Equipment Every Greenhouse Should Have

by John Erwin

Professor, Department of Horticultural Science

University of Minnesota

How many times would you like to know your pH and EC immediately to decide what to fertilize with at that moment? What is your plant temperature? Is your media temperature what you think it is? Do you have a virus in your crop? Are your lights positioned to give you the amount of light you need for night break lighting or supplemental lighting? What temperatures did your plants get exposed to during shipping? New instruments available on today can answer these questions.

Disease/Virus Detection

Any propagator should have a way to quickly determine if there is virus and/or bacteria present in their crop. Such tests should be done on a routine basis during cutting production whenever any symptoms are present. Of course, a lab is best, but new testing solutions available today are very accurate and give you the answer within hours and have testing resolution comparable to many labs. In fact, some labs use these new kits from themselves! Agdia has testing strips available for determining whether most of the common virus and bacteria that afflict many greenhouse crops are present. They are very accurate, very specific, and easy to use. Additional information can be found at their Web site:

Agdia:

http://www.agdia.com/