February 16, 2018

Greenhouse IPM update 2.16.18

Did you miss me? I was in India for 3 weeks – quite the experience! I did get to a flower market and saw HUGE numbers of marigolds strung into garlands used for religious and decorative reasons. I guess that isn’t really work!

Broad mites – ugh! Hard to see and cause leaf curling and worse. At the meeting in WNY this week an alarming number of people said they had seen them (or the damage they cause) and the incidence seems to be increasing. Probably why the GGS Pro Tech Tip is on broad mites this week.  Also, Dan Gilrein’s article in Greenhouse Management from 2009 (always ahead of the curve, is Dan).  Remember to make sure suggested pesticides are labeled for NYS.

Planning on having thrips? A 6 part series of videos and articles from Greenhouseipm.org walks you through thrips IPM so you can plan not to have thrips.

WPS training requirements have changed. Be sure you know what is required in terms of who can do the training and how it must be presented.  Lots of resources are available from the Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative  including the appropriate training videos

Feeling like a trip yourselves? Several meetings in Canada coming up.
Vineland Ontario Feb 23 – Greenhouse IPM: Achieving Sustainable Biocontrol

Thiel’s Greenhouse, Bruderheim Alberta Feb 28 – Beyond Sticky Traps: Leveling up your greenhouse biocontrol

The 2018 Cornell Pest Management Guide for Commercial Production and Maintenance of Trees and Shrubs is available now! Print and online available from the Cornell Bookstore.

March 10, 2017

Greenhouse IPM update 3.10.17

Snow again!  And since they removed the Cornus mas from outside my window, I don’t have that friendly reminder of swelling buds to tell me spring is coming.  But it is, I know it IS!

Check those fertilizer injectors!  Who wants to find out they aren’t working by having plants show symptoms – and then trying to figure out why!  Thomas Ford in eGro says from his work “75% of the fertilizer injectors employed by growers in are greenhouses are not working properly”. We’ve already heard of one case in NY. Lots of information here.

Get the key to locking out pests (my, that’s kind of a stretch but it is Friday).  Leeane Pundt at UConn has a great post on key plants and key pests to help you inspect new plant material coming in and scouting it once it’s in your greenhouse.

Another on scouting guidelines and biocontrol options for the most common insects and diseases found in greenhouse crops.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words…illustrated scouting tips for lots of crops
Ornamental crops
Vegetable bedding plants
Herb bedding plants
Herbaceous perennials
Identifying pests and beneficials on sticky cards
Go UConn!

Think (no) thrips!  UMass’ post on reviewing thrips biocontrol 

Webinars and more webinars…
Our series on high tunnel and greenhouse vegetable IPM continues to grow.  The most recent one was just posted!

OMAFRA’s greenhouse vegetable IPM specialist on Heating, Lighting and IPM
March 30, 2017
Using biofungicides, biostimulants, and biofertilizers to boost crop productivity and help manage vegetable diseases – not just greenhouse but perhaps still useful!

Bees are still in the news!  One study from England I read said that most varieties surveyed in garden centers were unattractive to pollinators (actually measuring the number of visits by pollinators at the garden center itself).  While still low, those with some notation as being friendly to bees had 4x as many visits.  Hopefully this listing would fare better –  Bee friendly trees and shrubs

Yes, but can they learn to dust?  Bees are smarter than we thought – or else maybe they are training us.  Hmmm….

Courage in the face of cold!  It will be warm again!

February 17, 2017

Greenhouse IPM update 2.17.17

The sun is shining in my office window, which makes me want to head home. But I’ll stick around long enough to send this off to you (and hope you find time to get out in the sun, too)

I gave a talk on biopesticides so guess what? I have information on biopesticides for you!

Looking for biopesticides that are appropriate for a particular problem – heck, even if you are just looking for pesticides for a particular problem? IR4 has a cool labels database which includes efficacy data so you can compare! Its got a good search page and links to labels, even tells you if it is acceptable for organic production. I LOVE it when people make my job easier!

Spear and Spear T are biological insecticides – based on spider peptides no less (Charlotte! Who knew!) – newly registered for NYS. Spear is registered for ornamentals, edible, and turf (a variety of Lepidoptera and thrips). Spear T is labeled for thrips management in greenhouses. If you’ve tried them, I’d like to hear about efficacy.  To find NYS labels go to  NYS PAD and look under Names – Spear and Registrant – Vestaron.

Apps, apps and more apps. Of course, my favorite is my own and you can watch me talk about it at a Horticulture seminar  (January 30 blog post) It is called Greenhouse Scout and is available on Apple and Android.

19 for Nurseries! And other plant geeks.

Greenhouse Grower’s App (only for Apple smart devices) – a set of 12 production calculators and a free Lite version of 5 of them). It is from Australia so the measurements are in different units.

Now that you are (or are thinking about) warming up your greenhouses for the spring crop, don’t assume that the cold weather killed off all the insect pests. They are diabolically clever at surviving (remember some of them survive outside in the winter, too). A great article from UMass with additional resources to convince you.  Want to know what’s popping out before the plants go in? Hang sticky cards under the benches if there is enough soil on the floor for fungus gnats and thrips to survive in, or near where pests might come in to the greenhouse and see what you catch.

I’ve heard one report so far of broad mite (admittedly not in NY but they like it here, too) so here’s Dan Gilrein’s broad mite post from e-Gro. There are other posts on the topic there, too – just Google e-Gro and broad mite and they will pop up, just like broad mites)

Aphids will tolerate cooler temperatures than some pests so we have seen aphids happily going about their unfortunate business in overwintered perennials in tunnels in late winter (is it late winter yet?). And heard anecdotally that people have successfully used ladybugs to control them. So, an article from Suzanne Wainwright-Evans (the BugLady) on using wild collected ladybugs  (Don’t even think about it!)

Enough for one post! But lots more to come.

March 23, 2016

Greenhouse IPM Update 3.23.16

I just figured out how to hyperlink in my emails.  I’m quite the dinosaur!  Click on the blue words to get the link if you are a dinosaur like me.  Let me know if it doesn’t work for you!

It’s a rove beetle eat predacious mite world out there.  Great information from Sarah Jandricic (OMAFRA) on how to keep your thrips beneficials from eating each other!

A little early nursery scouting might be in order – things they are already seeing in Ontario – Bagworms, Viburnum leaf beetle egg masses, and gypsy moth egg masses.

Lots of information from Tina Smith at UMass and Leanne Pundt at UConn
Keeping an eye on those calis. Calibrachoa troubleshooting for diseases and disorders

Tackling thrips with bios and pesticides (remember to check for NYS labels on any pesticides)  Lots of other resources linked to this report.

Be nice to your nematodes.   This article makes the point about not storing nematodes in a refrigerator that is opened frequently.  Another temperature shock could be mixing chilled nematodes with too warm water.  Not sure we have the research on this yet, but it makes sense.

What are those strange lumps?  It could be crown gall – found on some lobelias this spring. It is caused by a bacterium and can be spread by water splashing, although it needs an entry point to get into the plant.  No good control so add it to your scouting list.

Do you have a pH and/or EC (electrical conductivity) meter stashed in your greenhouse that you last used last season?  It probably needs to be recalibrated.  Have you ever done that?  Here’s how!

And to go along with that – a short webinar on Diagnosing low substrate pH problems from Brian Whipker at NC State on Friday March 25.

To keep Margery happy – lovely photos of Thielaviopsis – and how to avoid having your own.

Where have all the archived updates gone?  Well, NYS IPM is in the process of getting a new website and we consolidated all the updates into one blog to archive them  Coming soon!

’Tis the season for greenhouse information!  From my email to yours.  Have a good week!