Pedro to Spain, Jill Stays to Troubleshoot

Pedro received a telegram from his mother asking him to fly home urgently. His father was admitted to hospital—he was seriously ill. “In this age of e-mails and instant messaging, my mother sends a telegram,” was his first response. “I guess old habits die hard.” Then he flew off to Mallorca, leaving me in charge of three large glasshouses growing long stemmed cut Roses,

Even though our operation was fully automated and we had a Command Bunker from where to observe and supervise, I still felt a knot in my stomach. My first thought was “I’m going to miss Pedro. How am I going to run our business without him?”

He was certainly comforting to have around. He checked and double-checked everything, so you could be sure that all possible things have been done to grow the finest Roses our hydroponic ebb and flow multi-bucket system is capable of producing.

It’s not that I could take it easy, I did my share of the work, but the smooth running of the operation depended on Pedro’s presence. And now he was gone.

I had him write down all the phone numbers I could possibly reach him at, as well as his several e-mail addresses. He promised to check his messages, both on the phone and on his laptop.

The first few days were hectic as I rushed from greenhouse to greenhouse, making sure that the Roses looked okay. I could have stayed in the Command Bunker and viewed their progress on the video monitors, but I chose to trust only what I could see with my own eyes.

“Just monitor the readings,” chided a senior staff member, but secretly I didn’t trust all the electronic instruments and sensors. “Electronics have been known to report erroneous readings,” became my mantra.

All of our Roses are still in their vegetative growth stage, but in a few weeks we’ll be switching from Iguana Juice Grow to Iguana Juice Bloom and changing the lighting schedule to start the flowering cycle. The Roses in the first two Greenhouses, the Blue Rose and the Red Rose, were growing according to plan. Hybrid Tea Roses are supposed to reach heights of 4 to 6 feet, depending on the variety.

I figured that during veg growth, when the plants are establishing their roots and strengthening their stems, as well as filling out with leaves, the average Hybrid Tea would get around three feet tall. A height perfectly manageable without stakes or any other means of support in our hydroponic buckets, using cocopeat as our grow medium.

Then during the budding and flowering stage the plants might grow another foot to two or three feet, depending on the hybrid. The multi-colored Roses in Greenhouse Three, Granada and Ambience, however, were shooting up like there was no tomorrow!

Just like Pedro, I checked and double checked everything, and the Nutrient Solution in Greenhouse Three seemed to be exactly the same as in the other two Greenhouses. Iguana Juice as the basic fert, mixed with Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, to recreate organic soil conditions in a hydroponic setting.

Also Carbo Load Powder, to add sugars that will be needed during bud formation, along with Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, to colonize our root systems with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes, respectively. Oh, and Organic B, a B-complex vitamin designed to reduce plant stress.

I checked all the quantities of each ingredient, and that’s when I stumbled across the problem. The Iguana Juice Grow in Greenhouse Three was obtained from a local, Mississauga Garden Shop, and it must have been an old batch.

Advanced Nutrients switched to a more concentrated form of Iguana Juice some time ago, changing the recommended application rate from 15 mL per Liter to 3.5 mL per Liter. The staff member who was responsible for the Nutrient Mix in Glasshouse Three, got used to the original application rate, and when the new batch of Iguana Juice arrived, he continued to use it at the old rate, even though he should have been using much less of it.

Since Iguana Juice Grow is 100% organic and very gentle on plants, no harm was done, except for the incredible growth spurt of the Granada and Ambience Roses. Some of them surpassed five feet and rising to almost six feet in height! They started bending over and showed signs of needing support.

I got a hold of Pedro and laid out the problem for him. He was understandably upset and said that the sensitive instrumentation should have caught the problem. “What about the discrepancy in Parts Per Million?” he fumed. I was more concerned about support for our really tall Roses.

Pedro air shipped a huge rope net with large enough holes to fit our Rose plants through and as soon as it arrived the staff and I stretched it over the Roses in Greenhouse Three and very gently guided each plant through its own hole in the netting. Then we secured the netting with a special pulley system that came with instructions from Pedro.

Actually, he sent three of these huge nets, one for each greenhouse. So we stretched them over the canopy of shorter Roses, ones that didn’t need the support just yet, but once they reach full height, they might.

“Hybrid Tea Roses might take two or three years to reach their full height,” explained Pedro during a trans-Atlantic phone call. “After that, even if you prune them, they’ll grow to that height, no matter what.”

“The average life that the guide books give for Hybrid Tea Roses is six to ten years, unless you give them exceptional care. My family in Mallorca must have learned to give exactly such exceptional care to our Roses, because some of them have continued to provide us with marketable, long-stemmed Roses for fourteen-years or more. Some Species and Climbing Roses will live 50 years or more and continue to produce flowers!”

His father, as it turns out, was all right. It was just a false alarm. “My parents like to have guests over and then they serve these lavish meals with huge bouquets of Roses on the table and red Spanish wine flowing freely. My father must have overeaten and drank too much Sangria,” explained Pedro.

I couldn’t resist. “When are you coming home?” I asked trying not to show my need of his presence. “Soon, my darling Jill. Then we’ll make sure that the correct formulas are followed in the feeding of our Roses.”

I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax completely until his plane touched down at Pearson International in Toronto this coming weekend.

Lackluster Leaves a Sign of Trouble?

The ancestors of our Hybrid Tea Roses are still haunting us. After all, Hybrid Teas were first developed by breeding together an Old Chinese Tea Rose with an Old European rose. So it stands to reason that the genes of our Alec’s Red, Julia’s Rose, Kardinal, Blue Girl, Granada, and Ambience Roses still carry some of the genes of their ancestors.

Old Roses had one characteristic that for the most part had been bred out of the Hybrid Teas. The healthiest, most splendid Hybrid Teas have always had shiny leaves. The plants are bursting with fragrant oils, even before the blooms are produced. These oils come out on the leaf surfaces and produce a healthy shine.

Old Rose leaves, on the other hand, were—for the most part—matte. Pedro explained this to me over a latte as I shared my concern that some of our Kardinal Roses seem to have lost the shine on their leaves. “Lackluster, is how I’d describe it,” said Pedro.

So do dull leaves on Roses mean an unhealthy Rose? “Not necessarily,” said Pedro, “it could simply mean that the old, dull leaf gene came to the foreground in this generation, only to recede for the next ten generations to come.”

I hoped that this was the case, but I did notice that some of the dull leaved ones had a leaf here and there which I would strongly suspect of having Black Spot.

Pedro filled me in. Caused by the fungus Diplocarpon rosae, Black Spot is a very common and persistent rose disease. I’ve seen it in friends’ gardens and was told it was hard to get rid of.

Circular black spots with fringed margins appear on the leaves of the infected plants. Soon, yellow outlines appear around the spots and eventually the entire leaf yellows and drops off.

Left untreated, the plant becomes defoliated and the result is reduced bud set, poor flower quality, and susceptibility to environmental stresses. When grown outdoors, winter injury is highly likely. Indoors, the plant becomes overly sensitive to drafts and any drop in temperature.

Since it is a highly infectious disease, always wear gloves when handling infected plants and leaves. Remove each leaf as soon as any signs of Black Spot appear. Collect leaves in a plastic bag and dispose of them without allowing the infection to touch other plants, tools, walls, floors, etc.

According to Pedto, Spanish growers burn infected leaves and plants immediately. In his family greenhouses, Black Spot was always taken seriously and he recalls the contents of an entire greenhouse being destroyed in order to eradicate this disease.

Cancers can also develop on rose stems, which are concentrations of the fungus. Usually most severe in wet weather outdoors, high humidity conditions in the greenhouse can also be fertile ground for this insidious affliction of roses.

We couldn’t take the chance of having all of our Kardinal plants become infected, so we removed the plants in question and sprayed the surrounding ones with Scorpion Juice thoroughly. Pedro increased the amount of Barricade that he mixed in to our weekly nutrient solution.

You don’t want to spray with Scorpion Juice every week, so alternate with a mild solution of baking soda and horticultural oil, week by week. The oil serves a double purpose. Not only does it protect the unaffected parts of the rose plant from further infection, but it also makes the dull leaves shinier.

Our Kardinal roses are halfway through their vegetative cycle, so we’re feeding them generously with Iguana Juice Grow, as well as Organic B, and Humic and Fulvic Acid. Good nourishment is also a way of dealing with any kind of an infection, whether bacterial, fungal, or viral.

The three Advanced Nutrient root colonizers, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, also play a major role in the eradication of disease. By inundating your roots with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes, respectively, these three products help the plant fight off pathogens and pests throughout the growing season.

Sensi Zym is another product that Pedro loves. It supplies over eighty different types of living enzymes that nourish themselves with plant debris in our root medium, i.e. cocopeat. They devour this debris and turn it into digestible nutrients which are in turn absorbed by the roots.

Powdery Mildew, caused by the fungus Sphaerothece pannose var. rosae, is a very common affliction of roses throughout the world, and is especially troublesome for roses grown in glasshouses, such as ours. A white, powdery growth suddenly appears on leaves, shoots, and buds.

New shoots can become distorted and twisted by this fungal infection. Buds infected by Powdery Mildew often fail to open. This fungus doesn’t need wet conditions to develop, as long as the air is humid and warm. Pedro checks the humidity levels in all our greenhouses constantly, in order to ward off an attack by this fungus.

Unlike many other fungal infections, the Powdery Mildew fungus does not require moisture on the leaf tissues for an infection to take place. Small, black, pepper-like structures called cleistothecia are produced by this fungus, and these hide in plant debris. The fungus can survive in these structures, even without a suitable plant host.

Common sense sanitary procedures are vitally important in dealing with any fungal infections. Remove all infected plant material and place in airtight, plastic bags. Diseased stems should be pruned back to healthy wood in the spring, prior to budbreak.

Sufficient space between plants is essential to reduce the risk of this fungal disease. Adequate air circulation is also necessary. Stagnant, hot, humid air is a fertile breeding ground not just for this fungus, but for many other fungal enemies of healthy roses.

There are thousands and thousands of different fungi that infect plants. Aside from the two already mentioned, Roses are particularly prone to Downy Mildew, caused by the fungus-like organism, Peronospora sparsa, and usually propagated in cool, wet conditions.

Botrytis Blight, caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea, is also a common disease of Roses. Cool, cloudy, humid weather can give rise to this infection. Grayiish-brown fuzzy growth appears on infected plants. Pruning cuts or any wounds on the plant are open invitations for this fungus.

In addition to believing in plant science, Pedro also has a superstitious side. He conducts a little ceremony after planting a new crop in each of our greenhouses. It involves a candle, a crucifix, and supplications to Mother Nature to make our Roses safe from any and all infections.

We dealt with the Black Spot problem (knock on wood) and hope to avoid any other fungus, bacteria, or virus before it is time to harvest our hopefully healthy and vigorous blooms.

We Fertigate from Sunup to Sundown

As you know, Pedro and I grow our roses hydroponically, using an ebb and flow multi-bucket system with coco coir as our growing medium. Actually, cocopeat is what it says on the plastic wrapped bales of processed coconut fibre, but I’m told that’s just another name for coco coir.

Coconut husks are dried in the sun and half of the stuff is made into coco fibre used to fill mattresses, while the other half is processed and compressed into bales for horticulture. Recent studies have shown that rose producers can increase their cut-rose production by 15.6 to 18% if they grow in coco instead of rockwool.

Cocopeat is consistent and uniform in texture. It is composed of millions of capillary micro-sponges that can absorb and hold up to eight times their own weight in water. And yet even when thoroughly soaked, 40% of the cocopeat still contains oxygen, so our rose roots are never completely deprived of this vital element.

When using cocopeat, growers are advised to add Sensi Cal Grow or Sensi Cal Bloom to their nutrient mix on a regular basis. It seems that this grow medium needs the added Calcium to compensate for its tendency to deprive plants of this secondary macronutrient.

We bought our roses as our particular varieties grafted onto disease resistant rootstocks. By the time they reach our greenhouses, these young rose plants are about a foot high with an average of three branches each. We carefully make a large enough hole in the cocopeat to accommodate the young roots of each plant and the ebb and flow cycle begins.

You have to be extra careful not to damage the sensitive roots of these roses. In order to make sure that our flowers grow strong roots that absorb nutrients readily, we add the Advanced Nutrients root colonizing trio, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, which supply beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes respectively.

Back in the days when I was still growing carnations in soil in my basement rec room, I grew ten pots of flowers with these colonizers and ten other pots without. My carnation plants with enhanced root systems grew about 50% larger than the untreated ones.

Submerged pumps in our large reservoirs flood each bucket at periodic intervals with our pre-mixed nutrient solution. Roses don’t particularly like standing in water, so the flooding of our mature plants is less than 5 minutes long. Inexpensive timers don’t give you an option—the flooding of your grow medium has to take 30 minutes or longer. Our quality timers allow us to choose the exact length of the “flow” cycle.

We don’t irrigate (I should say “fertigate” which is an awful sounding word that indicates feeding as well as watering) at night, but we do start about ninety minutes after sunrise. Initially, we set the timer to flood the buckets only four times per day for fifteen minutes each time. That gave the cocopeat about three-hours to dry out. It sounds like a lot, but it never dries out completely.

As the plants grow larger they require more solution, both water and nutrition. So we gradually changed the timing to once every three hours, then once per two hour period. Through trial and error we have decided that 5 minutes of flooding is plenty for our roses, provided we water more frequently. On extremely hot days we might have to flood our buckets once every hour, perhaps 15 times during the 15-hour daylight cycle in the summer.

Actually, the frequency of flooding depends on the electronic light readings and the PPM needs of our roses. All of these are measured and correlated by a wizard of a computer program that takes the growth or bloom cycle into account, along with the number of ingredients in our nutrient mix.

As our roses drink more and more of the nutrient mix, our fully automated system tops up the reservoir with fresh water. Since fresh nutrient mix is only added once a week, the rest of the time the solution is diluted more and more with water. This changes the pH and the EC and the PPM all across the board.

This used to worry us at first, but we were assured by the Advanced Nutrients tech advisors that even in nature, pH fluctuates a lot and as long as we feed our roses our target PPM for the week, they’re getting adequate nutrition for their growing and flowering needs. Besides, if the pH gets out of whack too much, it is automatically corrected by adding a small quantity of pH Up or pH Down.

Our basic 100% organic fertilizer is Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, depending on the phase of plant growth or bloom. Currently, all of our roses are still going through their vegetative growth period. However, after about eight weeks, the biological mechanisms in each rose plant will signal the beginning of bud and flower production, then we’ll switch over to Iguana Juice Bloom, along with all the supplements and additives.

Scorpion Juice and Barricade figure importantly in the process of growing roses. Even though our plants have been grafted onto disease resistant root stocks, many roses are notoriously susceptible to Powdery Mildew, Botrytis, and Black Spot. In order to ward off these invasive pathogens, a regular spraying with Scorpion Juice is required, once every three weeks.

This very effective Advance Nutrients product impart induced systemic resistance in our roses, so they are able to fight off many insects and pathogens. Our roses are further bolstered by Barricade, which is added in powder form to our nutrient mix.

This Potassium Silicate product is designed to strengthen the cell walls of our roses, for additional protection. Since many insects that threaten flowers are sap sucking, if the cell walls are strong enough to withstand being penetrated, the insects will go elsewhere. Ditto for pathogens.

Pedro and I enjoy spending time in our Command Bunker overseeing the operation and making sure that our three Greenhouses are being heated or cooled, and lighted or shaded properly. Also, that the air in them is being CO2 enriched or ventilated in order to create the best ever environment for our potentially magnificent flowers.

Our Command Bunker and Emma Peel's Voice

Pedro had a central command hut built between Greenhouse One and Greenhouse Two. We call it our Command Bunker and it has two or three comfortable chairs on rollers in front of an electronic console filled with gauges, dials, video monitors, and a microphone for an intercom system that allows Pedro or myself to speak to our staff in any of the Greenhouses.

Cameras in the three greenhouses observe the overall progress of the work of growing roses, and they are equipped with remote controls that allow us to zoom in on any particular part of the operation. Pedro insisted on putting in an alarm system, in case we’re away from the observation console and need to attend to any emergencies.

Instead of having annoying sounds, such as those car alarms that drive me up the wall, this alarm system works with a series of code colors, such as those used in hospitals. In order not to unduly alarm the staff, a very pleasant computer voice over the intercom says something like “Code Orange in Greenhouse Two.” Pedro had all of us memorize what the different colors indicate. The Orange message, if it were for real, would mean that the pump system has failed in Greenhouse Two.

All data and video images are recorded digitally and kept in the memory of our master computer for future reference. It all sounds a bit Big Brotherish to me, but Pedro swears that as long as we footed the bill to have our three greenhouses fully automated, the additional expense of centralized observation and the recording of data is warranted. “This might save us a lot of money in the long run,” is how he defends our use of this futuristic technology.

One day last week we were admiring the tremendous growth spurt of our Granada and Ambience rose bushes in Greenhouse Three, when the computer voice I’ve nicknamed Emma (for Emma Peel from that old British TV show, "The Avengers.") pleasantly informed us that Greenhouse One was experiencing a Code Yellow. I didn’t need my pocket guide to figure out that this meant that the measurements of our nutrient mix were all of a sudden incorrect.

Pedro and I rushed over to Greenhouse One, and checked the readings on the wall console. In addition to the Master Console in the Command Bunker, each greenhouse also has a wall console where you can check the readings from all the electronic sensors strategically placed throughout the greenhouse. These measure pH, EC, ppm, nutrient mix temp, room temperature, humidity, light levels in lumens, lux, and foot candles, color temp in Kelvin, total wattage, amperes, and voltage being used, parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air,
etc.

According to the readings, the pH of our nutrient mix was way off. For hydroponic roses the best acid-alkaline balance is between 5.6 and 5.8 and now it was reading 6.7 pH. Since 7.0 pH is neutral, the reservoir must have been almost completely emptied of nutrient mix and been flushed with water. Although we do empty the used mix each week and flush with water, this exchange wasn’t due for another couple of days.

Our plant nutrients—consisting of our basic fert, Iguana Juice Grow; the richly organic supplements Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid, and Fulvic Acid; the purely natural source of all essential B-Vitamins, Organic B; the root colonizers Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice; as well as other Advanced Nutrients products containing enzymes, carbohydrates, potassium silicates and calcium-magnesium—are pre-mixed in a special tank.

This mixing takes place the night before the nutrient solution is poured into the main reservoir of our multi-bucket ebb and flow hydroponic system for growing roses. Each day the roses suck up about 20% of the solution in the reservoir and the reservoir is automatically topped up with water. What happened in Greenhouse One is that through a faulty timer the reservoir was almost completely drained of solution and topped up with pure water.

This procedure threw off every single measurement, including pH, EC, ppm, and the nutrient mix temp. Luckily, the system is equipped with a manual override, so Pedro and I are able to make corrections, whenever they’re necessary. We mixed up another batch of nutrient solution and took several pH readings, one half hour apart. After we got the exact reading of 5.7 pH twice in a row, we knew that the solution was stable.

We allowed it to stand overnight, just to give the Barricade a chance to dissolve completely. Then we took another pH reading and made sure that our EC reading was appropriate for the week of vegetative growth that our Blue Girl and Julia’s Rose bushes were experiencing.

Finally, we drained the reservoir of the water that was put in there by mistake and replaced it with the proper nutrient solution. Luckily, no harm was done since it never hurts to irrigate our roses just with water. Then Pedro boosted the ppm a tiny bit, just to make sure that our roses would get ample food to grow and produce award-winning blooms.