The Hampton Roads AREC helps the green and turf industries thrive

Hi, I'm Jeffrey devastation, director Hampton Roads Agricultural research and Extension Center were devoted to the green industry, the curve nursery landscape industries in Virginia. We also have a small fruit program working on strawberries, blackberries, and other small group feed industry industry is the largest plan industry in Virginia. So between production of nursery stock, landscape maintenance, maintenance, turfgrass, very large industry employs a lot of people. The research that we do will help them improve profitability, sustainability, as well as maintaining the environment. We don't have a large extension components. We have series of demonstration gardens. And we are blessed with a large number of master gardeners that maintain granule. Trial gardens are perennial gardens are woody, our burrito. And there're thousands of people that come out every year to visit those gardens. We have for the general public. Invasive pests is one of the key areas we work on. Case of insects like ambrosia, beetles, diseases like box would light. We have a number of invasive weeds like clingo that we work on at the station. The invasive pests that we work on. Not only your problems in Virginia, but of problems throughout much of the United States. So the work that we're doing, most invasive pests, I think as a national impact. The work we're doing in production practices, we want to protect the Chesapeake Bay. So I think a lot of our research is geared towards protecting those water resources that we have in state. Then we want to be known for our research programs and our extension programs addressing the major pest problems, fertilization, cultivar selection, other attributes of a growing, selling horticultural commodities.