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Griffin Greenhouse and Nursery Supplies, Inc.
Rick Yates, Technical Support Manager
ryates@griffinmail.com |
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| Nobody said this was going to be easy! The last thing a busy retail greenhouse needs is to be dealing with pest problems. Unfortunately we have no choice in the matter because pests "come with the territory". The challenge is stiff but we are not defenseless. |
The Challenge |
| Why is it so much harder to control pests in a retail greenhouse compared to a production facility? Most retail greenhouses are receiving plant material from many different sources. During the spring blitz hardly a day goes by that new plant material isn't being delivered. There are plenty of opportunities for pest problems to hitchhike into our greenhouses. You may get thrips under control just in time to unload more of the troublemakers with the next shipment. To make matters worse, retail garden centers operate long hours and some are open 7 days a week. When are you supposed to spray? Enough complaining, lets get to work! |
"An Ounce of Prevention.." |
| A wise person once said that, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Sage advice for the retail greenhouse operator. A good place to start is by communicating your reasonable expectations to your plant material suppliers. Even top-notch suppliers will occasionally have problems, but that is no excuse for your greenhouse becoming a repository for their pest control failures. If a production greenhouse cannot achieve a high level of pest control how are you supposed to put the fire out with the limitations a retail greenhouse faces? Your suppliers need to know that you inspect incoming shipments and will have to reject those that are not free from significant pest problems. The commitment to inspect incoming plant material when things are going crazy in the spring is a substantial one but the payback is huge. Problems discovered after the shipment is unloaded will require much more time and resources than inspecting deliveries. Picture yourself spraying at 10 o'clock Saturday night after a 14-hour day, catch my drift? More on the benefits of scouting coming up. |
Too Busy to Scout? |
| I would like to make the argument that all greenhouse and nursery operations would be wise to establish a formal scouting program. Some operations already have employees who are capable of inspecting crops for pest problems. In this instance, the challenge is to dedicate this employee so that their first calling is to be a scout. All too often when the busy times are upon us the scout spends all day holding a hose or helping customers, just when we need them to be scouting the most. It is the tyranny of the urgent and it is hard to break that pattern. Consider hiring a professional scout. In some parts of the country this concept is beginning to take hold and the results are very encouraging. In Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey I have observed programs through universities or cooperative extension that have trained scouts. I am sure that other states have also developed similar programs. This is the beginning of a very positive concept. |
Consider Hiring a Professional Scout |
| Professional scouts inspect your greenhouses at an interval that you agree upon and give you a full report based on their observations. Some scouts make control recommendations and others refer you to crop advisors. One of the keys to success is that since their only job is to scout crops there is no chance they will be loading a truck on Mother's Day weekend! Scouting crops leads to discovering problems early enough to make control less difficult and expensive. Often a "softer" approach to pest control can be adopted when the pest populations are lower, no small benefit for the retail greenhouse. If a professional scout is not in your immediate future take advantage of training opportunities for all of your employees that handle plant material. Pest identification and control seminars are held in conjunction with many industry trade shows and extension meetings. With a little training an employee restocking benches and watering plants can help scout your operation on a daily basis. The Internet is a good place to find pictures of common insect and disease problems. Add a color printer and it is not hard to put together a manual for identifying the "bad guys" lurking in your crops. Even if you have a scout you can't have too many trained eyes working for you! |
Who Has Time to Spray? |
| We are committed to working with our suppliers to purchase cleaner plant material, our crops are being scouted, but still the day comes when we have pests we need to control. Now what? Before we talk about pesticide options we should talk about the best way to deliver our pesticides. For a number of reasons retail greenhouses pose challenges when it comes to spraying pesticides. We already mentioned the long hours of operation. In addition, retail displays are designed for eye-catching appeal and not necessarily for ease of pesticide application. Low volume applicators may be an option worth investigating. These machines are designed to deliver the same amount of active ingredient in substantially less water than traditional hydraulic spraying equipment. Some are automated with timers and can fog your greenhouse without you ever setting foot in the greenhouse during the application. Low volume applicators can do a better job of penetrating dense foliage at a fraction of the time required for traditional spraying, solid benefits for the retail greenhouse. Aerosol pesticide cans and smoke generators are also low volume applicators. Strong odor and long re-entry intervals would make smoke generators a treatment of last resort. |
Choosing the Correct Pesticide for the Job |
| Pesticide selection in the retail greenhouse can cause you to reach for your favorite headache remedy! The ideal pesticide will have a short re-entry interval (no longer than 12 hours), does not produce a strong odor, has good bloom safety, and if we are lucky has some residual control so we don't have to treat as often. Impossible you say? Consider the following options bearing in mind that this list is not exhaustive because of space limitations and no slight is intended to products not mentioned: |
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Read and heed all of the information on pesticide labels!
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Insecticide/Miticides-
- Akari™ SC- 21-28 day residual mite control. 12 hr REI
- Azatin® XL (Ornazin®EC)- Neem based IGR for thrips, whiteflies and others. Labeled for vegetables and herbs. 4 hr REI
- BotaniGard® ES- Controls aphids, thrips and whiteflies. Requires multiple applications. Labeled for vegetables and herbs. 4 hr REI
- Conserve™ SC- Excellent thrips control, also labeled for leafminers and caterpillars. 4 hr REI
- Distance® EC- Long residual IGR controls whiteflies, scale, mealybugs and others. As a soil drench it controls fungus gnat and shorefly larvae. Supplemental label available for tomatoes and peppers. 12 hr REI
- Endeavor™ 50 WDG- Excellent aphid control for up to two weeks. 12 hr REI
- Floramite™ SC- Up to 21 days of mite control. REI has been changed to 12 hours.
- Marathon® II- Excellent aphid control for up to 3 weeks. Labeled for whiteflies, mealybugs and others. Can be used on several vegetable transplants. 12 hr REI
- Pedestal™ SC- Long residual IGR for thrips, whiteflies and certain caterpillars. Not currently labeled for low volume applicators. 12 hr REI
- Ultra-Fine® Oil- controls mites, scale, mealybugs, powdery mildews and others. Labeled for vegetable and herb crops. Burns some open blooms. 4 hr REI
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Fungicides-
- Cleary's 3336™ F (FungoFlo® F, OHP 6672™ F)- Broad-spectrum control of foliar diseases including Anthracnose, black spot of roses, Rhizoctonia and others. Also labeled as a soil drench for Rhizoctonia, Thielaviopsis and others. 12 hr REI
- Compass™ WDG- Long residual broad-spectrum control of foliar diseases including: Anthracnose, Botrytis, powdery mildews and rust diseases.
- Decree™ WDG- Excellent Botrytis control for up to 2 weeks. 4 hr REI
- Medallion® WP- Controls Alternaria, Botrytis, Cercospora, Rhizoctonia and others. Labeled as a soil drench for Rhizoctonia and Thielaviopsis. 12 hr REI
- Milstop™ SP - Quick knockdown of powdery mildews. Also labeled for Anthracnose, Botrytis, and others. Labeled for several vegetable and herb crops. 4 hr REI
- Strike® WDG- Controls black spot of roses, powdery mildews, rust diseases and others. 12 hr REI
- Terraguard® WP- controls Alternaria, Rhizoctonia, powdery mildews, rust diseases and others. As a soil drench it is labeled for Rhizoctonia, Thielaviopsis and others. 12 hr REI
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