With Welsh garden centres opening their doors, and English and Scottish centres predicted to follow suit later this week or next, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel for production nurseries, says ICL’s technical area sales manager, Ian Todd.
“With many retail outlets having been closed for almost two months and alternatives routes to market limiting levels of business for most nurseries, now is the time to optimise herbaceous nursery stock to take full advantage of these welcome opportunities,” he says. “The weather has generally been good and customers are crying out for plants and compost to enable them to garden and get out of the house. Remember, customers buy with their eyes and good quality is essential.”
With this in mind, Ian offers several options to help maintain and optimise herbaceous nursery stock to protect growers’ investments.
Crop walk
He advises starting with a crop walk. “This overview lets you see what’s looking good, what needs cutting back and / or requires additional feeding and maintenance,” he says. “While doing this, also be on the lookout for pests and diseases. It’s easy for these problems to go undetected, especially in the middle of nursery stock beds.”
Watering
“An everyday process normally, water can easily be overlooked in these challenging times,” Ian warns. “Be on the lookout for dry areas, outside rows on beds have a higher water demand and bear in mind conditions have been quite dry.
“Pots that have been left dry for a period of time may need some help,” says Ian. “An application of H2Gro wetting and water conservation agent will help insure consistent wetting throughout the whole pot. This not only aids nutrient availability but will also help improve shelf life – which could be prudent with possible reduced staffing levels in some garden centres.”
Feeding
As the season has been effectively pushed back a couple of months, stock that should normally have already left the nursery, may be running out of nutrients.
“Universol Blue, a balanced water-soluble product for steady growth, provides a cost-effective way to maintain crop quality,” he says. “To improve plant size and to get good leaf colour, I recommend a high nitrogen feed, while to promote compact growth and flowering apply a high potassium feed - such as Universol Violet.”
In situations where growers are looking to nurture plants for between two to five months, Ian recommends a simple one-time top dress fertilizer application. “As temperatures warm up, using a topdress fertilizer based on a controlled release technology (CRF) gives greater crop safety and better results than more traditional products based on slow release,” he explains. “Depending on the growth type required, ICL offers several mini granular CRF topdress options. For more information, speak to your Technical Area Sales Manager.”
For more information:
ICL Group
www.icl-sf.co.uk