NYS Integrated Pest Management Program’s IPM In-depth programs are on the road and around the state again this winter:
- February 14 – Ontario County
- March 8 – Yates County – details coming soon
- March 13 – Saratoga County – details coming soon
Each program will cover the following topics and be followed by a greenhouse tour. (DEC and CNLP credits are provided for each session.)
Understanding and Managing Botrytis (Brian Eshenaur, NYS IPM)
Want to see what that grey fuzzy stuff on your plants looks like up-close and learn how it spreads? We’ll begin this session with a quick overview of plant diagnostics, and then through hands-on work with Botrytis, discuss how disease problems develop and how to best protect plants. Hand-lenses and microscopes will be used.
Thrips: Up Close and Personal (John Sanderson, Entomology)
Learn the details about one of the biggest pests of flower crops: western flower thrips. You’ll see them alive and under a microscope, in all their life stages, and learn about how to detect them, how they live, reproduce, and spread, a little about the viruses they can spread, meet a few of their natural enemies, and think over some ideas about how to control them.
Getting Your Hands Dirty – Testing Container Media (Neil Mattson, Horticulture)
During this session you will get hands on practice using the two most popular methods for substrate testing (the 1:2 dilution and pour thru methods) and pros and cons of each. Learn how to use these test results as powerful tools to adjust your fertilizer practices and reduce susceptibility to root-borne pests and pathogens. You will receive supplemental materials with pH and EC guidelines for common greenhouse crops. Attendees are invited to bring their own container grown plant (and potting mix in a quart Ziploc bag) and a sample of their greenhouse tap water (in a rinsed 20 oz pop bottle) for testing.