Story in Brief
As the green industry and metropolitan areas grow, water resources are stretched. Educating the landscapers as they are dealing with water usage is critical. The Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture created an educational program targeting workers in the landscape and nursery industries and municipalities. The training focused on installation and maintenance of irrigation systems as well as landscape watering principles. The Georgia Water Stewardship Act and its implications for water use (including irrigations) were discussed at length. Four trainings were held, one in each of the four Extension Districts in cities across Georgia (Lawrenceville, Savannah, Valdosta and Augusta) to assure easy access by industry workers. Over 100 landscape, nursery and municipal workers were trained, with about 55 percent of trainees from private companies and 45 percent from municipalities. Most of the trainees (91 percent) considered the training on Urban Water Irrigation very useful and 83 percent said they learned something new at this training.