Digger magazine

Written to make you a nursery industry expert.

Practically green

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SPROut, the Sustainable Plant Research and Outreach Center, is offering a couple of upcoming all-day workshops of note. The details: Ecological Design Principles for Water Treatment – Saturday, Sept. 26Ecological design principles have been the basis for many commercially-available, plant-based engineered systems for water treatment such as Living Machines, Eco-Machines, and Lake Restorers. Applications of these […]

It’s official – Climate Friendly Nurseries Project launched

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The Oregon Association of Nurseries and the Oregon Environmental Council have created a partnership known as the Climate Friendly Nurseries Project, the two organizations announced Thursday morning at the 2009 Farwest Show in Portland, Ore. Over the next three years, the partners will work together to help nurseries to reduce energy use and emissions of […]

Pay by scam

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Increasingly, mass market retailers are paying wholesale nurseries for plants only when (and if) they are sold to the consumer. It’s called “pay by scan” (excuse the typo in the headline). The grower absorbs the cost of any plants that die or are stolen, and they also pay to keep them alive on store shelves […]

Climate Friendly Nurseries Project to be announced

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Next week, the Oregon Association of Nurseries and the Oregon Environmental Council will announce the launch of the new Climate Friendly Nurseries Project. Its purpose?: Through the CFN project, nurseries can quantify their energy and resource use and greenhouse gas emissions, and identify specific ways to reduce both. The project team will help participating nurseries […]

USDA’s new Conservation Stewardship Program up and running

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is accepting applications for its new Conservation Stewardship Program, a voluntary program providing financial aid and technical assistance for agricultural and forestry producers that adopt or maintain certain conservation activities (PDF). The program was authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill, and enrollment will be limited to 12,769,000 acres during each […]

25,000 more H-2B visas made available

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced last week that more than 25,000 additional H-2B guest worker visas are now available for the 2009 filing period. Petitions will be accepted immediately. The agency had announced way back in January that all 66,000 visas allocated for fiscal 2009 were already spoken for, nine months before the […]

Save big on Farwest Show registration

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Everyone’s talking about Oregon’s nursery showcase, the 37th annual Farwest Show, which is set for Aug. 20-22 in Portland, but time is running short! You only have a few more days to save big on admission to the show. This Friday, July 31, is the deadline for early bird registration, which will save you $10-$20 […]

New president installed at ANLA

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The American Nursery and Landscape Association installed Tom Courtright as its new president for the 2009-10 year earlier this month at the ANLA Annual Meeting. Courtright is the president and owner of Orchard Nursery and Florist, a garden center based in Lafayette, Calif. He purchased the nursery in 1972 and has a long record of […]

The governor’s signature

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OAN issued the following press release this afternoon: The Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN) and its more than 1,300 members are grateful that Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed a bill protecting nurseries against the threat of an unfair new tax, OAN Director of Government Relations Jeff Stone said today. “Many of our growers are relieved they […]