M E 



p § en lEK 



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And The Winners Are... 



The FFA competitions are an 

 "interciricular activity" of the voca- 

 tional agriculture programs in New 

 Hampshire high schools. This year's 

 competitions in the areas of Floricul- 

 tureandNursery/Landscapewereheld 

 at the University of New Hampshire in 

 Durham on April nineteenth. Ten 

 schools competed. 



In the Nursery/Landscape Competi- 

 tior^ there were separate contests in 

 the areas of pruning, propagation, 

 equipment maintenance, customer 

 assistance, plant disorders, plant 

 identification, and landscape drawing, 

 as well as a general exam. Manches- 

 ter School of Technology took first 

 place and had three of its team mem- 

 bers — Dustin Heiberg, Darren 

 Weatherbee, and Steve Geff— earn 

 the three highest individual scores. 

 Bob Bickford is the instructor at 

 Manchester. Cheshire (Keene) came 

 in second and Fall Mountain (Al- 

 stead) placed third. 

 In the Floriculture Competition, the 

 contest areas were plant identifica- 

 tion, floral design, pinching, selling, 

 customer complaints, and job inter- 

 view. Alvime (Hudson) won the high- 

 est team score. Felicia Rati is the in- 

 structor at Alvime. Fall Mountain 

 came in second and Dover placed 

 third. Top individual scores went to 

 Gail Whitney and Carrie Mason of 

 Alvime and Tammy Woodell of Fall 

 Moimtain. 



Bob Bickford, instmctor at Manches- 

 ter, noted that the national FFA or- 

 ganization updates the competitions 



every three years and that this was 

 the first year of a new three-year 

 cycle. This time, more emphasis was 

 placed on communication and Bob 

 felt "the kids did real well with the 

 new material." 



The winning teams will represent 

 New Hampshire in regional competi- 

 tion at the Eastem States Exposition 

 in September and at the national FFA 

 competition in Kansas City in Novem- 

 ber. 



A lot of people contributed to the 

 day's success. Owen Rogers (UNH 

 Plant Biology) organized the nursery/ 

 landscape competitions; Charles Wil- 

 liams (UNH Extension) organized the 

 floriculture. Pat Jenkins (Thompson 

 School) coordinated and judged tlie 

 floral design contest. Flowers for this 

 were contributed by Eliot Rose Com- 

 pany of Madbury and Kauffman Floral 

 Company of Dover. 

 Judges included Margaret Pratt (Hills- 

 borough County Extension) and Vir- 

 ginia Hast and Dave Seavey (Mer- 

 rimack County Extension), Chris 

 Robarge (Thompson School), and 

 Robert Kortostynski of Collins Flow- 

 ers in Nashua. 



Funding for the trophies was provided 

 by the New Hampshire Landscapers 

 Association and the New Hampshire 

 Plant Growers' Association. 

 Thanks are extended to all these 

 people. The whole thing was coordi- 

 nated by David Howell, of the UNH 

 Program in Adult and Occupational 

 Education, and graduate student 

 Heidi Smith. Dave feels the students 

 are showing more interest and much 



Congress Passes "America the Beautiful"; 

 Community Trees in New Hampshire to Benefit 



The "America the Beautiful Act of 1990", passed by Congress and signed by Presi- 

 dent George Bush, authorizes a significant new envirionmental program. A key 

 component of the program is a National Tree Planting Initiative which calls for 

 the planting, maintenance, and improvement of one billion trees per year over the 

 next several years. The goal of the new National Tree Planting Initiative is to in- 

 crease reforestation, enhance the environmental and aesthetic qualities of rural 

 and urban areas, and reduce global carbon dioxide levels. 



Also in FY 1991, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has been appropriated 

 $15,000,000 to make grants and to enter into contracts with any State for the pur- 

 pose of contracting with smedl businesses to plant and maintain trees on land owned 

 or controlled by States or local governments. 



For more information contact Mary K- Reynolds, Urban Forester, State of New 

 Hampshire, Department of Resources and Economic Development, Division of 

 Forests and Lands, PO Box 856, Concord, NH 03302; 603/271-2214. Watch 

 for more details in upcoming issues. 



more ability; "some will go onto 

 Thompson School; some will be enter- 

 ing the workplace right out of high 

 school. Either way, activities like this 

 make them more employable." So the 

 FFA Competition is good for the plant 

 industry and good for New Hampshire. 



Representing Our State 



Bill Stockman, Spider Web Gardens, 

 Center Tuftonboro, has been promot- 

 ing the nursery/greenhouse side of 

 things to both state and national law- 

 makers. Bill is the New Hampshire 

 representative on the 1991 New En- 

 gland Nursery Association Legislative 

 Committee. And he is one of twelve 

 members — nationally — of the Ameri- 

 can Farm Bureau Federation Agricul- 

 tural Nursery and Greenhouse Advi- 

 sory Committee. 



This Febmary he attended the Farm 

 Bureau's Committee meeting in Aus- 

 tin, Texas. The number-one issue was 

 minor-use chemicals. 

 There is a real need for smaller grow- 

 ers to keep accurate records of what 

 they use to justify to the companies 

 the $14(X) it costs to reregister a prod- 

 uct. (Or each formulation of a pro- 

 duct. Sevan, for example, is available 

 in fifty formulations — and each costs 

 $1400 to register.) And as the EPA's 

 funds have been cut from a high of 

 twenty-five million to this year's three, 

 the reregistration backlog has in- 

 creased to 2,400 cases. The agency is 

 years behind. 



Companies reregister only what's be- 

 ing used. The more specialized chemi- 

 cals — the ones used by smaller, more 

 specialized growers — create less 

 profit; these are the ones that will be 

 dropped. When a product is not 

 reregistered, there is only 60-90 days 

 to find another producer. If a new 

 producer is not found until after this 

 90-day period, he will have to pay a 

 one-time "active ingredient fee" of 

 $175,000 for the testing required for a 

 completely new product. 

 One-third of the pesticides once avail- 

 able are no longer being sold. And as 

 it becomes more expensive to intro- 

 duce a new product, it seems impor- 

 tant to keep the old ones on the shelf. 

 The Farm Bureau will lobby to keep 

 them there. 



THE PlaNTSMAN 



