Weekend Practical Blogs
By: Noah
Swanson
February 27,
2015; the day started with some incredible news. My partner for the weekend duties’
first child was born the night before! Unfortunately as exciting as that was,
it meant I would be performing my tasks by my lonesome for the weekend. However
I was not deterred, nothing was going to stop me from exceeding the
expectations of all my instructors, even if it meant working solo. Once I had
my PPE on and my morning coffee to get me going, I was ready to start the day.
After being instructed on my
duties, I started off my day by taking all the temperatures in the greenhouse,
the prop chamber, and on Priva, and everything was looking fine. After
refilling the Priva wick container three quarters full with distilled water, I
began to walk the crop. While walking the crop I noticed a very chalky, white
substance on the tips of the leaves of almost half the hydrangea crop.
I could not decipher whether it was an
organism or a residue on the plant, so I noted that I needed to get an
instructor’s opinion whenever someone returned to the greenhouse Disregarding
the white substance, everything seemed in order, other than the hydrangeas and
other various plant groups needing water. I spot watered the hanging baskets,
the cacti, succulents, tropicals, and any other cuttings that clearly needed
watering. Once that was done, I turned on the emitters for the hydrangea crop.
While it was running I walked up and down the benches, ensuring all the plants
were receiving the proper amount of water, and that all the emitters were
flowing evenly. While doing this check, it came to my attention that the first hydrangea
on the left on bench 11 was dry and not receiving any more water. After
following the emitter lines it became obvious that there is some sort of hole
or leak in the line. I then quickly moved that hydrangea to a better bench,
assuring it was receiving water, and also watering it a bit extra due to it
needing to catch up with the others. I have marked off which emitter isn't
working with a label, hoping no one continues to use it. I then potted the Coleus and Oxalis cuttings into 3” pots and put them into the greenhouse.
After I returned from lunch, Mr. Pascoe was in
the greenhouse and he was able to give me an explanation to the white substance
after examining it under the microscope. He concluded it was salt, and the
origin of which is still unknown. I recommend that an EC test be done on the
hydrangeas during Wednesday’s class to further our knowledge on this peculiar
mineral appearance.
That was the main excitement of the
day, the rest consisting of me dividing extra Cannas in case any tend to die,
filling the water plants’ buckets, raising Cannas that’d been planted too low
and washing out pots. All in all day
one was more than successful, and I’m looking forward to the tasks and
challenges tomorrow.
February 28, 2015: Once I entered the
greenhouse I checked everything on my list, and everything seemed to be running
smoothly. I spot watered whatever plants seemed dry after checking Priva wick
and applying the necessary distilled water. After yesterdays sunny day the
hydrangeas needed watering again as well so I ran the emitters for about 10
minutes. I then spent the rest of the time until break attempting to break away
the 2 inch thick layer of ice around the Pro-mix I had to bring inside, but I
couldn't use a shovel without possibly puncturing the bags, and it was too
thick to break apart with my hands. I went on my break discouraged, but I would
think of a way to finally wrestle the bags inside
During my break I was puzzled and
ready to call it quits. However upon entering the greenhouse, just the thing I
needed caught my eye. Alas it was the kettle, and once in my grasp the ice that
entrapped the ever sought after Pro-mix would soon be no more. Although time
consuming, my plan worked in the end.
I also had to break down one of the
carts in the tractor bay and bring the pieces outside, and seeing how the door
was too jammed with snow to open wide enough to get the Pro-mix in or the carts
out, I had to use my trusty kettle once more. After returning from lunch I came
equipped with a potato that I intended to cut up and place on wet media to see
if there were any fungus gnats present. I then reapplied the distilled water on
the Priva wick. Then I grabbed my 288 cell pack and filled it with plug mix and
began to seed the Millets. It was my first time using the seeding wand so at
the beginning I was a little inaccurate at placing one seed per cell.
Regardless I focused my steady hand and began to get the hang of it. After
finishing I used the tweezers I conveniently had in my bag to pick out the extra
seeds in the few cells I had added more than 1 and placed them in separate
cells. After labeling the Millets and
placing them in the propagation chamber
5
, I remembered I needed to grab a
couple clear hoods from the tractor bay for the cuttings I repotted on Friday.
After numerous attempts of trying different lids, none of them fit without
obscuring some of the foliage around the edges, so I decided they would survive
without them instead of stressing myself. I then seeded and labelled the Cardoons and placed them in the prop chamber as well.
I also had to drill holes in the bottom of the
cactus mix container to allow water to drain, then proceeded to make a new bin
of cactus mix. After washing some pots and cleaning my mess, I brought all the
pots and flats out for the Pennisetum so it was ready to go first thing
tomorrow, all that remains is re-potting all the Pennisetum, and filling the
prop chamber with whatever silver cuttings I can fit in there potted in
perlite.
I am looking forward to the home
stretch tomorrow, if all goes well it should be a rather easy day, therefore
I’ll be able to exceed the expectations of my list and really impress my
instructors.
March
1 2015: Once checking my morning list and doing the necessary Priva requirements,
I had quite the shocking discovery. To my surprise, none of the heating mats
were giving off any heat whatsoever. This would have alarmed me, had I not been
warned about this possibly happening during Friday’s instructions. I just had
to get a hold of Jeff or Mike so they could properly direct me on which breaker
switch to turn so I didn't cut the power to the whole greenhouse, so I left
messages on both of their phones.
While
walking the crop and watering, I noticed one loan white fly on a hydrangea leaf.
Although it seemed odd, I wasn't going to question it and quickly grabbed my
phone to get a good photograph of the specimen.
After my discovery I decided to inspect the
leaves more thoroughly, and to my surprise found one leaf with noticeable thrip eggs, and dead white flies stuck to it.
I then proceeded to water what
crops needed it, and took a look at my potatoes if there were any evidence of
fungus gnats, which there was. Once all the morning duties were taken care of
it was time for me to re pot over 250 Pennisetum cells. Even though the task
was repetitive, it was still rather enjoyable due to the right music playing in
the background. I also got a decent break while Jeff got back to me on how to
fix the heating mats. This task went into the lunch break but I wasn't going to
stop when I only had about a dozen left, so I just pushed my lunch back about
20 minutes, seeing how my last task for the day was to fill the prop house with
cuttings of the silver foliage plants. Once returning from lunch and spraying
the Priva wick, I put the Pennisetum back on the benches.
This left me with just the
cuttings and clean up, the end of my 24 hour venture was in plain site. I did
however need one more pest for my IPM chart so I decided to go hunting on the
tropicals for mealy bug, and sure enough, I found several spots which were
quickly dealt with. I spent the rest of the day filling the prop chamber with
silver’s
and then found cleanup took a lot longer than
I had remembered last time, but of course I was the only one there so it meant
double the work.
This
weekend seemed like a complete success, and I hope to have brought my status
to an all time high in Mike’s expectations.
