Participants: Host Pam Bennett (Clark County Extension) and Extension educators from northeast (Maureen Austin, Erik Draper), northwest (Curtis Young), and southwest Ohio (Joe Boggs, Dave Dyke); Master Gardeners, and the Ohio State Department of Plant Pathology (Mike Boehm, Nancy Taylor, Sarah Ellis, and Jim Chatfield).

Highlights

Exciting discussions, particularly about new outreach projects underway and collaborative opportunities.

The group joined Joe Boggs in a BYGLive! diagnostic walkabout at Ferncliff Cemetery and Arboretum in Springfield (above, lower photo).  About 30 green industry professionals meet with Joe at different locations each month of the growing season (for the past 11 years) for hands-on diagnostics.

Right: the group found a variety of plant diseases and insects, including Sclerotinia on Euphorbia.

Visits with tree pathologist Enrico Bonello, ornamental pathologist Dennis Lewandowski, graduate students Carola De La Torre Cuba and Chris Woltjen, and Nancy Taylor and the C. Wayne Ellett Plant and Pest Diagnostic Clinic.  The group also sat in on an organic agriculture lecture given by by Sally Miller in Lanny Rhodes' Plant Disease Management course.

The group even ran into Ohio State's President Gordon Gee on campus, who greeted everyone warmly and posed for a photo (left to right, Monica Lewandowski, Sarah Ellis, John Koenig, Mike Loos, President Gee, Erik Draper, Mike Boehm, Zack Rinkes and Enrico Bonello).  Not pictured is Jim Chatfield, who is taking the photo.