Eric A. & Michael A. Weekend Duty Blog


September 16 – 18, 2016



Friday


We began by walking through the greenhouse, feeling for dry poinsettias and looking for damage to the greenhouse, dead leaves and pests. Ones that were found to be too dry were lightly spot watered. The indoor and outdoorchrysanthemums were then water along with the rest of the outside plants. Next we took apart sections of the dripper system what were not working properly and cleaned out the debris stuck inside them. We then assembled new dripper sections to replace them with and set them up. We pinched the tops of the large poinsettias and removed excess soil from their pots.


Maximum temperature recorded: 23°C

Saturday


We started the day off the same as Friday, (inspecting the plants and greenhouse) then we started to prune and dust the three planters in front of the bookstore. By mid day we decided to take a break and finish the planters on Sunday so we went back to the greenhouse and set bug traps. After 4 hours we counted the number of pests we caught to monitor their numbers. Water was added to the Priva temperature monitor. We finished up the day cleaning trays, trying to see if we could get the heat pad working, looking for pests and pruning diseased foliage.


Maximum temperature recorded: 25°C

Sunday


First thing we did was finish off the three planters we started the day before. When we returned to the greenhouse to spot water the poinsettias and water the indoor and outdoor chrysanthemums. Poinsettias that were suffering from root rot were taken out of their pots to air dry for part the day. Again we repeated the bug traps but this time they were let up for 6 hours. We tested the poinsettias pH and EC levels with the kit provided in the greenhouse and recorded a pH of 6.7 with EC of 1.6. We noticed the temperature rising to 30 in the greenhouse so we opened up the shade cover. During the last hours of the day we cleaned pots and trays and took out the compost.


Maximum temperature recorded: 30.5°C