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Ag Extension agents offer expertise to industry, community in urban areas
By Amanda E. Swennes
It's just another day at the office for Gary Peiffer, a Cooperative Extension agent in DeKalb County. The morning starts with a visit to a landscape company to give advice about tree planting and protection, pesticide safety, storm water and urban sprawl issues. Then he's off to a Rotary luncheon to talk about community gardens and farmers markets. After that, it's back to the office to answer phone calls and e-mails from homeowners wondering how to winterize their lawns and get rid of the squirrels in their attics. Throughout the day, homeowners and green industry representatives bring in samples for identification or control methods.

But the workday doesn't always end at 5 p.m. Evenings may be spent preparing for a Master Gardener training or delivering presentations to civic groups about basic gardening skills like diagnostic and pest control issues, soil preparation and plant watering. The next morning, it's back to work in one of the most densely populated Georgia counties to do it all again.

Scenes similar to this one play out every day in many counties across the state, urban and rural. Extension agents stand ready to answer all sorts of questions — from a homeowner trying to figure out why her azaleas won't bloom to a farmer staring down a disease that's threatening to decimate his soybean crop.

"What a lot of people don't understand is that urban ag is not that different from traditional agriculture," Peiffer said. "To be successful, you have to have good soil, plant the right crops where they're supposed to go, water them correctly and manage pest and disease control."

According to the U.S. Census, nearly one-third of Georgia's 9.7 million people lived in the metro Atlanta counties of Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cobb and Clayton in 2009. But there are several urban pockets across the state, from Atlanta to Macon, Columbus to Albany and Savannah to Valdosta. Providing assistance and research-based advice to homeowners, green industry companies caring for landscapes and myriad subdivision, city, county and state organizations is not a job for the faint of heart. But helping all of those groups, as different as they are, is what Georgia's urban agriculture Extension agents have signed up to do every day.

Industry
The University of Georgia's Center for Urban Agriculture, located on the UGA campus in Griffin, Ga., is essentially a melting pot of information from disciplines including crop and soil sciences, plant pathology, entomology, horticulture and biological and agricultural engineering. More often than not, urban issues cut across those boundaries. For example, when it comes to addressing a plant disease, pathologists can identify and design a treatment for it, engineers can create a new irrigation system that delivers the proper amount of water at the correct time to lessen disease pressure and horticulturists can help make sure the right plant is installed in the right place.

While traditional agricultural crops like cotton, soybeans and peanuts are considered commodities, urban agriculture is based primarily on products and value-added services, such as landscape architecture and farmers markets.

In Muscogee County, more than 300 small businesses are green industry-related. And that's "green" as in growing things, not "green" as in recycling or saving energy.

Green industry businesses include landscape designers, arborists, irrigation experts and retail nursery owners. Employees run the gamut from career horticulturists working at diversified landscape companies to firemen who work a seasonal second job as landscapers.

"It's beyond just cutting people's grass," said Todd Hurt, the Center's training coordinator. "These people are professionals and have a highly specialized knowledge of what they're doing."
To help the green industry be successful in a competitive market, the Center administers two professional certification courses: The Georgia Certified Landscape Professional program and the Georgia Certified Plant Professional certificate. Both are voluntary programs officially recognized by the Georgia Department of Agriculture. The Center also offers pesticide applicator and safety trainings, including materials geared specifically toward Hispanic landscape workers. These programs provide employees with greater knowledge, which can give companies a stronger reputation.

Extension agents also help their local green industry businesses maintain their certifications and provide employee safety training.

"We try to let them know how to get involved in the state's green industry association and stay on top of current issues and continuing ed opportunities," said Jennifer Davidson, a Muscogee County agent. Keeping their pesticide licenses current is an ongoing process. "If you spray another person's lawn for a fee, you've got to be certified by the state," she said.

Community Gardens
Community gardens seem to become popular during times of great social and economic change, from the Great Depression to today. During World War II, American families grew 80 million pounds of food in Victory Gardens, which people planted across the country to help ease the strain on the nation's food supply. This meant more food for the troops. Victory Gardens represented nearly 44 percent of the country's entire food supply during the war, according to the New York Restoration Project. Today, roughly 15 percent of the world's food is grown in urban areas, including backyard, rooftop and balcony gardens, according to USDA.

During the current economic recession, Sheldon Hammond, the agriculture and natural resources program development coordinator for UGA Cooperative Extension's Northwest District, has noticed an increased interest in local foods and home and community gardening in Georgia.

"People want fresher fruits and vegetables and want to know where their food is coming from," Hammond said. "Origin seems to be more important than organic right now. People want to know the farmer they're buying from, and some are even interested in growing their own food. I don't see the momentum on that slowing down.” Hammond attributes the increased popularity of locally grown foods to the economy and an increased awareness of food safety.

In metro areas, there's a renewed interest in community gardens and farmers markets on both the county and municipal levels, as well as with non-profit organizations. Several cities have set aside sections of parkland for community gardens. Non-profit organizations are using available plots at churches and shelters. In DeKalb County alone there are somewhere between 50 and 75 community gardens, including those at 26 county parks and 15 senior centers.

James Morgan, an urban horticulture and ag agent in Dougherty County, knows of at least nine community gardens in his area and has also noticed a growing interest in raised bed gardening.

"Raised bed gardens have many benefits," he said. "You can easily grow vegetables in a six-by-twelve plot and plant things like squash that wil replenish themselves throughout the summer." And, raised beds don't have the same nematode and weed problems as traditional gardens. They're also easier to maintain for the elderly or people who have a hard time bending and kneeling.

Although Morgan spends about 75 percent of his time helping homeowners and the rest assisting local green industry professionals, the demand for information can often be overwhelming. That's where Master Gardeners come in. A volunteer force trained in a broad range of horticulture topics, they help agents extend their reach in the community. "Master Gardeners are involved in everything we do, down to answering phones and e-mails, talking to office visitors, being speakers at public and civic groups, writing brochures, talking to the media and teaching," Peiffer said.

While Extension agents in urban counties may not deal with row crops, corn and cows on a daily basis like some of their rural counterparts, their primary mission remains the same: teach people how to grow things, solve problems and make the best-informed decisions possible about the environment we live in.

The Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network

Current Status and Future of the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network
Over the last 20 years, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia has developed an extensive network of automated weather stations across the State of Georgia known as the AEMN. The Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network, or AEMN, has provided current and historical information at no cost for almost twenty years to a variety of users as a service of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The operation of the AEMN requires over $300,000 annually which has traditionally been provided from a combination of state funding and contracts and grants. These funds are no longer available due to the loss of state funding and key personnel. Continued operation of the AEMN will be possible only if sustainable financial support totaling $300,000 is pledged soon. We want to continue operation of the AEMN as a service of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, but we need dedicated funding to keep it running while we develop a long-term, sustainable business plan.

Although technically “automated,” the AEMN requires 24/7 support, including staff who travel around the state diagnosing data interruptions, repairing or replacing equipment, and providing routine maintenance. One staff position is dedicated to continuously providing quality assurance and quality control of the formidable data stream from 81 stations recording at least 19 weather variables every 15 minutes. Computer and file maintenance, sensor calibration, accommodation of data requests, and overall administration require additional staff. Consequently, unless $300,000 per year in ongoing support becomes available from one or a few major sources in the very near future, we will begin to dismantle individual AEMN stations in late July 2011. Once a station is shut down data will no longer be available, to the detriment of Georgia’s economy For further information please contact AEMN manager Ian Flitcroft at iflitcro@uga.edu.

What is the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Weather Network?
The University of Georgia has developed an extensive network of automated weather stations, operating in most of the agricultural production areas across the state, known as the Automated Environmental Monitoring Network (AEMN), or simply the Georgia Weather Network. The first station was installed in 1992, and since then the network has grown to 81 stations. Each station records rainfall, air and soil temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, soil moisture, and barometric pressure. Some stations also record evaporation, water temperature, and leaf wetness. All these values are read every second and averaged and recorded every 15 minutes on site. This data is sent to computers on the UGA campus via radio, internet, or dedicated phone lines. The downloaded data is processed and maintained in two files, one with the 15-min values, and one with daily summaries. All of this information is made available to anyone at no cost at www.Georgiaweather.net, and updated at least every hour. In addition to weather data, various weather-based products, such as degree-day calculators and rainfall calculators, are also available at this web site.

Who uses the Georgia Environmental Monitoring Network?
Local real-time weather information delivered frequently is invaluable to a wide range of constituents, from obvious users like farmers and nurserymen to less apparent ones like science teachers and stonemasons. It is difficult to know the myriad ways in which the service helps Georgia residents, but the evidence available suggests a wide range of users and uses:

• In September 2010, a representative month, the AEMN had 565,000 hits by over 60,400 separate visitors, representing 49 states and 82 countries. Almost 300,000 of the hits were from within Georgia.

• County agents polled informally at meetings repeatedly identify the Georgia Weather Network as their main source of current weather information, as it is for many of the farmers they support.

• The regional energy utility Southern Company, requiring information on power demand and temperatures for billing purposes, makes extensive use of AEMN. They are responsible for about 13% of site visits.

• An article in the U.S. Golf Association online newsletter on August 11, 2010 documented severe drought damage to Georgia golf courses, using AEMN data extensively.

• Peanut growers use a calculator at the AEMN site to determine risk of tomato spotted wilt, and fruit producers utilize a chilling degree-day calculator to determine if their peaches, blueberries, etc. have met dormancy requirements for bloom in spring.

• AgroClimate.org, an information and decision support system for farmers from the 4-state Southeast Climate Consortium, draws directly and heavily on AEMN data for a wide array of tools to manage risk related to climate. Particularly valuable are seasonal predictions based on the El Niño cycle.

• Dozens of scientific journal articles, presentations, and posters have been based on archived data from the Georgia Weather Network since its inception.

What is the economic value of the Georgia Environmental Monitoring Network to Georgia?
The financial benefits of the Georgia Weather Network are even more difficult to estimate than all the ways it may be used, but one can assume that the vast majority of clients access network data because they see it as beneficial to their business or institution, and therefore provide economic utility. A few estimates of cost benefits include:

• Blueberry growers estimated that during a hard freeze last winter, AEMN frost protection information in three counties saved them between $40,000and $60,000.

• A strawberry disease forecasting tool using similar stations in Florida saved an estimated $300/acre in 2008-09 by eliminating unneeded sprays. We are working to provide similar tools in Georgia using the AEMN.

• A formal study by M. Z. Alhassan in the Agricultural Economics Department at UGA concluded that the value of weather information from a single station in Camilla, for purposes of determining optimal planting date and irrigation regimes for corn, cotton, peanut, and soybean, was $847,502 per year