Blooming Success & Wine Industry Scholarships

Blooming Success & Wine Industry Scholarships

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

The Northwest Flower and Garden Show has long been one of the top garden shows in the U.S.. The five day event held at the Washington State Convention Center last month was attended by thousands, many of them Canadians, admiring and purchasing specialty plants from all over the West Coast. The WSDA’s booth was therefore quite busy this year, in fact the agency reported that it issued 227 phytosanitary certificates at this year’s show, more than doubling what was issued last year. WSDA staff manning the booth first determined whether plants were prohibited in Canada, if not, they checked for possible quarantine significant pests like the brown garden snail or sudden oak death, as well as checking plants general health while looking for pests such as mites, aphids or thrips. Washington’s nursery and greenhouse industry had a production value of $306 million in 2011.

The Washington Wine Industry Foundation annually offers scholarships for students interested in viticulture or enology in Washington state. Sara Cornell, with the WWIF talks about scholarships available this year.

CORNELL: We have three different sets of scholarships available - the Horse Heaven Hills Wine Growers Scholarship, there’s actually two being offered in that particular scholarship, the Walter J. Clore Scholarship, and the S.W. Bill Preston Scholarship.

Cornell explains a few of the scholarship requirements.

CORNELL: Some require students to be residents of a certain area, others might have specific study requirements, others are pretty broad and general. There’s lots of information about the scholarship program on our website washingtonwinefoundation.org as well as a lot more information about what the organization does for the Washington wine industry.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.