September 12-14, 2014 Weekend Greenhouse Blog

Sara and Steve

This weekend has been filled with many different aspects of operating a full working greenhouse that has many profitable crops on at once. We even used the math that was taught to us in class! It is very crucial to keep monitoring the crops throughout the day as things can change quite quickly. Checking that the PRIVA greenhouse controls are working properly are another very important part to keeping the crop thriving.

Our first task we deemed the most important was to finish properly spacing the poinsettias as well as the stock crop we have in the greenhouse.  Space is very important as the plants will soon just grow vertically instead of growing into a full, thick plant.

Our Autumn time crop –the Chrysanthemums- are all set and ready to go, not very far though as they are staying on campus. All the main and major locations of the campus received a freshening up of the planters. Annuals that will shortly die off have been replaced with full Autumn Mums that can handle the first couple of visits by Jack Frost.

We were given a chance to try our hand at interiorscape. We did a transplant from a broken pot to a new pot. Brought a few plants including a large Christmas Cactus to the greenhouse to give them a little T.L.C.

 

 

Along with the work duties we were to keep a close eye on the poinsettia crop. We completed the pest monitoring sheets. This included replacing the sticky trap sheets, walking the crop twice a day checking over every plant. The sticky traps we took down were examined, bugs were counted and identified.

 

 

 

The major problems we saw with the crop this weekend were fertilizer burn and algae growth. The Algae growth is the result of overwatering, this can be a major issue for our crop. The burn was likely due to the fertilizer mixed at 250 ppm, the problem was resolved by a water flush and mixing a new batch of fertilizer to be at 100 ppm. That’s where the math came in.

Grams/litre =  ppm x injector ratio

                    % N(nitrogen) x 10 (constant)   

          All in all it had been a great weekend here in the Campus Greenhouse, filled with laughter and learning.