Montgomery County extension agent David Suchanic, at left, checksone of the plants at Conti Mortgage Company in Hatboro for insect pests. Rich Batcho, right, owner of Batch-O-Blooms, provides the firm with all its interior plants.

Several horticultural agents in southeastern Pennsylvania are collaborating with extension entomologist Greg Hoover on a project designed to promote integrated pest management (IPM) among consumers and industry workers. "Integrated pest management means using beneficial insects, eclectic plantings, and more accurate pest data to reduce or eliminate pesticide applications," Hoover says. "The green industry in Pennsylvania has found that many consumers don't understand how IPM works."

Hoover and Montgomery County's Suchanic helped organize the Southeastern Pennsylvania IPM Research Group. This 26-member group includes industry professionals, extension agents, and extension specialists who observe insect activity and send in reports from assigned sites each week to build a database that can predict insect and mite outbreaks with accuracy. The group's database is based on the temperatures at which these pests emerge or become active, so entomologists can better predict when certain species will become a problem. "If landscape managers know exactly when to start looking for pest populations or to apply pesticides, they save labor costs and reduce chemical applications," Hoover says. "They also can time the release of beneficial insects when they are most likely to prey on a particular pest."

Since 1990, the group has collected more than 10,000 pest management observations for more than 25 species of woody ornamental plants. Each week, members of the group submit insect and plant scouting reports to Suchanic's office, where the information is collated and delivered in an IPM report to more than 175 subscribers in seven states. Suchanic says that about 70 percent of the newsletter subscribers have adopted IPM-based management plans and many have reduced pesticide applications by 20 to 30 percent. "This is the only program of its kind in the country," he notes. "It's almost like a think-tank, where professionals in the industry work with extension and University specialists in new and creative ways."

The information gathered by the research group has been creatively repackaged for use by consumers and industry professionals unfamiliar with IPM. Emelie Swackhamer, horticulture agent in Lehigh and Northampton Counties, helped produce Creating Healthy Landscapes, a series of two-page fact sheets designed to make integrated pest management methods in the landscape more understandable. "The professionals who were already using IPM needed educational material to present to clients," Swackhamer says. "Customers were wondering why they were being billed even though companies didn't spray. The fact sheets have become an effective customer-service tool for professionals and also serve as an introductory training tool for new employees."

The mission of horticulture extension faculty at University Park is intricately interwoven with county extension programs. Faculty often travel to serve as instructors or speakers at regional workshops organized by area agents. Almost all these specialists also maintain active outreach programs. Hoover's 1998 datebook reads like an advertisement for frequent flyer miles: 67 lectures in five states to 7,922 people. Most extension faculty follow similar itineraries.

"There's also an increase in informal contacts from professionals and consumers," says plant pathologist Gary Moorman. "In the past, extension agents received most gardening questions, usually when a consumer phoned the office. Now faculty specialists are getting more questions because of increased media interest and the posting of our fact sheets on the World Wide Web. I get 5 to 10 e-mails a week from consumers seeking answers to a problem."

Moorman collaborates with Hoover to schedule three to five "pest walks" every year at sites across the state to keep green industry professionals abreast of current disease and insect information. Each session attracts between 50 to 100 attendees. Moorman and Hoover offer the same program to extension agents, and they hosted an insect and disease short course in 1998.

Ornamental horticulture specialist Jim Sellmer organizes the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Conference, held every year in February. The two-day conference, sponsored by extension, the horticulture department, and the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association, attracts more than 400 professionals. Sellmer also holds an annual in-service seminar for all extension horticulture agents in September.

Plant scientist Robert Berghage and Sellmer have sought out new audiences by taking a revered Penn State institution on the road. Berghage oversees the Penn State Trial Gardens at University Park, where growing trials to test plant material for commercial producers have been conducted since 1933. Dauphin County extension agent Alan Michael supervises and evaluates additional growing trials for plants not grown from seed at Penn State's research farm in Landisville. Each year, old and new plants are evaluated for color, fragrance, uniformity, uniqueness, weather tolerance, and disease and pest resistance. "We evaluate and designate plants that have superior performance," Berghage explains. "We publish our results, but that information has only reached a fraction of the state's consumers and landscape professionals."

This year, Penn State has taken the Trial Gardens to the people by establishing 28 new gardens in 22 counties. Each site will grow identical cultivars of selected annuals, perennials, and vegetables, giving consumers and growers a clear picture of which plant types will be most successful in the state's varying soils and climates. "In coming years we will expand the plantings to include woody ornamentals, cut flowers, herbs, and specialty plants," Sellmer says.