AVOIDING CROP CONTAMINATION FROM THE FEBRUARY 2024 ISSUE OF INSIDE GROWER MAGAZINE WRITTEN BY DAVID KUACK NARRATED BY BILL CALKINS   EXCERPT: While food crop production in greenhouses or indoor farms might be considered safer than outdoor field production, plants can experience the same exposure to human pathogens regardless of where they’re produced.   The CDC reports many kinds of produce, including organic leafy greens, can be contaminated with human pathogens. According to the CDC, leafy greens produced with hydroponic or greenhouse-grown methods can also be contaminated with these pathogens at any point from farm to fork.   “Greenhouse and indoor farm growers think they are growing a safe product because they are growing in a controlled environment structure,” said Melanie Lewis Ivey, associate professor, Fruit Pathology & Fresh Produce Safety, and extension experience coordinator at The Ohio State University. “There is a difference between a controlled environment and a closed environment.”   RESOURCE: The Ohio State University’s Fruit and Vegetable Safety Team offers an online course called “Good Agricultural Practices for Food Safety of Hydroponic Crops.” This self-paced course provides controlled environment food growers with the information and tools needed to implement best management practices to reduce microbial food safety hazards.   Read the digital edition of Inside Grower Magazine—February 2024: https://www.ballpublishing.com/magazine/ig_24_02/index.aspx

GET FAMILIAR WITH IN-HOUSE DISEASE TESTING FROM THE FEBRUARY 2024 ISSUE OF GROWERTALKS MAGAZINE WRITTEN BY NICK FLAX NARRATED BY BILL CALKINS   EXCERPT: Since the naked eye cannot see bacteria or viral particles, test kits are really the only way to home in on exactly which pathogen you’re dealing with. The alternative is to send plant samples off to a lab equipped with similar, higher -resolution diagnostic tools, but this can be time-consuming and costly, depending on the lab. In the meantime, while you wait to hear testing results, the pathogen could be spreading further through your crops and cause more damage because you weren’t able to react sooner. If you had a test kit on-hand, however, this would give you a much better idea of how to appropriately manage your disease risk when you first saw symptoms and potentially head it off sooner.   Read the digital edition of GROWERTALKS Magazine—February 2024: https://www.ballpublishing.com/magazine/gt_24_02/index.aspx

WHAT DOES “COMPATIBILITY” MEAN? FROM THE FEBRUARY 2024 ISSUE OF GROWERTALKS MAGAZINE WRITTEN BY DR. RAYMOND A. CLOYD NARRATED BY BILL CALKINS   EXCERPT: … integrating BCAs and pesticides is complex due to the various direct and/or indirect effects that pesticides may have on BCAs. For instance, any delay in the population growth of BCAs by pesticides (and even fungicides) can substantially affect the ability of BCAs to manage pest populations below economically plant-damaging levels. Another factor to consider is that combining BCAs with pesticides not only has to effectively manage pest populations, but also has to be cost-effective. Finally, we need to stop using the term “compatibility.”   Read the digital edition of GROWERTALKS Magazine—February 2024: https://www.ballpublishing.com/magazine/gt_24_02/index.aspx

Host Bill Calkins is joined by Dr. Josh Henry, a Ball technical service specialist with expertise in plant nutrition and fertility, to take you through a range of topics related to crop nutrition with the goal of setting you and your team up for success with spring production.   In this discussion, Josh covers an early-season checklist that includes water testing, injector calibration and the importance of having an in-house testing toolbox handy. Then he digs deeper into options for fertilizer—macronutrients and micronutrients—and tips for adjusting pH up or down. There’s a lot of great information packed into 25 minutes, so this is a perfect podcast to share with your entire production team.   WATCH THE FULL VIDEO PRESENTATION: https://youtu.be/EuAlb8BXuRo   Resources Mentioned:   Properly Conduct a Pour-Thru Test for pH & EC (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/WyJ2fgkng-8?si=jqmYt5L6IEbXIYdR   AlkCalc calculator for adjusting pH and Alkalinity (from e-GRO): https://e-gro.org/alkcalc/dist/index.html   Ball Seed Ornamental Plants Plug Growing Chart: https://ballseed.com/PDF/OrnamentalPlants-PlugGrowingChart.pdf   Fertilizer Injector Calibration (University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension): https://extension.unh.edu/sites/default/files/migrated_unmanaged_files/Resource000882_Rep928.pdf

Something some of you might struggle with early in production is tip atrophy, often called tip abortion. This is when you see symptoms during propagation, often on calibrachoa or petunia, where it looks like the cuttings were accidentally pinched—but you know they weren’t. Poor rooting, stunted growth and strappy foliage can also cause you to wonder what the heck is going on? To answer that question, we turn to Dr. Will Healy.   As Will explains, this issue can be triggered by a handful of different occurrences in propagation and doesn’t always affect the entire crop. He starts by explaining that tip atrophy occurs in a range of different greenhouse crops in every season but is most often experienced with petunia and calibrachoa in the spring and pansy in the fall. It can be pervasive across entire crops or random, making it especially frustrating. Usually considered a symptom of nutrient deficiency, Will explains that tip abortion or atrophy is nutritional but there are certain processes to understand.   Will runs through the need for micronutrients, especially boron, calcium and copper in a tip atrophy prevention strategy and exactly what levels to aim for when supplementing. The final piece to this puzzle is being aware of potential trigger events. High relative humidity, low light, poor root growth, wet growing points, high soil pH, low transpiration, nutrient leaching and more can lead to tip atrophy.   By the end of this presentation, you and your team will be in a much better position to avoid tip atrophy and tip abortion in your greenhouse production.   FULL VIDEO PRESENTATION: https://youtu.be/7sHVKN3f0HA?si=xT9N2X0O8-QTgqJp

AVOIDING TAX AUDITS FROM THE JUNE 2023 ISSUE OF GROWERTALKS MAGAZINE WRITTEN BY MARK E. BATTERSBY NARRATED BY BILL CALKINS   EXCERPT: Today, the IRS enforces the tax law in a number of ways, including the increasingly more common correspondence (examination by mail) audits and the dreaded field (face-to-face audit) examinations. The result is that many businesses are being scrutinized far more often than the numbers indicate.   Read the digital edition of GROWERTALKS Magazine—June 2023: https://www.ballpublishing.com/magazine/gt_23_06/index.aspx

As we’ve discussed in other Tech On Demand videos and podcasts, the key to successfully producing high quality crops often starts at the very beginning. How you and your team approach the earliest stages of germination and propagation sets the stage for uniformity down the line. We’re pleased to welcome back frequent guest Dr. Will Healy who continues to think about ways to share his knowledge and decades of experience working with growers of all shapes and sizes. This time, he's here to focus on canna, which can be a tricky one.   YOU WANT TO WATCH THIS VIDEO ALL THE WAY TO THE END, BECAUSE THERE ARE SOME CRITIAL TOPICS COVERED RELATED TO PGRs AND NUTRITION SPECIFIC TO CANNA!   Will begins by explaining the germination process, defining terms and talking about the unique laser drilling technology that allows moisture to penetrate really hard canna seeds. After establishing the importance of proper moisture management and temperature control for tropical crops like canna, he digs deeper into flat filling and seeding best practices. With canna, the trick is BURYING THE SEEDS so they don’t rise to the surface after irrigation. Will offers three options for achieving this on the seeding line.   Before wrapping up, Will spends time on growth regulator selection specific to canna, because as a monocot there are some chemicals to avoid. Nutrition is also covered, because canna respond best to certain formulations.   WATCH THE FULL VIDEO PRESENTATION: https://youtu.be/8yqSDcVf7Oc?si=TNFuZjdPR76d0NEX   Resources:   At-Risk Crops—Canna (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/jiY2XlzLfqQ?si=lKKZuszWpeWhZoVt   Training Your Team to Water Properly (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/SCPPT0IXlLY?si=qh5wqFp7dF8Xmx1q   Mystery Solved! Slime, Moss and Algae (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/Qjh0BcwkqqI?si=2pftpc_IEgJHLO-S   Starting Strong with Seed Propagation (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/cH-lbXGn24U?si=2wRz6VsYM7_NDJMS

As we’ve discussed in other Tech On Demand videos and podcasts, the key to successfully producing high quality crops often starts at the very beginning. How you and your team approach the earliest stages of germination and propagation sets the stage for uniformity down the line. We’re pleased to welcome back frequent guest Dr. Will Healy, who continues to think about ways to share his knowledge and decades of experience working with growers of all shapes and sizes. This time, he's here to focus on seed-raised begonias   Will begins by explaining the germination process, defining terms and talking about the importance of melting the coating on pelleted seeds. After establishing the importance of proper moisture management to melt pellets effectively, he digs deeper into flat filling and seeding best practices including properly centering the seed in each cell and not burying them.   Then the discussion turns to why you should treat begonias like unrooted cuttings in the after germination—they’re a monocot, with root clusters instead of a taproot. As a tropical plant, Will reminds us that cold water in germination is not ideal and tempered water should be used. Lighting is also recommended—immediately after trays leave the water tunnel. You’ll also hear protocols for irrigation management and nutrition to help get begonias off to a strong start. The discussion wraps up with quick looks at other begonia species often started from seed, like tuberous, interspecific and boliviensis types.     WATCH THE FULL EPISODE AS A VIDEO PRESENTATION: https://youtu.be/fXpHI6hhmsA?si=oG-5Zv5v72-Z8uPE    Resources:   Training Your Team to Water Properly (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/SCPPT0IXlLY?si=qh5wqFp7dF8Xmx1q   Mystery Solved! Slime, Moss and Algae (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/Qjh0BcwkqqI?si=2pftpc_IEgJHLO-S   Starting Strong with Seed Propagation (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/cH-lbXGn24U?si=2wRz6VsYM7_NDJMS

TWO TOBAMOVIRUSES TO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR FROM THE FEBRUARY 2023 ISSUE OF GROWERTALKS MAGAZINE WRITTEN BY DR. ANN CHASE & DR. MARGERY DAUGHTREY NARRATED BY BILL CALKINS   EXCERPT: Virus symptoms are notoriously hard to identify just by looking. They can be mimicked by genetic variegation, or by certain other diseases or disorders, even spray injury—especially from overspray or drift from herbicides. One virus disease can easily be mistaken for another.   Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and tomato mosaic virus (ToMV) are two very closely related viruses that you may encounter on many different greenhouse crops. Identifying ToMV or TMV may start by looking for mottling or mosaic in leaves, yellowing or browning of veins, leaf strapping, stunting or dieback of plants.   Read the digital edition of GROWERTALKS Magazine—February 2023: https://www.ballpublishing.com/magazine/gt_23_02/index.aspx

THE RISE OF VERTICAL FARMING FROM THE FEBRUARY 2023 ISSUE OF INSIDE GROWER MAGAZINE WRITTEN BY DANIEL PILSWORTH NARRATED BY BILL CALKINS   EXCERPT: The sky is the limit: In 1999, Columbia professor Dickson Despommier used the term “vertical farming” to describe a system of agriculture in which crops are grown indoors on vertically stacked platforms. His students imagined skyscrapers with lush greens, bursting from the sides of city buildings and providing hyper-local produce to dense urban centers. In the two decades since then, vertical farming has grown up in unexpected—yet promising—ways. In fact, according to the most recent P&S Intelligence report, the total vertical farming market size in 2021 was $3.98 billion and this number is expected to grow 25.2% annually to reach $30.2 billion by 2030.   Read the digital edition of Inside Grower Magazine—February 2023: https://www.ballpublishing.com/magazine/ig_23_02/index.aspx