TREE Fund

Tree Research & Education Endowment Fund

2014 Arboriculture Education Grant Grant Archive 

Emerald Ash Borer Educational Workshop

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2014 | City of Frankfort Tree Board/Commonwealth Gardens

The City of Frankfort (KY) used the EAB grant from the TREE Fund to host a day-long, multi-session educational workshop for the benefit of 143 tree care industry professionals, municipal leaders and private landowners. It included information geared toward each group’s unique perspective on the topic. EAB was first documented in Kentucky in 2009. There was a conference focused on EAB in 2011, but since then, nothing had been done to educate stakeholders on a large scale. This seminar intended to bring updated information on EAB to the state.

The program had five measurable goals, and all were met:

  1. Provide education to multiple groups that will be affected by EAB. The workshop had private industry arborists, landscape architects, municipal arborists, utility arborisits, pesticide applicators, private landowners, arboretum directors, conservatory representatives and consulting arborists in attendance.
  2. Have attendees from each of the quarantined counties in Kentucky. Five of seven attended; the other two counties may have attended, but it was unconfirmed.
  3. Provide the most up-to-date information available. University of Kentucky Department of Entomology presented a “State-of the State” talk on EAB.
  4. Provide post-event resources for all participants. The majority of the presentations were loaded onto a jump drive and given to all participants.
  5. Provide a minimum of 5 CEU’s to ISA certified arborists. The program offered the following CEU’s: ISA-6, KYAGR-2 general, 2 specific for pesticide applicators, KY Board of Landscape Architects-5.25

In addition, participants praised the workshop in the post-event survey with comments such as, “I liked hearing updates on the science going on to slow the spread of EAB, and I liked hearing professional input on control methods,” and “The speakers did a good job of providing diversity even though they were all speaking about the same topic.”

Without the TREE Fund grant, this workshop would never have happened. The event helped create a much-needed renewed sense of urgency in dealing with the destruction caused by EAB in Kentucky.