Virginia farmers sell their produce through many venues including on-farm sales, farm stands, and farmers’ markets. Wherever the produce is sold, it must be sold by weight, count, head/bunch, or dry measure. If the produce is sold by weight, the produce will be weighed on scales that have been certified by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Office of Weights and Measures.

Emerald ash borer (EAB) is found in all regions of Virginia. Some areas have established populations with a high level of ash tree mortality and other areas are seeing it for the first time. With a wider spread of infestation many homeowners are seeking methods to protect their ash trees.

The bed bug species that is infesting homes today are the descendants of cave dwelling bugs that originally fed on bat blood. When humans began living in the caves (100,000 to 35,000 years ago, depending on the source), the bugs began feeding on humans. Later, when humans moved out of the caves and started their agricultural civilizations, the bugs moved with them. Since that time, humans have carried bed bugs all over the world.

Boxwood blight is a devastating disease of boxwood that results in defoliation and decline of susceptible boxwood. This best management practices factsheet provides guidelines for home growers of landscape boxwood to avoid introduction of the boxwood blight pathogen into a landscape or, if the disease is already present in a landscape, to manage to disease in the most effective manner and avoid spread of the disease to new locations.

To provide leadership in safeguarding and protecting the ornamental horticulture industry, historical gardens and landscape plantings from boxwood blight.

This Best Management Practice document is a set of guidelines for home growers of landscape boxwood to avoid introduction of the boxwood blight pathogen into a landscape or, if the disease is already present in a landscape, to manage the disease in the most effective manner and avoid spread of the disease to new locations.

Best management practices for boxwood blight (also called “box blight”) for greenery producers are practices recommended to avoid the introduction and spread of boxwood blight, caused by the fungus Calonectria pseudonaviculata (syn. Cylindrocladium pseudonaviculatum). The recommendations in this document are designed to avoid spread of boxwood blight within a planting or to new locations when pruned tips are collected, sold and/or used for holiday greenery1. These recommendations are relevant to anyone involved in the greenery (“tipping”) industry, including small and large-scale greenery producers, home growers who sell boxwood tips, and people who tip-prune boxwood on other people’s property. Care must be taken at all levels of greenery production to prevent the spread of the boxwood blight pathogen and avoid economic losses associated with this disease.

Boxwood blight is caused by the fungal pathogen Calonectria pseudonaviculata (syn. Cylindrocladium buxicola). Boxwood blight was first described in the United Kingdom in the mid-1990’s and by 2002 was found in several other European countries and New Zealand. In September 2011 boxwood blight was discovered in North America. Symptoms of the disease include leaf spotting (Fig. 1), elongate, dark cankers on stems (Fig. 2), defoliation, and dieback (Fig. 3). The primary means by which the disease spreads is the inadvertent introduction of infected boxwood to existing plantings. The pathogen can also spread by spores, which readily adhere to equipment and work clothes, and by microsclerotia, which survive in infested soil and plant debris. This document outlines best management practices for landscapers and property managers to reduce the risk of spreading boxwood blight to landscapes and public and historic gardens, and to manage the disease if it is introduced.