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Q&A ViewAttendees 2

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

10-Minute Paper

P-IE: Extension, Education, and Outreach

Landscape University: Pesticide CEU classes as an educational platform for entomology

Sunday, October 31, 2021
1:42 PM - 1:54 PM MT
Location: Colorado Convention Center, Meeting Room 102-106
In-Person

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Morgan G. Pinkerton

    Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Agent
    University of Florida/IFAS Extension
    Sanford, Florida

    • Co-Author(s)

  • HW

    Hannah Wooten

    Commercial Horticulture Agent
    University of Florida/IFAS Extension
    Orlando, Florida

  • BM

    Brooke Moffis

    Commercial Horticulture Agent
    University of Florida/IFAS Extension
    Tavares, Florida

In 2018, the Florida nursery and landscape industry generated $25.4 billion output sales and employed over 242,000 people, demonstrating the importance of the industry to the state. Many professionals working in this industry are required to hold a state pesticide applicator license to legally apply pesticides as part of their job duties. After initial licensure, license holders are required to obtain continuing education units (CEUs) to maintain and renew their licenses. Licenses are renewed annually or every four years with requirements ranging from 4-20 CEUs to renew, equating to up to 20 hours of topic-specific instruction. Normally, applicators obtain CEUs by attending in-person trainings, but in 2020, CEU opportunities greatly expanded to include more virtual webinars and trainings. Landscape University was developed as an annual opportunity for pesticide license holders to obtain CEUs both virtually and in-person. The program employs an interdisciplinary approach to teach about IPM and landscaping topics related to entomology, plant pathology, weed science and soil science. Presentations were designed to be interactive, using real world examples and scenarios of landscaping pests and problems. The virtual Landscape University was held in early 2021 as a six-week series with a weekly one-hour lesson taught via Zoom. In October 2021, the in-person version was held as a full-day workshop following CDC guidelines on COVID-19. Post-training surveys were utilized to measure knowledge gain and the adoption of sustainable practices learned in the trainings. Results and challenges of the Landscape University program will be discussed.