By Ken McEntee Almost three months after the Biden administration announced its final rule defining “Waters of the United States (WOTUS)” and how and which waters will be regulated by the federal government, a federal court in March blocked implementation of the rule in Texas and Idaho. However, Judge Jeffrey Brown, U.S. District Court, Southern Texas District, denied a nationwide …
By P.J. Heller It wasn’t that long ago when Jim Weber looked out at a section of his Ohio Mulch property and watched as trucks would get stuck in thick mud. Weber wanted to use part of a 10-acre plot for truck and equipment storage and to construct a warehouse building. The problem was the ground was too damp, soft …
By Dr. Brian E. Jackson As all aspects of horticultural crop production continue to improve and evolve, research and development of soilless substrates is also keeping pace with our ever changing and demanding production practices. Processed pine and fir bark has been the primary substrate component for nursery growers across the country for several decades, a trend that holds true …
By Dr. Brian E. Jackson Once upon a time growers could call their growing media supplier(s) and have product ordered, shipped, and delivered within days. It is no mystery to anyone today that “those days” are gone, at least for the foreseeable future. The global growing media industry, like so many others in horticulture, has experienced unprecedented product demand which …
By P.J. Heller Jim Weber has come a long way since he was a 19-year-old running a lawn service business out of the garage at his parents’ home. Today, some 38 years later, Weber is owner and president of Ohio Mulch, one of the largest mulch manufacturing companies in Ohio. The company, headquartered on a 56-acre site in Columbus, has …
By Keith Barker Beau Gibney, CEO/COO at Green Vision Materials (GVM) based out of Newbury, Ohio, near Cleveland, began in the mulch and soil products business after starting his own landscaping company right out of high school, in the early nineties. Through that decade, he aggressively grew his business and found he was generating a huge amount of green waste.“I …
By Robert L. LaGasseExecutive Director Mulch & Soil Council “Do you want your children to grow up to be truck drivers?” That was the question posed by Philip Byrd, then president of the American Trucking Associations (ATA) and Bulldog Trucking, when he spoke to members of the Mulch & Soil Council about the issue of a looming truck driver shortage. …
By P.J. Heller A new $8 million composting facility — designed to speed up the composting process by as much as 50 percent or more from its two existing sites — is being planned by Orange County Waste & Recycling to help meet California’s mandate to divert organic waste from landfills in order to reduce greenhouse gases. When completed, expected …
By P.J. Heller Wildfires. Earthquakes. Famine. Drought. As if life isn’t complicated enough with those and other challenges, along comes the latest concern: jumping worms. Jumping worms? Although the wriggly creatures have been around for decades in the United States, researchers are paying renewed attention to jumping worms (Amynthas spp.) as their population has exploded and spread and the effects …
By Ken McEntee A pandemic-driven growth in gardening activity has helped to boost demand for peat moss. On the supply side, however, this year’s Canadian harvest has yielded mixed, weather-related results in the nation’s eastern and western regions, according to the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association (CSPMA), Edmonton, Alberta. In its annual report, based on a member survey about the …
