Ask A Grower

Vegetative Annuals and Florel

admin — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:56:23 +0000

Like most growers, I use plenty of Florel this time of year and it’s one of my favorite PGR’s. Our list of crops we use it on includes verbena, geraniums, calibrichoa, petunias, fuschia, ipomoea, lantana, and others. If possible, I try to use Florel to replace a pinch but usually I use it to improve branching before/after a pinch and to knock off flowers. These pictures show some of our liners that are displaying the effects of our Florel applications. Note the emerging breaks on the verbena pic. Breaks from the breaks I call it and that’s what I’m looking for when we use Florel.

Reiger Begonias

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 02:01:20 +0000

We propagate and finish a boatload of Reiger Begonias so you’re going to see me write about them a lot in the future. Right now we have a prop house full of them and we are transplanting them almost every week. We root them in a 25mm Elle arranged in a 3 x 17-strip tray. They are ready to plant 5 weeks after sticking and transplanting is much easier with the ellepot than with other propagation media. We’ve tried loose-filled plugs, Preforma, and Jiffy-7 pots but the Ellepot system was superior.

Busy, busy.

admin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:31:32 +0000

I’ve been superbusy lately and haven’t been posting as much as I should. This time of the year is the busiest for propagators and the next 2-3 weeks will be our largest production weeks for our Young Plant Division. I plan to return to posting regularly very soon but in the meantime I would love to hear about what other growers are doing in their greenhouses.

Zonal Geranium Liners

admin — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:09:30 +0000

We are transplanting our first Zonal Geraniums this week after 5 weeks in prop in a 25mm ellepot. I’ve been hitting them with Florel and Cycocel on a regular basis and I’m feeling pretty good about where they are. I would like to keep the leaf petioles shorter with earlier, stronger Cycocel sprays and I need to target my Florel sprays a bit better to reach the smallest buds. These liners are scheduled for combos and will go into 6 inch pots, 3ppp, for several weeks before we pot up the combos.

Reiger Begonias

admin — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:26:06 +0000

Does anybody grow reigers as a spring crop?

We grow lots of them in 4 inch, 6.5 inch and hanging baskets. We also use them in combos. They’re a great plant for spring bedding customers.

I’m looking for some good pictures of ours but I can’t find them. I’ll post them tomorrow.

Young Plant Reseach Center

admin — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 03:57:33 +0000

I heard about the Young Plant Reaseach Center at an industry conference over a year ago. It is led by Paul Fisher from the University of Florida and John Erwin from the University of Minnesota. These two researchers are among my favorites and I follow their research closely. I take in their talks when they are speaking at industry events because they always have valuable and applicable research to present. So many professors and researchesr study and speak about topics that aren’t overly useful to most growers. I remember the first time I heard the term “Facultative Long Day” and Obligate Short Day”. You should check them out if you haven’t already and support their research if possible. They and other floriculture professors/researchers are a vital part of our industry.

Zonal Geranium Propagation: Dummen Survivor Series

admin — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 02:11:53 +0000

Our first batch of Vegetative Geraniums are doing well so far. They’ve been in prop for about 10 days now and they are rooting well. We grow Dummen Geraniums and the picture below is from their Survivor Series. We propagate the cuttings using 25mm Elle’s in a strip tray that we can space to provide them with the necessary room. Crowding geraniums in the prop house is a bad practice that I’ve learned first-hand. Fischer has a great Culture Guide that I’ve followed for years. This culture guide is where I learned that 25-30 plants/sqft is the ideal density for unrooted zonal geraniums in propagation.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

admin — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:10:21 +0000

I hope all our readers have a safe and happy holiday season. Those of us that grow plants for a living will probably have to spend some time in the greenhouse on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but that’s life for a grower. And if you’re a propagator, then the holidays are only backing up your unrooted cuttings and making us work on weekends…….at least, more than normal.

Unrooted cuttings Vs. Rooted

admin — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:43:54 +0000

So who roots their own and who buys in rooted liners?

As a propagation facility, we don’t have to worry about buying in liners but a lot of growers don’t have the facilities or abilities to prop their own vegetative annuals.

I’m wondering what percentage of growers buy in rooted liners vs. unrooted cuttings.

Does anyone have any data? Just curious.

New Logo

admin — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:37:49 +0000

I have a new logo at Ask a Grower and I think it’s a beauty. A friend of ours designed it and hopefully it’s more attractive than the boring text that was the old header for the site.

I want to make the Forum look and feel more like the blog so I’ll hopefully be adding the new logo and changing the colors to match the Blog.

If you haven’t been to the Forum yet, you should check it out and add to the discussions. Just click the Forum link above.