From the President

My fellow nurseryman and landscapers, we’ve made it through another chaotic shipping season together. Our members live and breathe the TNLA motto everyday: we are hardworking people serving hardworking people in the green industry.

We have several big events coming up soon. The annual TNLA Field day hosted by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agrilculture at UT Gardens on the Knoxville campus will be held on June 12th, 2025. Please go to our website https://tnla.com/ and click on the “Events” tab for more information and registration details. In October, we are excited to see the return of our favorite trade show in Tennessee, TNGRO 25, at the Farm Bureau Expo Center in Lebanon, Tennessee. Exhibitors, please be sure to secure your booth space as soon as possible. Sponsors, we would love to hear from you soon as well. You all are the reason that our events are such a success. We will have some informative speakers on various topics as well as our annual business meeting and awards ceremony on site on Thursday, October 23rd during the TNGRO show. For registration information please click on the link provided https://tnla.com/TNGRO We are also looking into holding our annual golf classic at Pine Creek golf course in neighboring Mt. Juliet on the Saturday after the show. Stay tuned there is more to come.

We want to share some good news, please join me in congratulating our Memorial Scholarship award recipients, Emmalyn Kinsey from east Tennessee and Kenley Roark from north central Tennessee. Both will be presented the $1,000 TNLA Memorial Scholarship at their High School awards ceremony. In other news of interest, we are aware of the current movement by the state legislature to put Bradford pears on the invasive species list, commonly known as the “pear ban.” We have contacted State Senator Bowling and State Representative Sherrell with our concerns. We also met with representatives from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture to discuss technical details about the timing and language of any such bill. Currently the issue has been sent to UTIA for a plant survey and will proceed from there. We will stay engaged in this process to advocate against any sudden changes or overly broad language, particularly restricting understock used for fruiting pears. As many of you are aware, this issue comes up every 5 to 10 years. This time they are taking the correct procedural steps and putting it through regular order. The movement is gaining momentum with several other states already implementing pear bans and the survey data is likely to say what we all suspect. Our best advice is to plan for some type of restrictions on ornamental pears in the next three to five years.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your president. We hope to see you in Knoxville at the field day and Lebanon at TNGRO this year. If you want to serve on the board or a committee, please contact our Executive Director, Danae Bouldin, at (931)473-3951. And please don’t forget to register for the Field Day and sign up for TNGRO. See you soon!

Ozzy Lopez

TNLA President