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Key Plants – Key Problems 2025 Workshop Series (Zoom)

Learn to identify key issues affecting common landscape plants, pests to be on the lookout for, how to hone your scouting and diagnostic skills, and when to work with a diagnostic clinic. 

Presenters:

  • Margery Daughtrey: Plant Pathologist, Long Island Horticultural Research and Education Center, Cornell University
  • Dan Gilrein: Entomologist, Long Island Horticultural Research and Education Center, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County
  • Karen Snover-Clift: Director, Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic, Cornell University

Dates/Time: Thursdays, February 13, 20, and 27, 2025; 2-3:45pm via Zoom

Fee: $200 per person

To register, click here https://branchingoutwkp.securepayments.cardpointe.com/pay

For groups of 3 or more contact Shari Romar at 917-747-2286 for group rates.

Continuing Education Units: Attendees seeking CEUs will be required to sign-in 15 minutes before each presentation (1:45pm EST) using the Chat feature, noting full name, license number and email. Attendees must remain for the duration of the class and answer all quiz questions to earn credits.

  • NYSDEC Pesticide Applicator: 1.75 credit hours per session in categories 3a, 10, and 25; ; Session 2 (February 20) also includes category 2. (Submission of photo identification: By 2/1/2025, attendees must submit scans, photos or copies of their NYS DEC pesticide ID or their government-issued photo identification to sr369@cornell.edu.)
  • ISA: 1.75 credits per workshop (Submit a copy of your ID card by 2/10/2025 to sr369@cornell.edu)
  • CNLP: 1.75 credits per workshop (Submit a copy of your ID card by 2/10/2025 to sr369@cornell.edu)
  • LA: 1.75 HSW credits per workshop (Submit a copy of your ID card by 2/10/2025 to sr369@cornell.edu)

Session 1 – February 13, 2025: Scouting Skills for Oak, Cherry and Hemlock

The panel will discuss common issues affecting the important landscape plants oak, cherry, and hemlock, with pointers on scouting, recognition and management strategies. Tips on how to photograph and communicate plant problems to experts for help with diagnosis will be discussed, as well as insights on how to tell an abiotic disease from a contagious disease, plus a discussion on how to select a diagnostic clinic.

OAK:

  • Insect and mite pests such as borers, gall formers, leaf miners, spider mites, twig girdlers, twig pruners, caterpillars and scales.
  • Diseases such as Armillaria root rot, oak leaf blister, Actinopelte leaf spot, anthracnose and powdery mildew.
  • Abiotic factors such as drought.

CHERRY:

  • Insect and mite pests such as tent caterpillars, leaf gall aphid, prunicola scale, clearwing borers, ugliness caterpillar.
  • Diseases such as leaf curl, Armillaria, Monilinia, shot hole and bacterial leaf spot.
  • Abiotic factors such as cold temperature.

 HEMLOCK:

  • Insect and mite pests such as hemlock woolly adelgid, scales, hemlock rust mite.
  • Diseases such as hemlock rust and root rots.
  • Abiotic factors such as arsenic in the soil.

Session 2 – February 20, 2025: Scouting Skills for Spruce, Pine, Lilac and Rose

 The panel will discuss common issues affecting the important landscape plants spruce, pine, lilac and rose, with tips on scouting, recognition and management strategies. Tips on how to monitor for threatening, invasive, exotic diseases that are likely to appear in New York will be given. In addition, learn strategies for various “BOLO” (be on the lookout for) pests such as phytophthoras, vascular streak, laurel wilt, oak wilt, and BLS.

SPRUCE:

  • Insect and mite pests such as aphids, spruce spider mite, rust mite, gall midge, sawflies, scales, needle miner.
  • Diseases such as Rhizosphaera and Stigmina needle blights, Cytospora canker, and Chrysomyxa rust.

PINE:

  • Insect and mite pests such as white pine weevil, Southern pine beetle, Nantucket pine tip moth, white pine adelgid, pine sawflies, spruce spider mite, European pine shoot moth, white pine aphid, mealybugs.
  • Diseases such as Diplodia tip blight, Cenangium canker, rusts, Dothistroma and Lophodermium needle blights, white pine decline, pinewood nematode, white pine root decline and Sirococcus tip blight.
  • Abiotic factors such as climate change.

LILAC:

  • Insect and mite pests such as lilac borer and leaf miner.
  • Diseases such as Septoria and Boeremia leaf spots, Pseudomonas blight, lilac witches’-broom and powdery mildew.
  • Abiotic factors such as drought and late spring frosts.

 ROSE:

  • Insect and mite pests such as Japanese beetle, sawfly, aphids, midge, galls, cane borers and Asiatic garden beetle
  • Diseases such as crown gall, powdery mildew, downy mildew, rose rosette virus, rose mosaic virus, and black spot.

Session 3 – February 27, 2025: Scouting Skills for Crabapple, Maple and Boxwood

The panel will discuss common issues affecting the important landscape plants crabapple, maple and boxwood, with tips on scouting, recognition and management strategies. Tips on tools for diagnosis (books, microscopes, field kit etc.,) will be covered.

CRABAPPLE:

  • Insect and mite pests such as tent caterpillar, leopard moth, scale and green aphids.
  • Diseases such as Gymnosporangium rusts, powdery mildew, scab, fire blight and frog eye leaf spot.

 MAPLE:

  • Insect and mite pests such as cottony maple scale, maple spider mite, cankerworm, spongy moth, aphids.
  • Diseases such as Verticillium wilt, tar spot, powdery mildew, anthracnose, Cristulariella leaf spot and Armillaria root rot.
  • Abiotic factors such as drought and soil flooding.

 BOXWOOD:

  • Insects and mite pests such as leaf miner, psyllid and boxtree moth.
  • Diseases such as boxwood blight, Volutella, anthracnose, Dothiorella, and Phytophthora root rot and canker.
  • Abiotic factors such as heavy soils and long periods of rainfall.

REGISTER NOW FOR THE EARLY BIRD RATE! Online at: https://branchingoutwkp.securepayments.cardpointe.com/pay or call Shari Romar at 917-747-2286.