ASHS 2024 Conference

Whether marketing to a horticulture consumer or educating them, understanding motivations is crucial. In 2023, a nationwide survey of gardening consumers conducted by a regional team of horticulture researchers provided key insights into how backgrounds and experiences impacted motivations of horticulture consumers. Cluster analysis performed on the data provides the ability to group consumers in terms of their interest and spending to enable more tailored education or marketing efforts. This workshop will investigate the key characteristics of those ten groups according to demographics, experience, motivation, and spending and integrate the experience and insight of attendees to best utilize the survey information. The goal of this highly interactive workshop will be to develop representative avatars and actionable outreach and marketing ideas that can be integrated into Extension programming as well as used to equip garden centers and horticultural businesses to be intentional and effective in reaching, educating, and retaining these new consumers. Horticulture professionals with research, Extension, teaching, and/or business focuses are all invited to attend and aid in honing audience descriptions based on current data. This session will set the stage for developing more tools to support Consumer Horticulture outreach and marketing to current and future audiences.

This workshop is grounded in current research findings and will focus on turning findings into tools that can be used by a wide range of ASHS professionals to reach current and future audiences.

Engage a diverse set of Horticulture professionals and define up to 10 core target audiences in today's horticultural market whether that is a retail business, classroom, or other outreach program.

This session will have minimal large-group presentation time. Six team leaders will break the audience into small groups based on interests and lead them through a series of prompts to assign descriptors to different audiences as defined by recent survey data. Participants will aid in coding different types of audience members, report out to the larger group, and group work will be cross-checked to determine key target audiences and best methods of communication with each.

Coordinator(s)

• Kristine Lang, South Dakota State University, Agronomy, Horticulture, and Plant Science, Brookings, South Dakota, United States

Moderator(s)

• Gerald Burgner, Texas A&M University, United States
• Natalie Bumgarner, University of Tennessee, Plant Sciences, Knoxville, TN, United States
• Sheri Dorn, University of Georgia, United States
• Heather Kirk Ballard, Louisiana State University, United States
• Julie Campbell, University of Georgia, Horticulture, Athens, Georgia, United States

This workshop will explore topics related to climate change impacts on temperate tree nut crops, including drought, salinity, freeze issues, and other environmental stressors. Additionally, participants will be given the opportunity to discuss relevance of topics to their specific commodity and share insights and suggestions with fellow researchers.

In this workshop we will be bringing in experts in pistachio and pecan cultivation to share their cutting-edge research and insights into mitigating the challenges posed by climate change. These esteemed speakers, who have dedicated their careers to understanding and addressing these issues, will provide valuable insight to workshop attendees and jumpstart discussion on this topic within groups. Attendees will have the opportunity to discuss relevant issues of climate change on their crop within small groups before bringing ideas to the entire group.

The impact of climate change on tree nut crops is likely to be significant, given expected decreases in chilling, increased droughts, and fluctuations in winter temperatures leading to decreases in production if mitigation measures are not implemented.

In this workshop, we seek to foster fruitful discussion among researchers working with tree nuts and other orchard crops likely to be impacted by climate change in order to brainstorm solutions and targets for future research in this topic area.

Coordinator(s)

• Lu Zhang, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United States
• David Hlubik, Rutgers University, United States
• Phoebe Gordon, University of California Cooperative Extension, Madera, CA 93638, Madera County, United States

Speaker/Participant(s)

• Louise Ferguson, University of California Davis, Extension Specialist, Davis, California, United States
  Climate Impact on Tree Nut Crops - Pistachio Salinity (30 mins)
  Summary: Dr. Louise Ferguson is an Extension Specialist at University of California Davis with several decades of experience in pistachio and other orchard crops and will be speaking on pistachio salinity.
• Richard Heerema, New Mexico State University, Extension Specialist, Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States
  Climate Impact on Tree Nut Crops - Drought in Pecan (30 mins)
  Summary: Dr. Richard Heerema is an Extension Specialist at New Mexico State University with a focus on pecans and will be speaking on drought in pecan.
• Xinwang Wang, USDA ARS, College Station, TX, United States
  Climate Impact on Tree Nut Crops - Pecan Breeding Associated with Climate Change (30 mins)
  Summary: Dr. Xinwang Wang is a Research Geneticist for USDA ARS in College Station, TX and will be discussing challenges in pecan breeding associated with climate change.