It was commented on that I had been looking after the Twin Span well. I cleared the dead on Trial's Rosemary collection and sprayed them with SB Invigorator because they have been a bit affected by leaf hoppers. I wore the green vinyl spray proof gloves and a face shield for protection. The SB was double concentrate and the instructions was to put 1ml per litre of. I made up 8 litres in a compression sprayer.
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| Photo 1: Spraying Rosemary with SB using a compression sprayer. |
We also had a IPM talk by Nick Morgan - passing on his knowledge before he goes. This is accompanied by handouts - but some of the notes of interest were:
- If certain pesticides are used, bio-control can't be used for a period of time. Hand out has table of chemicals and duration of time of when bio-control can be introduced after, some are up to 12 weeks.
- Hyperox is disinfectant used on sanitising benches.
- For pots 5L above - a woodchip mulch is advised.
- Keep watering lances off the floor to improve sanitation.
- Overturned pots used throughout the houses that the bio-control to aid distribution of them.
- Chemicals used for weed control - Glyphosate and Chikara.
- Thrips attracted to the colour blue - so most likely to attack blue flowers too.
- Bio-control has to be carefully stored, not too hot, not too cold.
- Bio-control - Aphidoletes is last resort one, as aphid levels through good management is not expected to get so high as to require this.
- Orius bio-control - moves too quickly to somewhere else - so not found it effective.
- Some predators like insects at a certain stage of their life cycle - e.g. Encarsia likes whiteflies in their 2nd instar stage (they have 4 instars)
- Some bio-control naturalises e.g. Aphidus colemani and continues after their first cycle. But in nature predators keep pests in check never fully eliminate, in the glasshouse environment it is required to keep the plants more clean especially in prop. So an overkill amount of bio-control are bombarded at the pests in this environment. Bio-control can be applied every two weeks.
- Bio-control cards not to be directly in the sun - underneath the foliage, keeping the predators in more favourable temperatures.
We also pinched back tender perennial plants very hard to help make better shaped plants - keeping them tighter and for the main stems to strengthen more. Plus it's better for watering and P & D. Some were almost reduced to almost half their size again Also as much mentioned to encourage material for cuttings.
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| Photo 2: Salvia discolor just before pinch back |
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| Photo 3: Example of S. discolor after pinching. |