Nursery and Ornamental Horticulture
-
Esta publicación describe algunas de las enfermedades más problemáticas en las plantas de ornato más usadas en el jardín. El material presentado aquí le ayudará a identificar estas enfermedades y encontrará las recomendaciones para su tratamiento. El conocimiento de estas enfermedades permitirá a los jardineros profesionales y amateurs a combatir estas enfermedades y tener plantas saludables y bellas.
|
-
This publication describes some of the most troublesome diseases of Georgia’s landscape plants to help readers identify and treat these diseases. This resource is useful for professional and amateur growers alike to better fight plant diseases and produce healthy plants.
|
-
The juniper scale is a sporadic pest of juniper, cypress, and cedar trees in nurseries and landscapes in Georgia. It is an armored scale, where the wax cover is not a part of its body but can actually be separated from the body. Juniper scale feeds on plant fluid, and heavy infestations can reduce plant vigor, causing needle drop and twig color change from green to brown. Find out how to identify and manage this pest.
|
-
AP 130-3-12
Green Industry 2025
1. 2024 was a good year for many green industry firms, though Hurricane Helene mitigated these positives for many growers.
2. There are many unknowns going into 2025 that will impact green industry sales, including higher inflation and interest rates, mixed signals within the economy, increased input costs, and the varying strength of the housing market in Georgia.
3. Green industry demand is expected to have stable to moderate growth with increased prices, which will result in comparable average sales for 2025 compared to 2024.|
-
Pesticide and fertilizer recommendations are often made on a pounds per acre and tons per acre basis. While these may be applicable to field production of many crops, orchardists, nurserymen and greenhouse operators often must convert these recommendations to smaller areas, such as row feet, square feet, or even per tree or per pot. Thus pints, cups, ounces, tablespoons and teaspoons are the common units of measure. The conversion is frequently complicated by metric units of measure. This publication is designed to aid growers in making these calculations and conversions, and also provides other data useful in the management, planning and operation of horticultural enterprises.
|
-
Fertilizer injectors are devices used to apply water-soluble fertilizers, pesticides, plant growth regulators, wetting agents and mineral acids during crop production. They are a vital part of modern greenhouse or nursery operations. Despite the advantages, many growers have had at least one experience with a compromised, damaged or even ruined crop where the cause was traced to a malfunctioning injector. Just like other mechanical devices, proper and frequent maintenance and calibration are crucial steps to ensure optimal injector performance and, thus, healthy crops.
|
-
Additional author: Mengmeng Gu, Professor, Colorado State University Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture.
Biochar has been proposed to be beneficial to the environment and plants. However, many people do not know what biochar is, what can biochar do, or how biochar can be used. In Part 1 of this publication, we provide introductory information on biochar used to partially replace peat moss as a container substrate component.
The International Biochar Initiative defines biochar as a solid material obtained from the carbonization of biomass, which may be added to soil to improve soil functions and reduce emissions from biomass that would otherwise naturally degrade to a greenhouse gas. Other researchers define biochar as a multifunctional material related to carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas reduction, soil contaminant immobilization, soil fertilization, and water filtration.
To simplify things, we’ll adopt the most popular definition: biochar is a black, carbon-enriched solid with a porous structure, mainly used in agriculture and environmental industries. Biochar is normally made from the thermal decomposition of biomass materials at high temperatures (570–2200 °F) in a low-oxygen or no-oxygen environment (this process is also known as pyrolysis). Biochar can be produced from pyrolysis of different materials such as pine bark, sugarcane bagasse, rice hull, and straw.|
-
C 1292-02
Biochar Basics: Effects on Plant Growth
Additional author: Mengmeng Gu, Professor, Colorado State University Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture.
Is Biochar Good or Bad for Plant Growth? Mixing biochar into soilless substrates may have negative, zero, or positive effects on plant growth.
Biochar made from green waste mixed with peat at 50% by volume has been shown to increase prayer plants’ total biomass and leaf surface. Adding 10% by volume of sewage sludge biochar with peat-based substrates can increase lettuce biomass by 184%–270%. Mixing pruning-waste biochar with peat-based substrates at 50% or 75% by volume can also increase lettuce biomass. Mixing 20% or 35% (weight per weight) of coir biochar with 0.5% or 0.7% humic acid into a composted green-waste medium showed increased biomass of rattlesnake plants compared to those without biochar and humic acid amendments.
Mixed hardwood biochar (50% by volume) and sugarcane bagasse biochar at 50% or 70% with a bark-based substrate increased basil plants’ average root diameter. Mixed hardwood biochar at 20%–80% by volume increased photosynthesis, shoot fresh weight, and shoot dry weight of chocolate mint, peppermint, Kentucky Colonel mint, spearmint, and orange mint plants. Also, pinewood biochar mixed with pine bark increased chrysanthemum shoot fresh and dry weights.
Biochar may also have adverse effects on plant growth. For example, we tested one type of biochar with high salinity; plants grown in the biochar mixes wilted within 30 min. When plants do not have enough water to dissolve the extra salts, they die.|
-
C 1292-03
Biochar Basics: Effects on Plant Disease
Additional author: Mengmeng Gu, Professor, Colorado State University Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture.
How does biochar play a role in a plant-disease system? Briefly, before the pathogen infects plants, biochar can improve plant growth by increasing water and nutrient uptake, a healthier plant may be more resistant to attack. On the other hand, after a pathogen infects the plants, biochar could absorb the toxins, enzymes, and other compounds produced by pathogens.
Certain types of biochar could contain chemical compounds which is bad for pathogen growth. When incorporating this biochar into the substrate, the growth environment may become toxic to pathogens, so they cannot grow well enough to attack plants. For instance, eucalyptus biochar water extracts were found to inhibit Pythium growth in a lab setting. This finding indicates that substrate containing certain chemical extracts may impede plant infection by inhibiting the growth of Pythium (Bonanomi et al., 2015). After a pathogen infects a plant, biochar’s porous structure can absorb the toxins, enzymes, and other compounds produced by pathogens. Many types of biochar can improve plant growth, making the host plant stronger to fight against pathogens, thus reducing disease occurrence.|