savage garden

Announced on September 16th , the governments of Canada and Ontario are investing an additional $9 million in the Ontario Agricultural Sustainability Initiative (ASI) through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership to help farmers enhance the sustainability and competitiveness of their farms. Funding will be used to help with the adoption of new technologies and best management practices to support soil health, water quality, and energy efficiency while increasing on-farm productivity. The ASI programing will be delivered by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA). The program intake opens on October 16, 2024 (9 am ET) and closes on October 29, 2024 (5 pm ET). Quick Facts: Farmers will be able to submit up to two applications to the program , depending on their needs, with successful recipients receiving up to $90,000 depending on the project category. There are several program categories as part of the ASI program, but four project categories are...

Lewis mite.  Photo from University of California. Lewis mite is one of those pests that seems to go in cycles – some years we don’t see it at all, and some years I get reports as early as August. This year there seems to be scattered reports. Given that Lewis mite populations can ramp up in a warm fall and rear their ugly heads in October, it seemed like a good time for an update on what’s working, and what’s not. Lewis Mite Symptoms and Scouting: Lewis mite is closely related to spider mites ( Tetranychus urticae ) but are an entirely different species ( Eotetranychus lewisi) .  For side to side comparisons of the two species, see this article by UCANR. Lewis mites are exclusively a pest of poinsettia crops in the greenhouse (unless you’re also growing strawberries.)  Early detection is difficult, since the symptoms are rather subtle at first: faint speckling and chlorosis (see picture below), which can resemble nitrogen deficiency . Additionally, the mite is a...

Poinsettia cuttings are here again, and pest issues are already popping up! Read on to see what pests growers in Ontario are seeing, and what to do about them.   Bemisia Whitefly Issues Some years we see relatively few whitefly come in on the cuttings, which generally means biocontrol will be successful all the way through till sale.  Years with heavier pest pressure means you need to be extra diligent with scouting .  If whitefly pressure passes the “tipping point” (talked about in this post ), you might need to consider pesticide applications starting in late September/October . This year I’ve been hearing reports of generally higher whitefly numbers than last year , with whitefly populations especially concentrated in some pink varieties .  So now is a good time to brush up on your whitefly monitoring skills – see here for best management practices when it comes to scouting Bemisia whtiefly in poinsettia. An 8-inch poinsettia plant with new growth infes...

This post was contributed to by Abigail Wiesner and Chevonne Dayboll. As we move through production for fall and winter crops a refresher for nutrient deficiencies feels appropriate. No matter where you are in a cropping cycle, nutrition problems can be tricky to figure out. The good thing is they can be differentiated from disease or pest issues based on a few key observations: If the damage is uniform and crop wide , it’s most likely a nutritional issue If the damage is localized or more random , it’s most likely a disease or pest issue How to Spot a Nutrient Deficiency Early detections of any problem can be caught with regular monitoring . Detection is STEP ONE : Figure 1. Common nutrient deficiency indicators for floriculture crops. Nutrient Mobility : When deficient, mobile nutrients will move to the new growth, but immobile nutrients will be trapped in the old growth. A quick scan of where the damage is occurring can help to narrow the potential culprits. Stunted...

In late July, I took a six-day trip to the Pacific Northwest, to the 2024 Garden Fling (it used to be the Garden Bloggers Fling, but some of us are using Instagram and even TikTok, and so we have a new name). And then I got Covid (for the first time!) and was totally out of it for awhile — nothing alarming, just sick and then very tired. All of which explains my very slow responses to comments on the last post! Sorry! Now that I am finally recovering, I really want to tell you all about Stumperies. I’ll come back later in the fall and winter and tell you more methodically about the various marvelous gardens we saw in three days of wide ranging tours based out of Tacoma. But my heart was stolen by a bunch of tree stumps, and it’s really all I want to think about right now, and share with you. I’m smitten, so I will get straight to the point: look how magnificent these old stumps are in the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden ! It may be that in order to fully appreciate this ...

Hopefully, by now, many of you are familiar with Ontario’s Crop Protection Hub (fondly referred to as “Crop Hub”), a user-friendly tool to look up pesticides and their efficacy against floriculture insects and diseases in the Greenhouse Floriculture module . Earlier this growing season, new features were released on Crop Hub . Keep reading to see how these new features is to make it easier for users to view, compare and print crop protection information. Making it Easier to Compare Products When you complete a crop protection search for a particular crop in Crop Hub, you will land on product results in the “Grid view” format, as usual. Grid view shows all products registered for use in that crop . If you click on the “efficacy” button at the bottom of each “baseball card” (as I like to call them), you’ll see a quick snapshot of the efficacy of that product against all registered pests (if you haven’t selected a pest), or just one pest (if you select on from the list). Click...

Greenhouse IPM practitioners have to produce high quality plants and produce with a more limited chemical arsenal. We also have to deal with several key pests that are known to readily develop resistance to multiple chemical classes, including thrips, whitefly and leafminers. So how do we avoid an uphill run on the resistance treadmill? Hannah Fraser, Horticulture Entomologist with OMAFA, shares her decades of experience battling resistance issues in fruit crop pests with us in this next webinar. Webinar Details: Who: Hannah Fraser, Horticulture Entomologist for OMAFA (Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness) Hosted by : Cara McCreary and Sarah Jandricic, Greenhouse IPM Specialists for OMAFA What: Don’t grow resistant pests that will get in the way of selling quality produce or beautiful plants! This talk will provide growers and IPM specialists with a solid review of resistance management best practices. This will include an in-depth explanation of the “why...