About this Program

The Ornamental Horticulture Program was started in 1977 to address the disease, insect, and weed management tool and plant growth regulator needs of growers. Over time this program expanded to cover not only ornamental horticulture plants grown in greenhouses and nurseries, but landscape plantings, Christmas tree farms, sod farms and interiorscapes.

Research activities start with growers or landscape care professionals or with researchers or extension agents identifying a need – an area where current management tools are not registered, such as for a newly introduced pest or for crops where little phytotoxicity information is available. Research has been sponsored on most active ingredients registered for ornamental horticulture since 1977.

Over the program’s history, the primary focus has been generating crop safety information and adding new crops to labels. This changed during the 2003 Annual Workshop where attendees established high priority projects to focus the research efforts on key issues in each discipline. At that workshop attendees selected Phytophthora Efficacy, Scale & Mealybug Efficacy, and Herbaceous Perennial Tolerance to Select Herbicides. All three remained high priority projects at the 2004 Annual Workshop, and one new high priority project was added: Quinoclamine Crop Safety. During the 2005 Workshop, Phytophthora Efficacy remained high priority and the pathologists added Pythium Efficacy. Because much data had been generated on a number of scale and mealybug species, the entomologists selected Thrips Efficacy as their high priority project with a secondary project for Coleopteran Efficacy. Similarly, because data had been generated on many herbaceous perennial species and the Quinoclamine Crop Safety project was coming to a close, the weed scientists selected Broadleaf Weed and Sedge Management Tools Crop Safety as their high priority project.