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

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, 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.