jill's-hydro-roses

previously carnations-by-jill

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Summer Supplements and Scientific Studies

I consider myself the luckiest woman in the world. Pedro is a very considerate and refined partner. He knows when I need companionship, but he also senses when I need to be alone.

That, however, is not why I call myself lucky. I can go into any one of our three glasshouses and marvel at the sea of fragrant blooms, each even more delicately beautiful then the next. I love Roses with a newfound passion, which far surpasses the emotional bond that I used to have with my carnations.

Now that the Rust episode is behind us and I have learned to live with the elongated stems of our Granada and Ambience Roses, things seem to have quieted down for summer. Pedro is experimenting with various products to see how we can grow even better Roses for the marketplace.

For instance, the Eric’s Red and Kardinal Roses growing in our Red Rose Greenhouse are issuing forth bloom after bloom, thanks to the feeding regimen that Pedro has designed.

Based on our 100% fish-based organic fertilizers, Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, the weekly nutrient mix in the reservoirs of our multi-bucket hydroponic systems also contains other products of Pedro’s choosing.

Starting with the basic mix suggested by the Advanced Nutrients Nutrient Calculator, Pedro has added Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract, in order to provide our Roses with the natural hormones contained therein.

Auxins, Gibberlins, and Cytokinins are natural hormones that are found in sea kelp. They aid in cell division, nutrient transport, root formation, flower production, and general growth. They are being discussed all over the Internet as a very useful tool for budding horticulturalists.

Another product that Pedro is experimenting with is Very High Output (VHO) which seems to help in elongating the stems of our Roses, making them that much more attractive as cut-flowers.

Originally marketed by Advanced Nutrients as a product to feed mother plants in the cloning process, it was tried on Roses with quite of bit of success. It does make the stems longer, so Pedro is excited about using it. We were told this by an Advanced Nutrients technical person. They’re always ready to provide good advice, no matter what your problem is as a grower.

Potassium silicate is another thing that excites Pedro. He researched Roses on the web and found out about this study that proved that feeding your Kardinal Roses 100 ppm of potassium silicate helped to immunize them against certain pathogens and pests.

This study was conducted by the Horticulture and Crop Science Department of the California Polytechnic State University. “Based on statistical analysis, silicon had a positive effect on the length of stems of Kardinal Roses.” Silicon also imparts more resistance to pests and diseases.

Barricade is potassium silicate and Pedro was reinforced in his belief that by making the cell walls of our Roses thicker, this AN product helps us tremendously in producing flawless buds and blooms, unblemished by parasitical attacks of any kind. Now he found out that it also helps in elongating the stems of our Roses.

Emerald Shaman does not appear on the recommended products list on the Nutrient Calculator, but it got Pedro’s attention when he was perusing the Advancedpedia. “In ancient China they knew about using fermented vegetable matter to make plants grow,” he commented.

Emerald Shaman contains 88 thoroughly fermented certified-organic herbs, vegetables, and fruits. By feeding these to our Roses, Pedro is promoting their growth through the use of bioactive components that energize them.

The nutrients and enzymes in Emerald Shaman work on the cellular level to accelerate cellular activity, boost root functions, strengthen immune systems, and act as a general tonic for our Roses.

I think Pedro is right. Our wonderful Hybrid Tea Roses all look more perky and abundant since he started using Emerald Shaman. He feeds them through the leaves with this product, but it can also be applied through the roots.

Now that all our Roses are in flower, Pedro is regularly including Sensi Cal Bloom in the nutrient mix. The chelated micronutrients in this product include five different forms of Calcium, an essential ingredient since we grow in coco coir.

For some reason this grow medium requires an extra boost of Calcium—I guess it leaches this element out and it needs to be replaced. At least that’s what I heard Pedro say.

For standalone application of Sensi Cal Bloom 1.25 mL per Liter is suggested. However, Pedro has devised a complicated mathematical formula by which he can add certain quantities of extra ingredients into the nutrient mix suggested by the Nutrient Calculator and still end up with the optimum parts per million for each week’s worth of nutrient solution.

I suggested using Bud Blood, Big Bud, and Overdrive to maximize the size of our Roses, but Pedro insisted on keeping things organic, so we’re using Colossal Bud Blast instead.

Usually administered as a foliar spray, Colossal Bud Blast can also be added to the roots of our Roses. It aids in the absorption of organic nutrients and hormones, which in turn stimulate floral growth.

Colossal Bud Blast contains biostimulants from natural sources, in a synergistic blend with surfactants and natural chelators. I used to use it for my carnations and won many a prize with my blooms because of it.

Another study that Pedro came across recently has to do with our choice of grow medium. Conducted by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, it pitted two grow media against each other. Half the young Kardinal Rose plants were grown in a bark-peat-sand mix, the other half in coconut coir.

The study concentrated on water availability to the roots, as reflected in specific transpiration rates, stomatal conductance, and the specific growth rate of each plant.

Load cells were used to gravimetrically measure the transpiration rate of the plants. The specific transpiration rate (STR) was calculated using this data and taking total leaf area into account.

“The STR and stomatal conductance were also determined using a steady-state porometer,” explained Pedro, but he lost me at that point. Luckily, I had my laptop handy, so I punched up “porometer” and discovered that you can’t find every single technical term easily in online dictionaries.

I presume a porometer has something to do with the porousness of a leaf’s surface so I left it at that. I was only interested in hearing what the result of the test was, not every minute detail.

The yield (the number of flowers produced) by the coir grown plants was 19% higher than in those grown in the bark-peat-sand mixture, and that was good enough for me. There’s nothing like a thorough study to confirm that you were right in the first place.

posted by Jill @ 11:09 PM   0 comments

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Rust Never Sleeps, Pedro Gets Up at Dawn

Those who have spent any time in the Toronto area during summer know that this region is famous for its high humidity. Even though the full extent of hot, sunny days, and humid, muggy nights haven’t arrived yet, the forecast for next week is temperatures in the thirties (Celsius) and night-time humidity going up to eighty percent.

Pedro is back, checking and double checking all the details of our growing different varieties of Hybrid Tea Roses in our three, custom-built glasshouses. One day last week I decided to leave him completely in charge of our Command Bunker to give me time to go into Toronto and do some shopping.

I got an emergency call on my cell just as I was digging into a low-calorie lunch at a Yorkville bistro. Pedro sounded really upset. He discovered some Rose Rust on our Blue Girl Roses. Needless to say, I skipped lunch and drove immediately back to Mississauga.

Blue Girl is a delicately beautiful lavender Rose (so far rose hybridizers have been unsuccessful in producing a truly blue rose). I knew that it was susceptible to Black Spot, but now it seems that it is also prone to Rust.

Caused by a number of species of the fungus Phragmidium, Rose Rust is widespread in the western United States, but it also makes the occasional appearance in the Midwest, as well as Canada (it now seems).

The first signs of Rose Rust are bright orange, powdery pustules on the underside of leaves. Eventually, yellow-to-orange-colored spots appear on the top side of leaves, thus accounting for the name of the disease.

Stems could also be affected, and so could sepals, if our plants were already in flower and had calyxes. As it is, they are still in the vegetative stage, so Pedro caught this fungal infection early enough, before it ruined our crop and made our cut-flowers unmarketable.

If the disease is left untreated, the reddish orange pustules will multiply on the leaves. These are reproductive structures called uredia, according to my research on Google. I punched up Rose Rust on my laptop in the car, and looked for it stuck in a jam on the 401.

Different cultivars of roses react differently to Rust. Some lose all their leaves just after one pustule, some go on producing flowers. Other may wilt in the middle of summer. Since cool, moist weather is necessary for the fungus to spread, during the hot, dry summer months there is little chance of it spreading.

I was breathless as I rushed into Glasshouse Number One to see the damage for myself. Pedro was removing the infected leaves and reprimanding the staff member who allowed the humidity in this greenhouse to rise above eighty percent during the night.

Even though we use Barricade and Scorpion Juice religiously, and we also spray with horticultural oil and baking soda during alternate weeks, somehow the high humidity allowed the fungus to grow during these hot, humid nights.

A de-humidifier should have kicked in during the escalation of humidity, but it was disconnected from the system. The staff member is question unplugged it to service it, then forgot to plug it back in.

It was a compendium of human error and Pedro unceremoniously dismissed the staff member from our employ. “He should have realized that the de-humidifier was not working just by glancing at the board in the Bunker,” said Pedro, still visibly upset.

“If I catch anyone else napping while they’re on duty, I’ll fire them faster than Donald Trump,” said my partner. He can’t stomach incompetence. “Should I spray with Protector?” he asked.

“Protector is primarily designed for Powdery Mildew,” I answered. “But it wouldn’t hurt to immunize our Blue Girl plants against that fungus also,” said I.

A few days later Pedro sprayed all our Roses with the horticultural oil and baking powder solution. “I don’t want to burn Sulphur just yet,” he said, “but if any more fungal infections crop up, I might have to.”

Since the Blue Girl plants were shocked by the invasion of this insidious fungus, Pedro decided to treat them with No Shock, which he had on hand for transplanting seedlings.

No Shock contains Vitamin B-1 (Thiamine Hydrochloride), Fulvic Acid, Mono Potassium Phosphate, and Urea. It is a well-proven product designed to aid plants in overcoming transplant shocks and other forms of stress. Fulvic Acid helps with nutrient circulation, so plants bounce back much faster with this treatment, than untreated plants.

How did the fungus get into our greenhouse in the first place? That is a very good question, and Pedro suspects the fired staff member of moonlighting at a rival greenhouse and bringing it in on his clothing.

As with other fungal infestations, removing all infected leaves is the first remedy. Make sure to clean up any fallen leaves or debris on the floor of the greenhouse. Also, if any pustules from on stems or canes, they must be pruned back to their healthy parts.

Burning sulphur leaves a sticky residue on plants and is not always effective. Feeding your Roses a healthy diet (ours consists of Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, Humic and Fulvic Acids, Organic B, Sensi Zym, as well as the root colonizers Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice) goes a long way toward making sure that they stay healthy and provide you with beautifully fragrant blooms.

Pedro also includes Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract in the nutrient mix of all three greenhouses. He swears that the auxins, gibberlins, and cytokinins that occur naturally in kelp help our Roses with root formation, cell division (growth), and nutrient distribution. These hormones are widely cited on the Internet as the secret weapons of expert horticulturalists.

Pedro also sprays all of our growing Rose plants with Colossal Bud Blast. He discovered in the Advanced Nutrients Advancedpedia that this product is a flower enhancer that can be used even during the vegetative stage of blooming plants.

Consisting of a base-tea extracted from seaweed, alfalfa, potassium phosphate, bat guano and azomite, Colossal Bud Blast also features 22 L-amino acids which are designed to intensify the growth of plant tissues. Azomite is a natural source of minerals and trace elements.

Pedro gets up at the crack of dawn and before any artificial light is turned on in the greenhouses, he goes around spraying both the topside and the underside of each leaf with Colossal Bud Blast.

For the best absorption of foliar nutrients, you must spray early in the day and turn off any HID illumination. During intense light, whether coming from the sun or high intensity lighting, the stomata of the leaves close up and the product is wasted.

The heat of the day also causes the liquid Colossal Bud Blast solution to dry out, increasing its salinity and leaving brown spots on our Rose leaves. Pedro avoids this by waking up early.

I’m really happy to have my partner back and we’ll be interviewing for some more reliable staff in order to avoid any mishaps in the future.

posted by Jill @ 3:29 PM   0 comments