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Joseph F. Boggs, Ohio State University Extension, Hamilton County/Southwest District; James A. Chatfield, Erik A. Draper, |
Triage is a decision-making system used by emergency medicine practitioners to sort casualties into treatment categories. Limited time and resources are focused on treatable problems, rather than on problems that do not require treatment or that are non-treatable. This same decision-making system can be applied to managing plant problems. In that case, the name changes from Triage to Treeage. Treeage is a decision-making tool for selecting the best course of action. It provides a framework to help steer plant management decisions in a logical, common-sense direction. As such, it can help us to educate ourselves and our clientele as to why and when we need to ³do something² or ³do nothing.²
Plant pests, diseases, and cultural problems seldom conveniently occur in landscapes one at a time, as solitary events. Rather, landscape managers often face a number of plant problems inconveniently occurring simultaneously. Caterpillars may be consuming leaves at the same time lace bugs are stippling leaves, vascular wilt fungi are wilting leaves, fungi are causing branch cankers, galls are swelling, roots are rotting, and trees are collapsing from construction injury.
This collective onrush of plant problems may overwhelm landscape managers, causing them to function in a continual state of emergency. Rather than practicing plant health care, they execute critical care. Resources are taxed, and the decision-making process is impaired. Treatable plant problems go ignored while limited resources are focused on lost causes. This challenge is not unique to the plant health care industry, but how do we sort it all out?