Electronic Grower Resources Online (e-GRO) was originally created in 2012 where Alerts style bulletins were distributed to notify greenhouse growers of current issues and challenges that the collaborators with expertise in nutrition, water, plant growth regulators, light, temperature, pests and pathogens have observed while visiting growing operations. The e-GRO team represents 14 cooperating universities and extension affiliations.

In 2020 and 2021, e-GRO published 30 editions of e-GRO Alert and 10 Edible Alerts distributed via e-mail and the e-gro.org website which received over 72,000+ page views from July to June 2020. Over the past year, our e-mail database reaches 5,487 growers each week. We have an average opening and click rate of 29% and 26%, respectively. e-Gro Alert reaches individuals in all 50 states and in 32 countries. Each Alert is devoted to at least two grower challenges; the issue describes the challenge in detail and offers strategies to avoid or manage the situation. In addition, each Alert provides full color photos to enrich the content. e-GRO Alert operates under the premise that e-mails are only scheduled during the spring growing season, are short, informative and to the point. This ensures growers are provided with information quickly and without unnecessary content. In fall 2020, the e-GRO team welcome three new members representing one new university affiliation (University of Tennessee) and area of expertise (ornamental weed science). 

 In the past, we offered an extensive webinar series in early-spring but none in the fall.  With COVID-19 challenges, we did not offer webinars in 2020. We plan to explore untapped times of the year we have not previously hosted webinars before. We feel our webinar effort has been one of our biggest successes. Most webinars have 120+ people in attendance and all sessions are recorded and posted on the e-GRO Webinars YouTube channel. Online viewing of the recorded webinars is very successful and in 2020, the YouTube channel has received 125,300+ views from individuals in all 50 states and in 59 countries. Many of the recordings have 500 to 1,000+ viewings. This on demand feature enables growers to access information when then need it. In 2020, our e-GRO Blog posts (http://www.egroblog.com/) received 25,870+ page views and Research Reports (http://www.e-gro.org/research.php).