2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Nursery and greenhouse growers rely on high quality water to maintain the value of their products. With water becoming a more limited natural resource, high quality water for irrigation is becoming more difficult to obtain and increasingly more expensive. There is a growing need for the nursery and greenhouse industry to implement water treatment technologies so that water can be recycled and reused without impacting plant quality. In addition, growers need to negate any negative impacts the water leaving their operation may have on the surrounding environment. Despite a general recognition of the importance associated with water reuse and recycling, there is a reluctance from growers to implement new treatment technologies. This research used an online nationwide survey of nursery and greenhouse growers to examine their decision-making process related to adopting specific water treatment technologies including, but not limited to, floating wetlands, bioreactors, and activated carbon filters. Further, the study examined how perceptions of the five attributes of an innovation, in this case water treatment technologies, influenced adoption. Of the technologies measured, vegetated channels and buffers for sediment removal and chemical treatment of water for pathogen removal were the technologies growers were most familiar and were most likely to have previously implemented and still use. The results also revealed most of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed water treatment technologies could be a solution to combating drought. Respondents reported they had not been able to observe others using or demonstrating treatment technologies and that the opportunity to observe might alter their rate of adoption. Additionally, over half of the respondents would prefer to try a treatment technology before implementing it in their nursery or greenhouse. Recommendations included providing opportunities for growers to see new technologies in action either in person or online through YouTube videos, to develop online materials that can assist in becoming more knowledgeable about new treatment technologies, and to ensure new treatment technologies are easily adaptable to growers’ current production systems and social norms.