Plant Management Systems: Urban Horticulture (Lea County)

Impact: In February of 2007 Lea Extension and NMDA hosted its 17th Annual Pesticide Applicators Training. This program has two purposes 1) assist clientele in maintaining there pesticide license by obtaining there CEU's, and 2) training future license holders and preparing them for the tests that they will have to take. Presenters for this program are specialist from the university and employees of the NMDA. Each year there is about 80 participants in this program. With majority receiving their CEU's. Preparation has begun for the 18th annual workshop which will be held in January.

Impact: During the growing season an abundant number of calls were sought requesting horticultural information from the Lea County office. Information requested was on a variety of subjects concerning trees and shrubs, pest management, turf/lawn management, soil analysis, and noxious weed management. Each sitituation is dealt with accordingly pending time and input resources of the clientale. Seventy-five percent of all visits resulted in improper timing of irrigation practices. With this being the major problem of the home gardener any problem that persisted resulted with repeat customers along with neighbors beginning to phone in with lawn and garden concerns of thier own.

Impact: The Master Gardener course is a 16 week course that begins in mid-January and finishes with a nursery tour on the first Saturday of May. We had 17 participants in this year course. With these individual we were able to assits with the landscaping of two projects 2) The Waittes house which obtained Historicall Status and 3) The Lea County Museum. These projects assited in the beautification of the City of Lovington. Additionally, a irrigation workshop was was held for residents of Lea County which was also used as a recruiting tool to aquire more membershipfor the 2008 Master Gardener classes. Certified Master Gardeners grew by three more members to increase Lea County's enrollment to 38 certified gardeners. These gardeners helped host the annual flower and garden show at the 2007 Lea County Fair. Also, the agent conducted four presentations to local clubs and to local leaders of the county. The groups that were involved were the Llano Estacodo group which is a womens organization in Lovington, the Green Thumb ladies group that meets in Hobbs, the Kiwanins Club of Lovington and the Hobbs Rotary group. These presentation were conducted in May and June with the primary emphasis being on lawn and tree care. Many contacts were made which also resulted in many calls coming to the office because of these presentations.

H. Wayne Cox has signed on to support Plant Management Systems: Urban Horticulture within Lea County.