Forest Pest Outreach Survey Project - Raising Awareness

Abstract

Education objectives: 1. Create focus groups of Cornell Cooperative Extension Educators to ensure the program meets educators’ needs. 2. Collate/create resources for the 5-10 most relevant pests (based on discussion with NYS Department of Ag and Markets) to allow each region to choose those they wish to use for outreach and education. 3. Hold a minimum of 5 regional training programs in the regions most relevant to the project but with intent to reach most of the 50 counties that have Master Gardener programs. 4. For the Master Gardener portion of the project, NYS IPM will follow up with an evaluation of those trained to learn what outreach projects they created and carried out, and if there are additional resources they need. 5. Creating an advisory group of ornamental nursery producers and retailers to determine how they might function as part of the outreach to the public on forest pests. This group would include a representative from NYS IPM. Because growers/retailers are often seen as sources of information to their customers, they could distribute similar resources as those developed for the Master Gardener component.