Teaching greenhouse skills

GREENWICH — Huron County Master Gardeners are again teaching greenhouse skills to local FFA students, in preparation for an annual competition. Working with agriculture teacher, Sarah Lucha of South Central High School and Dan Stober of Danielion, Wakeman's floral shop, they have assembled a team of master gardeners to assist county FFA students in preparing for a statewide competition, Floriculture Career Development Event. An agricultural education/FFA membership teaches many skill sets for employment, not just farming. One such opportunity is the world of floriculture, be it plant researchers, nurserymen, landscapers, groundskeepers, florists or others. Basic floriculture is covered in Ag classes and like most topics, there are opportunities for competition at regional and state levels. Sixteen ag students are signed up to compete. When Wayne Weber was Agriculture teacher in Monroeville, he took his students and Sarah Lucha of South Central always took a team until she got sick a few years age. Lucha plans to take a team again this year and that is how our Master Gardeners became aware of this competition. The main competitive event is called Floriculture Career Development Event (Floriculture CDE), and it consists of classroom floriculture instruction and individual study prior to taking a fifty question online exam on garden and florist flowers, houseplants, tree and shrub foliage, bedding plants, vegetables, herbs, florist supplies, techniques, plant disorders, insects and diseases that affect the floriculture industry. Each high school can have unlimited Ag students take the online exam, but the teams sent to the regional and then state competition consists of only four students and an alternate. Team scores are determined by the combined scores of the team members. The Floriculture CDE state finals require the students to identify 35 plants with common names. Fifteen more are to be identified with the Latin botanical name. Fifty other specimens of insects, supplies and equipment are to be named, plus identifying five floral arrangements and corsages. Actual floral skills will be tested as the students make a corsage and a bud vase with a bow. For this Floricutlture CDE state competition, each student must have a clipboard, two No. 2 pencils, a toolbox with floral shears, wire cutters and knives, all marked with school and student identification. Huron County Master Gardeners help Huron County Schools compete in the state competition by providing the needed toolboxes and equipment, plus training before the event. After the team from each eligible school — Bellevue, Monroeville, New London, South Central, Western Reserve and Willard — have been selected, students will meet in South Central High School with Master Gardeners on Feb. 7 and go through the materials they have been studying. Master Gardeners have been meeting to set up the training sessions which will introduce the teams to a taste of the Floriculture CDE testing.