Fanshawe College Weekend Greenhouse Duty

November 8^th-10^th, 2019

Hayden, Jacob and Nicole

After some concise explanations given to us by our instructors on what was expected of us this coming semester, we were divided into groups and given specific weekends including the Fridays before them and tasked with completing exercises with educational and business tones around the college.

This blog describes and logs the experiences we had the pleasure and great fortune of receiving.

Friday, November 8th

Our morning started with our instructor taking us through all the necessary policies and procedures associated with running a green houses day to day operations. We reviewed the previous nights recorded temperatures along with other measurements that ensure good quality yield from the facility.

Afterwards, we spent the rest of the morning scouting out plants, culling weak and infirm specimens and preparing the plants for use for the following afternoon exercise. This included pruning off dead or weak limbs off plants, inspecting the stock for any health issues and organizing them once the latter two activities were carried out.

After a brief reprieve from our delegated duties, we began the production of hanging baskets. This included choosing choice specimens from our stock and potting them in large baskets of threes.

After the baskets were prepared, we labelled them twice. Once in the pot for reference if the basket were taken down and one on the bottom of the basket to see from below. The baskets were then thoroughly watered and hung above to catch the last of the golden rays of our November sun shine.

The day ended as quickly as it started. Parts of the duties of making sure a greenhouse is closed properly is to know what kind of light and dark cycle a plant requires. From 8:00 am – 5:00 pm, the poinsettias we grow require intense day light. However, they also require a long dark period and we close the shade curtains when we leave and lock up. This concluded our first day of our weekend.

Saturday, September 14^th

The following morning after sleeping in and eating a hearty breakfast, we joined up bright eyed and ready to have a productive day. As per usual, the opening procedures were followed. Shade curtains drawn open. Monitoring and scouting conducted to college standards. Coffee, two sugars, two cream.

After we finished our initial opening procedure, we continued our original task of re-potting and preparing flower baskets. This took up until noon. We finished the task and took our lunch before we regrouped and prepared a plan for the rest of the day.

We were tasked earlier by our instructor inspect the bug scan cards hanging in the green house. These cards are hung and bright in color. They will attract a variety of green house pests. These pests will fly and get trapped on the adhesive surface of the plant. After a period of time, we take them down and count the number of insects and species. These counts are logged and recorded for future use to determine pest concentration and what pests are present in the green house. Afterwards, we replace the traps with fresh ones.

This practice took up the rest of the day concluding our day as we finished our closing procedures for the green house.

Sunday, September 15^th

Sunday was our last day at the greenhouse. Despite the bonding, the learning and the experience we were glad to finally complete our tasks given to us on the weekend. 

Though we watered the Poinsettias Saturday we found that two of the plants on bench 4 were insufficiently watered. Luckily it was not a big problem and could be dealt with quickly and efficiently. With the spot watering done, we were able to get back on track to do our tasks.

First was the EC and the pH measurements were needed to be done along with touching up on the IPM.  The EC and pH were measured and each fell between 5.8 and 6.4 which were all in the acceptable range of acidic/alkaline.

The IPM was done next and to our surprise the work done to find each pest on the sticky cards found that there were a lot of Fungus gnats that are affecting the poinsettias.

As these were done, we decided to do more walks of the crop, checking for wilting, dead leaves and etc. to ensure that all was well in the greenhouse.

With that done we finish for the day making final checks to the crop, the germination and propagation chambers, and finally closing the curtains for both for the greenhouse and for our time spent there.