Dr. Mengmeng Gu is Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Horticulture at Texas A&M University and is producing a series of webinars this spring on topics for both professional and amateur gardeners.  I think some of these will be of interest to many of the subscribers to Insect Updates.

According to Gu, the seminars are “designed to be no longer than 30 minutes and give you a quick insight look at some of the progress, issues, and problems that we are facing today in the green industry.”  Earlier this month, Dr. Jim Robbins from Arkansas Cooperative Extension talked about the use of drones (Really?!) in the nursery production industry.  Coming up include talks on coping with the new basil downy mildew disease (Dr. Kevin Ong), the quickly spreading problem with crape myrtle bark scale (yours truly), new plant material being tested at the LSU AgCenter in Hammond (Dr. Allen Owings), and update on Rose Rosette Disease (Dr. Kevin Ong).

To see descriptions of each of the webinars, and find links to register, go to http://greenviion.wordpress.com/webinars/

Webinars provide a great opportunity to learn about new things from the convenience of your own computer. If you’ve never attended a webinar, they are live on-line classes taught by one or more instructors. No special software is usually required as long as you have an Internet connection and working speakers on your computer. The other nice thing about webinars is that if you miss the live presentation, you can still go back and view the recording later, at your convenience.

So check the schedule out, and thanks to Dr. Gu for putting these programs together.