Hey! For some healthy discussion I’d love to hear about the most difficult pest or disease you’ve dealt with and how you resolved it (or didn’t)! Tell your story!
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Ebola…then a good mite infestation in a large facility with poor cleanliness SOP’s. Every time it felt like a room was clean some dirty worker would come in and bring in the little horrendous monsters all over again! I felt like Sisyphus pushing the damned rock up the hill over and over and over! I could only put up with that grow for so long before I hit the road in search of greener pastures.
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Russet mites… Damn things burrow into the roots, and chemically treating those things can be devastating! I researched high and low for products that wouldn’t effect my plants profiles, with no success.
So, i moved back a minute and researched the problem itself, the damn russet mite! Come to find out… give the little bastards a thyamine bath! I will grind up 5k IU into a quart of water, and give the soil a good heavy soak, then let it dry out. Go back to normal operation.
You just confused them as to their gender, and they go sterile. No more reproduction.
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Anything that shows up in flower. Everything can be treated but you’ll usually not have enough time to do so in flower.
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Why a picture of a monarch caterpillar?
Prevention not treatment is the key.
Create a rigorous IPM protocol and stick to it.
If you have a problem you can treat early before it hits an economic threshold.
IPM pays dividends to all horticultural crops. You just need to define the economic threshold for each problem.
We all have some shrinkage in our production schedules. Some falls on a plant.
I have always scheduled 24 months in advance, so that I can have just in time dilivery for my hard goods. I want the smallest amount in inventory.
Plan for breakage of critical components. It is always night when the phone rings and the greenhouse is reports a problem.
My IPM program included a standby generator NG and gasoline with an automatic transfer switch for critical services. Run a service test every week under full load. You need to define critical services. Heat, light, cooling. We used a generac 15KW system for 20K sqft of production space. But, we lived in Kansas and as a farm we where exempt from having to higher an electrician.
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Not a monarch but the same genus. I just liked the pic, an archetypal pest to add some flavor to the post!
Sounds like you have a solid IPM protocol and then some! Good info
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I am an retired old fart who now only works for socks. Read my bio.
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You’re not THAT old!
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I have a dementia and a neurological problem that forced me to take early retirement. Now I give my time away to people for socks. Yes socks.
One nice pair per day of my time.
I want to give back to the industry that has allowed me to enjoy my life style. My wife still works but within the next two years we are going to move from Duluth, Mn to Bellingham, WA. And she will most likely retire. AON/Hewitt made me well off. I live of my Microsoft dividends. I purchased with the first IPO 10k in stock. Inherited an addictional trust.
I only do what I want and can.
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