This Canadian greenhouse, established in 1907, currently grows geraniums, begonias, kalanchoes and several bedding plants that are being supplied to independent garden centers in the USA and Canada. Since the 80's cleanliness has been very important to their company. "In the early days, geraniums had terrible bacterial infection problems and we therefore introduced a clean stock programme. One of the pillars of this programme is to make sure that you use proper sanitaton to maintain that cleanliness and that you do not re-infect the geraniums that have been cleaned through lavatory techniques. So, since those days, we have been following various processes and it has become an extremely fundamental part of our business."
Vétoquinol Canada interviewing Lou Schenck.
One of the things they are often being asked is what they notice about the clean stock procedures, cleaning and sanitizing. According to Schenck, they notice that they are not having any issues anymore with these common diseases. There have been lots of incidences in other greenhouses where they have not done a proper job of sanitizing and they ran into problems, especially in geraniums, but in other crops like begonias and chrysanthemums too. It is now really integrated in our total approach of growing plants in our greenhouses.
And how are the insects being controlled at Schenck Greenhouses? "We combine biological control with a limited use of insecticide, only where biological products have not proved to be effective. We are scouting and monitoring for pests on a weekly basis and trying to incorporate various biological controls, predatory mites, parasitic wasps, nematodes and fungus to help us to control insects. And this is again an integrated approach using a lot of different methodology to try to eliminate and eventually prevent by different insects." The primary insect that Schenck is trying to control is the Western Flower Trips. "It can cause an awful lot of damage in pot mums, garden mums, gerberas and Ivy geraniums which is an important part of our business.
Are there any other bacterial and viruses that can be harmful for your crop? A bacterial infection that we are primarily concerned about is Xanthomonas pelargonii. It is extremely lethal to geraniums begoniae. And another bacteria, called zentemones begoneye is lethal to begonias. Some viruses that we are concerned about are TNV and INSV. By sanitation, we try to make sure that we do not run into problems with those bacterial and virus diseases.
For more information
Schenck Farms & Greenhouses
www.schenckfarms.com
Vetoquinol SA
BP 189
70204 Lure cedex
France
www.vetoquinol.com