Attain TR How to treat your greenhouse bugs!
Learning greenhouses and bugs are synonymous. It'll always be that way. Here are a few tips and tricks to limit the amount of pest pressure on your greenhouse:
When receiving plant materials from growers it's always a good idea to open and inspect the plants somewhere besides your greenhouse. It only takes opening a case of plants with white flies in your greenhouse once to learn this lesson.
Don't go visiting greenhouses that are strange to you. (and come back to yours). My teaching buddies always want to check out each other's greenhouse. Totally fine, go on tour, but don't come home to yours without changing, or washing. You can easily spread pests to your home greenhouse. Keep yellow sticky cards and check them often. This is too much fun in a learning greenhouse. Kids can verify & quantify pest load, you take appropriate actions Treat at the first sign! My buddies and I went to a conference once, the breakout speaker said "If you've got adult white flies, it's too late, throw everything away" While we don't have to go that far you should know you have a problem before it's too bad to treat. Keep sacrificial plants! Listen, pansies and I hate each other. They just don't like me. BUT bugs love them. I keep a hanging basket of pansies to regularly inspect for bugs. They're like bug magnets! USE IPM! Lady bugs in the greenhouse are fun and eat loads of aphids, I released 50,000 once, and they headed right for the exhaust fans in front of a class of 40 students. Please read the directions and release them in the evening.
When all else fails and you still have bugs you need to treat! You can do this two ways, yourself (you must have a pesticide applicators license in an educational greenhouse), or by calling us. We treat all sorts of pests (everything but birds) in learning greenhouses. We come to you. If you want to do it yourself be sure to follow the WPS, and the PESTICIDE LABELS ARE THE LAW. One of my favorite pesticides to use is Attain TR. It does a really excellent job of taking care of business.
As always let me know if you have any comments, questions, or concerns!
-Georg