A shrinking number of pest control product and more tight requirements are making harvest protection across all crops that morsel more complicated . Potted hydrangeas are no exception , and here too , biology is becoming more and more significant . Dutch works nursery P. van Geest is extremely satisfied with the work of the beneficials . ‘ It ’s never been so soft to keep our potted hydrangea front so good . ’
The Netherlands - based plant life nursery produce Lycopersicon esculentum and peppers and produces potted hydrangeas , mostly for retailers including IKEA and Albert Heijn . Potted hydrangea cultivation is complex . Once the cut textile has arrive from Portugal , there is a generation period of time . Then , when the shoot and bud have developed sufficiently , the topped works have to drop at least 1000 hours in a cold store . After that , there is the finishing process before delivery to customers .
‘ IKEA and Albert Heijn are top-notch - strict customers , ’ explains cultivation coach Pieter van der Lugt . ‘ Our strength lie down in our power to produce some 2.5 million units every year , which means that we can charge out large number of plant every calendar week if necessary , all of splendid and consistent quality . It put to work out very well , but we have to do a lot of work to get there . ’
A strong U. S. Army in the cropWith their key customer site extremely stringent requirements on crop security , the company needs to repair to biologic ascendance methods to campaign cuss wherever possible . The most troublesome plague in Van Geest ’s potted hydrangeas are thrips , aphids , and wanderer mites . Thrips are tackle once at the start of cultivation using a combination of Mainspring and an attractant ; aphid are cover several time with Teppeki , and spider mites are dealt with using a range of enemies , including Spidex , Spical , and Swirski - Mite . At the same time , the feed mite Carpoglypus is also scattered over the plants to give Swirski - Mite in special , which can also see to it thrip , whitefly , and tarsonemid mites , a helping hand . This supplementary feed is usually break after one and two weeks using the Airobug from Koppert .
‘ This way we have a number of strong regular army in our crops at the start of the finish mental process , ’ explain Pieter . Entonem and Hypoaspis knot ware are also used at the start .
An astonishing resultThe approach is well-nigh the same in the propagation phase , except that no Entonem is used . Pieter continue , ‘ The topped plants go into the cold stores nigh spotless . Crop protection this year was a piece of cake . It ’s just a shot of course , and next season might be much more difficult , but we ’ve been capable to keep our crop looking great with very few beneficials and minimum work . We ’ve been really astonish by the result . ’
For Pieter , the smashing threat is not in the funk telephone number of pest ascendance products or more stringent rule , but in the deficiency of uniformness in legislation . ‘ Customers are more and more limiting the number of products that they will provide , but those Cartesian product vary between customers or certificates . For agriculturalist , workability would increase if the rules were more uniform . We ’re bright that the government will take a stellar role in this ; a valuation ground on environmental impingement would to me be a good place to start . ’
New issuesConsultant Wim van der Meer agrees . ‘ More uniformness would be nice as growers are always having to contend with young issues . ’ He mentions Thrips setosus , or Nipponese thrips , which began to settle down in hydrangea a few year ago without being noticed . ‘ They were a trouble that needed to be solved . It ’s easy to see why Koppert indue so to a great extent in R&D for tribute against thripid . The predatory insect Thripor - L has been successful at moderate Western flush thripid and other species of thrips . It ’s possible that Thripor - L , perhaps with supplementary feeding , might be able-bodied to control the Japanese thrips as well . ’
For more information : Koppert Biological Systems[email protected]www.koppert.com
