Bridget Behe will contact David Beattie to determine if she can obtain and mail surveys to PA nurseries. Charles Hall will contact Tim Rhodus (OH) and Dave Williams (IL) and determine the status of the survey in their states. Bob McNiel will investigate the distribution in New York. Container nursery manuscript: Bob McNiel will work on the container, field, and landscape budgets while on sabbatical at Cornell University. All three publications will be targeted for publication on the web. He had a graduate student involved in data collection. He has some undergraduate assistance to help with web page entry while at Cornell University. There was discussion about web and hard copies to be made of these publications. Everett Emino reiterated the Southern Directors encouragement for us to publish item on the web. Charles Hall brought up the option of saving these files in html and pdf format. Perhaps Tim Rhodus would be interested in conducting sensitivity analysis from one or more of these publications. The committee agreed that we should publish this information on the web, and in multiple file formats. Greenhouse management manuscript: Charlie will email a draft, once the last three chapters are received. This should be within the next few weeks. We can review the draft and bring it to the winter meeting. Perennials manuscript: Dave Beattie emailed Charlie Hall with regard to the publication. He will be in contact with Bridget Behe and the grower who will be participating in this revision. The geranium manuscript is published! The citation is "Consumer Preferences for Geranium Flower Color, Leaf Variegation, and Price" HortScience 34(4):740-742. The committee thanked Bridget Behe for her coordination of the project and publication. The SERVQUAL manuscript is ready to be edited. Then, we can submit it to JEH. Susan Barton and Bridget Behe worked on the publication to bring to together after many members participated in data collection in 1997.. Discussion ensued with regard to authorship. Manuscript drafts were distributed to reviewers, who will return the manuscript in two weeks. The committee has a publication that will be presented at SNA entitled "Relationship of Dollars Spent in the Garden Center and Perceptions of product and Service Quality" by Behe, Barton, Brooker, Hall, McNiel, Turner, and Safley. Susan Barton introduced Tom Malvano who is a Rural Sociologist, and the new Department Chair for Food Technology and Resource Technology. His presentation was on the "Trees Add Life" program on which he and Susan have been collaborating. They received a grant from National Urban & Community Forestry Advisory Council. They worked on the project for one-year with some progress to report. They have a web page and showed it at www.treesaddlife.org. Information was shipped in late May to 25 pilot sites (garden centers). There will be a display contest this fall, offering a $1000 award for the best banner & display. Copies of the survey distributed are available as pdf files on the website. They conducted two focus groups with industry professionals. Education and promotional items were incorporated into the program. Steve Turner discussed some of his recent projects. One examined the largest 25 nursery firms and how their structure has changed, and affected profitability. They also have collected data from six nurseries on 12 plants and identified their prices from 1960 to 1999. Since prices have not kept up with inflation, the firms may becoming more efficient to cope with cost increases. He is also working on purchase data in Georgia and has information on outdoor or landscape purchases since 1987. PJ van Blokland has a new graduate student who will be investigating the value added to Florida's golf course industry with an input/output model already developed. Plans are to develop a publication over the next year or two. Bridget Behe will check with Robin Brumfield to see the status of the development of a publication for speciality cut flowers. She is working with Kathy Kelley, a Ph.D. student, under the direction of John Biernbaum, who is investigating a budget for edible flower production. Our web page has a select number of publications in it. We have used it primarily to post the minutes of the meeting and post results from the national survey. Chairman Hall admonished the group to publish their reports (saved as a pdf file) and send to Tim Rhodus for posting on the web. Administrators do check on the website to determine our productivity. We were the first regional committee to develop a website and need to use it more frequently. It helps us to create a historical record. Everett Emino asked if we had an electronic record of past publications. This committee's work has been ongoing for 40 years. Charlie Hall has hard copies of many documents. Bridget Behe is conducting a SERVQUAL study in the capstone course at Michigan State and has two years of data. The Myers-Briggs personality indicator was also administered for one year. Others interested people may want to participate in either or both of these studies. Steve Turner and Charles Hall will follow-up with the finance officer at Angelika to pursue potential cooperative studies. There was great interest on both sides to conduct some investigations. Our next meeting will be in Bilouxi, MS on February Feb. 25-27. The summer meeting will be in Michigan at Benton Harbor (near Grand Rapids). Bob McNiel made a special presentation about his trip to China. It was great! As usual, Bob captured the essence of his four week trip. Bridget Behe will send an email to the members reminding them about abstracts and titles for the ISHS off-year meeting in Guernsey, England. The meeting was adjourned at 12:30 pm. Respectfully submitted, Bridget Behe
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