Ornamental Plants
Annual Reports and Research Reviews
2001

Special Circular 186-02

Buckeye Blast: The October OSU Extension Nursery, Landscape, and Turf Team Tour

35th Ohio Plant Diagnostic Workshop, Columbus, Ohio

Georgia's Diagnosis from a Distance

Dr. Julian Beckwith, program manager of the Distance Diagnostic program at the University of Georgia, spoke of the successes they have had in the past several years with this program. Distance Diagnostics links almost 100 Georgia county extension offices with their plant disease clinic.

Using a major grant from a foundation in Georgia, coupled with matching dollars from the state lottery, they used $1.2 million dollars to outfit these offices with a dedicated computer, a color digital camera, dissecting and compound microscopes, diagnostic resources and training, and a system linking these offices to the clinic and specialists at the University of Georgia at Athens for rapid turnaround diagnosis of problems.

About a quarter of the clinic's samples are now received digitally from these remote locations. Some of the great benefits they see from this program in Georgia include:

• High-profile rapid responses, such as identification of a poisonous plant resulting in immediate medical attention.
• Development of a system that now has many more trained diagnosticians, since county agents now use microscopes and prepare samples for photography.
• An economic impact that they estimate to be in excess of $17 million dollars in the past 18 months.

Their next step in development is a Land-Grant Digital Media Library of slides and other instructional materials from contributors.