2025 Poinsettia Refresher: Practical Tips for a Tough Crop

Christmas in July? Not quite, but poinsettias are making their way into greenhouses across Ontario, and they always arrive at the hottest time of the year. Nutritional issues, environmental stress and PGR mistakes can all be costly in this high-value crop. Read on for production tips and how to manage this seasonal favourite in the greenhouse.

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Garden Mum Refresher 2025: Managing Nutrients, Size Tracking, and PGRs

This post was contributed to by OMAFA’s Greenhouse Floriculture Production Specialists past and present: Kathryn Russell, Abigail Wiesner, and Dr. Chevonne Dayboll.

As we feel temperatures rising, summer is on its way – and so are garden mums! Although generally an easy crop, there are several tweaks you can make to help save headaches AND money. This post has updated information to help you optimize your nutrient management and growth regulation/tracking in garden mum production.

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Producing Million Bells – 2025 Update

Content contributions from Chevonne Dayboll.

With Million Bells (Calibrachoa) having filled up the greenhouse, it’s a great time to revisit our production practices and explore new ideas. This post contains some back to the basic’s information and new innovations for our favourite spring crop.

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Strategic Solutions for Substrate Success!

This post was originally written by Abigail Wiesner, Acting Greenhouse Floriculture Production Specialist.

For the last few decades, growers in North America have been reading headlines about the steady decline of peat used for horticultural purposes across multiple European countries. With Canadian sources of peat, and trade primarily between the United States, local growers haven’t been severely affected by global changes in peat use and reduction trajectories.

Even though Canadian growers haven’t seen the same reduction of peat use in the local market, it doesn’t mean we can’t learn from Europe’s goals, decisions, and success stories.

Read on to learn about the benefits of trialing new components for your media mixes.

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Deficiencies Got You Down?

This post was originally written by Abigail Wiesner, Acting Greenhouse Floriculture Production Specialist, with contributions from Chevonne Dayboll.

As we move through production for fall and winter crops a refresher for nutrient deficiencies feels appropriate.

No matter where you are in a cropping cycle, nutrition problems can be tricky to figure out. The good thing is they can be differentiated from disease or pest issues based on a few key observations:

  • If the damage is uniform and crop wide, it’s most likely a nutritional issue
  • If the damage is localized or more random, it’s most likely a disease or pest issue

Keep reading to learn more about different nutrient deficiencies and how to spot them in poinsettias and other crops.

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In Case you Missed it, GrowON Presents: How to use Light Spectral Combinations to Steer Plants

In case you missed the recent GrowON presentation on July 22nd, by Dr. Youbin Zheng (University of Guelph) we’ve now uploaded to YouTube!

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