Photo courtesy of Kendra Snyder

Snyder graduated in May after pursuing a degree through the university’s Landscape Horticulture Technology program. “I like to grow plants, but I also like to design,” Snyder says. Her program is a two-year associate degree that starts with traditional plant introduction and botany classes, but Snyder says the hands-on things that take place during the later semesters are her favorite.

“As you continue through the program, you get into classes like sustainable landscape, learning about different aspects of the business, dealing with contracts, as well as things like green roofs and permeable pavers to keep the outdoors sustainable,” she says.

She’s has studied in hand-drawn design courses as well as courses that teach computer-assisted design, and she hopes to someday work at her parent’s nursery designing landscapes for its client base.

“It’s just where I get to let out all my creativity and (see) my designs come to life with the different programs we use,” she says.

Her well-rounded course work has her heading into graduation feeling very prepared for what lies ahead, too.

“(This program) is a really good way to get into the industry because you’ve seen a lot of different aspects because we also do things like a plant propagation from cuttings, or we create our own actual bedding crop and then we sell it,” she says. Snyder also has a passion for sustainability. She hopes to see more of an emphasis on it as designers make their plans for a landscape.

“Adding a lot more natives to the landscape, in growing them and putting them into design, that just creates a good sustainability for the insect life,” she says. “And then that leads up to the birds and it goes up from there with the whole food chain.”

Most recently, Snyder worked on a project that helps give back to her community. She and her classmates were able to assist in the completion of a memorial garden for a local girl who passed away from cancer.

“We’re putting the patio in now and then we’re going to have a green space around it and it’s along a creek bed,” she says. “I think that it’s awesome that we are able to give back to the community.”

Snyder says students were able to assist with the design work and give the contractors their input for consideration on the final plans for the garden.

As she enters the work force, Snyder says she hopes future employers see the hard work her peers are ready to do.

“A lot of the kids that I know are really hard workers and that they’re willing to put in the time and effort for the job to come out right,” she says. “We have a really good group of kids who are willing to work and stay the extra hours that we need to in order to get a job finished. With our generation, we do have a lot of ambition.”

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Let me tell you a story. I was on a design consultation a few years ago, and there was a perfect spot for three dwarf Hinoki false cypress. Because my consultation customers can go anywhere to buy the plants I have recommended, I decided to use a story to illustrate the importance of buying just the right variety. I didn’t want them to end up at the box store where someone would put just any random evergreen into their hands.

“Be sure that you get the variety called ‘Nana,’” I told them. “There are many types of Hinoki that grow higher. In fact, I did a consultation for a local funeral home once and recommended that they use three ‘Nana’ Hinoki cypresses behind their sign. But they planted another variety and those have grown really tall and skinny. Now every time I pass by that place, I see the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost looming over their sign.”

The customers laughed, but more importantly, they remembered. Two weeks later they were in our nursery with my plan, asking for the right variety of Hinoki. They couldn’t recall the shrub’s name off the top of their heads, so they handed the plant list to one of our staff members. As he was checking the plan, the husband told him, “We want to avoid growing the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost!” The story had conveyed the importance of getting the right plant better than if I’d just encouraged them to do so.

You may have noticed that many who blog, speak, or write books about marketing emphasize the importance of storytelling. The fact is, stories function in several ways for any business. A story draws people’s attention. We perk up our ears or continue reading when a story is involved. Stories make information “sticky” so that it’s more memorable. My consultation customers weren’t going to remember “Hinoki false cypress,” but they did remember the punch line to my story. And finally, stories create human-to-human connections; such links sell plants and products without being a high-pressure sales pitch.

There are many ways to use storytelling to increase customer loyalty and your bottom line. Here are just a few suggestions:

If you’ve had personal experience with a plant, be sure to pass that on to your customers. A story that is a few sentences long that speaks to a plant’s hardiness or other desirable characteristics is akin to giving your plants a five-star review on online.

Use a story to begin blog posts or newsletters. These can be personal experiences or things your customers have told you over the years. After the story, sum up with the take-home message about the plant, product, or practice in question.

Every plant has a story. You can tell your own or use stories that are known in the trade. You might get a copy of “Of Naked Ladies and Forget-Me-Nots: The stories behind the common names of some of our favorite plants,” by Allan M. Armitage, and put it in your employee break room. When a customer is considering a plant and you’re nearby, if you know a short tale about that shrub, tree or perennial, tell them about it.

Hold a “Garden Story Night” or “Plant Story Slam” and invite people to share a story about a plant or their garden. Most such events have people sign up in advance and give each storyteller a time limit. Have attendees vote for the “people’s choice award” and award the winner a gift card.

Finally, your business has at least one story, and probably many more. Do your customers know how your operation came to be? Have you told the tale about the flood that washed your stock away? Have you written about the time the petting zoo goats you brought in for an event got loose and ate the perennials? Such tales create bonds between your company and the community.

Think about what you want your customers to know and remember, and then tell them a story about it.

The author is a speaker, writer and radio/podcast host who has worked at Hyannis Country Garden, an IGC on Cape Cod, for more than 20 years. She has her audiences convinced that C.L. stands for “Compost Lover.” Learn more at GardenLady.com.

Pesticides (insecticides, miticides, fungicides and bactericides) are still the primary means of managing arthropod (insect and mite) pests and diseases (fungi and bacteria) in greenhouse production systems because they are easy and convenient to apply, and generally very effective. Many facets of greenhouses favor pest and disease population growth, including environment (e.g. temperature, relative humidity and photoperiod), cultural practices (e.g., watering and fertility) and a continuous food source (lots of plants in the greenhouse that are spaced close together). Consequently, greenhouse producers apply pesticides to prevent or minimize plant damage. However, the continual reliance on pesticides promotes the development of pesticide resistance in insect/mite pest and disease populations.

This is the third article in a series of six scheduled for publication in 2019 and 2020 associated with pesticide resistance and resistance management of arthropod pests and diseases. In this article, we discuss the arthropod pests and plant pathogens that are more predisposed to develop resistance to pesticides.

Arthropod pests

Resistance develops at the population level and is an inherited trait with surviving individuals passing traits (genetically) to their offspring (young) or next generation, thus enriching the gene pool with resistant genes. Selection pressure for resistance increases as application frequency increases (number of times a pesticide is applied), and this is especially the case when pesticides with the same mode of action are applied in succession. Resistance can vary from one greenhouse to another based on pesticide use patterns. In addition, the prevalent movement of plant material globally can also impact resistance by exposing pest populations to pesticides with similar modes of action and transporting insects that have already acquired resistant traits.

In general, arthropod pests of greenhouse-grown horticultural crops are not predisposed to develop resistance, but the intense selection pressure placed upon pest populations as a consequence of the frequency of applying pesticides exacerbates the potential for the development of resistance. Most arthropod pests, including aphids, thrips, whiteflies and spider mites, have developed resistance to a wide range of pesticides in various chemical classes (organophosphates, carbamates, pyrethroids, macrocyclic lactones and spinosyns). In fact, more than 550 insect pest species have developed resistance to one or more insecticides over the past 50 years.

Many insect and mite pests encountered in greenhouse production systems have short developmental times and females have high reproductive rates, which can foster the likelihood of pest populations developing resistance. Below are the biological factors responsible for promoting resistance in insect and mite pest populations:

• short generation time
• multiple generations during the growing season
• high reproductive rate of females
• broad range of plants fed upon, which increases exposure to pesticide applications
• haplo-diploid breeding system. The male only has one set of chromosomes (haploid), so resistance genes are directly exposed to selection from pesticide applications. Consequently, this increases the potential for resistance developing

Insect and mite pests within greenhouse production systems can breed year-around, with many generations being produced and generations occurring simultaneously, which increases exposure to pesticides due to more frequent applications.

Furthermore, insect and mite pests within greenhouse production systems can breed year-around, with many generations being produced and generations occurring simultaneously, which increases exposure to pesticides due to more frequent applications. Pesticides are typically applied at short intervals, although this depends on the pesticide and residual activity (persistence), and a certain number of individuals may not be exposed to a pesticide application. These surviving individuals are likely to be resistant and will breed with other surviving resistant individuals resulting in the production of a population of highly resistant individuals — consequently, a pesticide-resistant population has been selected.

Another problem is that localized or isolated insect or mite pest populations may develop resistance faster than mobile arthropod pests. The reason is that the intense selection pressure associated with the frequency of applying pesticides reduces the number of susceptible individuals that can breed with resistant individuals. This is especially true in most greenhouse situations where there is not a continuous influx of susceptible individuals entering greenhouses from outside throughout the growing season.

Plant pathogens

Plant pathogens, like fungi and bacteria, can become resistant to fungicides and bactericides. They differ in some ways from insects and mites in that they cannot move on their own. That means that when a population becomes resistant to a fungicide, the population will not spread from a single crop within a greenhouse or between greenhouses, or especially from state-to-state. However, we make up for that lack of mobility by obtaining propagative materials from many sources worldwide and then selling our plants all over the world. This means of spread of resistant populations is the main way we create a resistance incident in one operation a worldwide problem in short order. We are a very effective vector in our own right.

The pathogens that are most likely to become resistant have certain characteristics like short reproduction times (for bacteria it can be 20 minutes). Thus, many generations are created quickly, making the chance of a genetic change higher, leading to the development of resistance. Another characteristic of fungi that makes resistance to fungicides possible, is the production of many, many, many spores. One good example is Botrytis blight. Resistance in some populations of Botrytis to SDHI fungicides (Fungicide Resistance Action Committee (FRAC) 7 — like those containing boscalid) have been reported on many crops including fruit trees, strawberries and most recently cut flowers. Other plant pathogens that can develop resistance very quickly include the downy and powdery mildews because they also produce lots of spores.

Previous page © Greenhouse Management; Photo Illustration © arlindo71 | iStockphoto

Sometimes resistance develops because there are very few effective products that can be used for a specific disease and the products represent only a few FRAC groups. The bacterial pathogens are primarily controlled with copper-based products (FRAC M01) and historically antibiotics like streptomycin. When a crop is sprayed with copper or an antibiotic consistently and without alternation, resistance in the bacterial population can develop very quickly — sometimes in one season. This has been shown in Florida on a number of ornamental crops starting in the 1960s. Luckily, we have more choices today and can alternate copper with some of the biopesticides that contain Bacillus and certain plant extracts. These compounds are very effective and are often equal to copper bactericides, and also make excellent rotational partners.

At other times, the product works well and is relatively inexpensive, leading to its overuse. I believe this is what has happened with the FRAC 4 product containing mefenoxam (originally metalaxyl) and Pythium resistance. So many greenhouse producers relied exclusively on this active ingredient that resistance developed over 25 years ago. However, mefenoxam is still a viable choice for Pythium control when proper rotations are employed using multiple FRAC groups including FRAC 14 (etridiazole), FRAC 21 (cyazofamid) and FRAC 11 (strobilurins like fenamidone).

The nature of the products we employ currently for fungi makes resistance development more likely than when we primarily used broad-spectrum fungicides (sometimes referred to as a “shotgun approach”). For instance, products containing the active ingredients: chlorothalonil and mancozeb had multiple means of controlling the fungus by interfering with many different systems in the plant pathogen. It is still rare to see resistance to these active ingredients even though they have been used for more than 40 years. The narrow targeted products of today, like the strobilurins, sterol inhibitors (FRAC 3) and SDHI fungicides are predisposed to have fungi develop resistance since fewer changes or alterations in the fungal genetics are required. These products are better for the environment due to limited non-target effects but are also more susceptible to the development of resistance by plant pathogens.

Raymond A. Cloyd is professor and extension specialist in horticultural entomology/plant protection at Kansas State University. You can reach him at rcloyd@ksu.edu. A. R. Chase is president of Chase Agricultural Consulting. You can reach her at archase@chaseresearch.net.

‘Tis the season! Another year of poinsettias has arrived and with it, thoughts of how to recoup more revenue on this crop that has been commoditized. One poinsettia crop that is not widely grown is the standard, single or straight-up form. These names are all synonymous for the same product — one utilizing multiple, unpinched cuttings instead of fewer or a single pinched cutting(s). While poinsettias finished from pinched cuttings are now the most common and widely grown form, poinsettias were originally grown using this multiple unpinched style.

There are several reasons why these unpinched plants are popular among both producers and consumers. First and foremost, the finished plant quality is different from pinched varieties in a few different ways. The final bract size for the unpinched plants are generally larger than those from pinched plants, and blooms also have more cyathia. If side branches are allowed to develop on unpinched cuttings, this can also result in a fuller plant, though these are removed by some producers. For these reasons, the straight-up poinsettias are often referred to as “florist quality,” for premium appearance.

In addition to plant appearance, there are also advantages aside from finished plant quality. For producers, straight-up plants have a short production time compared to the pinched forms, since the time under non-inductive long days is shorter. For example, a 6-inch container of three or four unpinched cuttings requires two to three weeks less than pinched than other varieties. The exact amount of time saved varies with container size, geographic location and cultivar vigor. However, all things equal, an unpinched poinsettia will require less bench time than the same size container finished with pinching.

For pinched poinsettias, working among the crop and handling them can result in unwanted stem breakage. When branches break off pinched plants, it not only creates a wound that can serve as an entry point for diseases and diminish plant vigor — losing branches can also render plants unsaleable. If lower branches break, plants may still be saleable, but sometimes the gaps created in canopies are too unappealing and plants are then unmarketable. With unpinched poinsettia forms, reducing breakage means less shrink and loss.

The cost for propagative material — whether unrooted or rooted cuttings — increases for unpinched poinsettias compared to the pinched form. For 6- to 6.5-inch, 7- to 7.5-inch, 8- to 8.5-inch and 10-inch containers, you will use 3-4, 4-5, 5-7, or 7-10 cuttings per container, respectively. While this does increase production costs, it doesn’t make these plants less profitable; in fact, these unpinched plants can improve your bottom line.

While the factors affecting profitability will vary with each firm, unpinched poinsettias can be a more profitable crop than pinched based on several reasons. As mentioned earlier, unpinched plants have a shorter production time, requiring less bench space. Additionally, the shorter production time will save labor, as will not having to pinch and remove leaves. When planting unpinched containers, selecting similar-sized cuttings can also simplify and reduce plant growth regulator applications, further reducing input costs. The reduced shrinkage from plants lost to stem breakage also help the bottom line. Finally, the high quality of unpinched plants with large, showy bracts can command a higher price at the wholesale and retail levels.