Category: Pesticides

Expired/Unwanted Pesticides on Your Farm? Mark Your Calendar for the 2025 Collection Event.

Cleanfarms

Clean Farms is an organization that has been working with communities for the past 15 to create practical recycling programs for farmers. One of these programs includes FREE collection and disposal of unwanted pesticides, which only happens every 3 years!

The collection date for the Niagara area is Monday, September 22, 2025. Make sure to read on for more details, or for other collection sites/dates near you!

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Managing Pesticide Resistance in Greenhouse Crops

With July being the beginning of poinsettia season, as well as the time growers are starting many tropical plants for next spring, it’s time to be thinking about managing pesticide resistance. Pesticide resistance readily develops in populations of key greenhouse pests, including Bemisia whitefly, spider mites, and more. So how do we avoid an uphill run on the resistance treadmill?

Hannah Fraser, Horticulture Entomologist with OMAFA, shared her decades of experience battling resistance issues in fruit crop pests in a GrowON webinar recorded last summer. For those that missed it, I thought now would be a good time to post the video on the blog. (As always, you can find all of our previous GrowON webinars on the ONFloriculture Youtube channel.) Keep reading to watch the video as well as links to other resources on resistance management.

Continue reading “Managing Pesticide Resistance in Greenhouse Crops” →

LUNA PRIVILEGE GREENHOUSE® Fungicide label expanded via Minor Use Program to help manage Botrytis blight and Powdery mildew on Greenhouse and Outdoor Ornamentals and Suppression of Powdery Mildew on Rose in Canada

This post was originally published on the ONnurserycrops blog by Cassie Russell, Nursery and Landscape Specialist for OMAFA.

Commercial ornamental growers now have another tool in the toolbox thanks to the Minor Use Program. LUNA PRIVILEGE GREENHOUSE® Fungicide label has been expanded to help growers manage powdery mildew and botrytis in greenhouse and outdoor ornamental crops. Continue reading below for an abbreviated outline of the new label.

Continue reading “LUNA PRIVILEGE GREENHOUSE® Fungicide label expanded via Minor Use Program to help manage Botrytis blight and Powdery mildew on Greenhouse and Outdoor Ornamentals and Suppression of Powdery Mildew on Rose in Canada” →

Lewis Mites 2025 – a Poinsettia Problem that’s Here to Stay?

Lewis mite damage on poinsettia. Photo by OMAFA.

Let’s face it: although Lewis mites (Eotetranychus lewisi) used to be more of a cyclical pest, this mite has been consistently bad in poinsettia the last few years. As regular Lewis mite infestations now seem to be the new normal in poinsettia, this week is the time to to start thinking about your pest control plan for Lewis mite.

Whether you choose the preventive route or the wait-and-see approach, knowing which strategies and chemicals are working is critical. Read on for tips on dipping to prevent mites along and what we learned from last year‘s chemical approaches. 

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Updates to your digital toolbox: Crop Hub

This post was written by S. Jandricic and Nicole Berardi, OMAFA’s project lead on Crop Hub.

If you are looking for pest management information, the Crop Protection Hub has you covered!

Several new features and functionalities are available for the 2025 growing season, the most exciting of which is the new “sort by efficacy” feature. This allows you to sort products by how well they work for a single or multiple selected pests.

Keep reading to see all the new features and how to use them.

Continue reading “Updates to your digital toolbox: Crop Hub” →

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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Your Yearly Explainer of Japanese Beetle Requirements: Get Those Treatments on Before May 15!

For those of you planning on shipping ornamental products out of Ontario anytime between May 15 and June 15, this is your yearly reminder to get your curative application of Acelepryn on BEFORE May 15! Recall that no pesticides are allowed when Japanese beetle (JB) pupae are present (generally, May 15-June 15 in Ontario). So, if you haven’t already curatively treated your plants that are about to go out the door (either after Aug 15 in 2024 or before May 15 2025) they may not meet shipping requirements.

For more details, check our our updated infographic for JB control products and timing to know what to apply when. Not sure if you need to treat for JB or not? This post also contains a decision tree and a quick reference table for applicable JB programs when shipping outside Ontario.

Continue reading “Your Yearly Explainer of Japanese Beetle Requirements: Get Those Treatments on Before May 15!” →

In Case You Missed It: “Scouting your Ornamental Crops like a Pro” Webinar is Now Up!

If scouting has been a challenge for you or your employees in the past, you’re a new IPM scout, or you feel like you could use a refresher, then this webinar is for you!

This recorded webinar is applicable to garden retail centres as well as ornamental and some nursery crop producers. I cover topics such as how best to spend your time, tools of the trade, what data you should be recording, as well as tips and tricks from the pros!

Continue reading “In Case You Missed It: “Scouting your Ornamental Crops like a Pro” Webinar is Now Up!” →

In Case you Missed it: UofF Webinar on Latest Thrips parvispinus Research

On March 12th, 2025, Dr. Alexandra Revynthi’s lab (University of Florida) gave an amazing update on what they’ve been working on with regards to Thrips parvispinus. A lot of this was important basic knowledge about their biology, such as development time and survival at high temperatures. There were also quite a few lab and small greenhouse trials looking at potential biocontrol agents.

Some of this will be information we build on to create effective IPM programs for Parvi in the future. But some of these findings, you could put into use right now.

You can go watch the full webinar using the link in the full blog post, or read my summary notes and see what I thought were the important take-aways.

Continue reading “In Case you Missed it: UofF Webinar on Latest Thrips parvispinus Research” →

In Case you Missed it: a Demo of Ontario’s Crop Protection Hub

Still unfamiliar with Ontario’s Crop Protection Hub (fondly referred to as “Crop Hub”) and want to know more about it? This recorded webinar tells you everything you need to know.

In this video, we’ll walk you through examples on how to:

  • Look up products for specific pests
  • Compare efficacies of pesticides and fungicides for Ontario pests
  • Look up compatibility of chemical products with natural enemies
  • Print out lists of products for a specific IPM plan

Continue to the full blog post to watch the embedded video now, or go to https://youtu.be/v2SeHnd9qY0!

Continue reading “In Case you Missed it: a Demo of Ontario’s Crop Protection Hub” →