Heath Canada’s Pesticide Compliance Program (PCP) is responsible for promoting safe use of chemicals, as well as monitoring and enforcement, to make sure registered fungicides, insecticides and other agricultural chemicals are used according with their legal label.
As several greenhouses (both vegetable and ornamental) have undergone random inspections in 2025, it’s good to be aware of this federal program, and what an inspection could look like.
While chatting with various growers and IPM technical reps this year, I realized some in Ontario aren’t familiar with the American Floral Endowment’s (AFE) Grow Pro Webinar Series. This is an excellent series that shares floriculture research funded by AFE, as well as other topics.
Previous webinars have focused on things like thrips and botrytis control, biostimulants, growing in reduced-peat substrates, and more.
A webinar I’ll recommend for January is one on oomycete pathogens, like Pythium and Phytophthora:
| Ruh Roh, Root Rot! Managing Oomycete Pathogens in Floriculture Production Speaker: Dr. Johanna Del Castillo, UC Davis Tuesday, January 20th at 1PM EST Oomycete pathogens remain a persistent threat in floriculture production, causing significant losses when conditions tip in their favor. In this webinar, Dr. Del Castillo will dive into the biology of Pythium and Phytophthora, how to diagnose root rot issues, and the most effective management approaches. Attendees will gain actionable strategies to improve root-zone health and reduce disease pressure in their operations. When you’re thinking “ruh roh,” it’s already too late—join us to get ahead of root rot and outsmart oomycete pathogens. |
You can find out more about previous webinar recordings, upcoming webinars and registration (it’s free!) using this link: https://endowment.org/growpro
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!
Continue reading “Expired/Unwanted Pesticides on Your Farm? Mark Your Calendar for the 2025 Collection Event.”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.
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”
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.
Continue reading “Lewis Mites 2025 – a Poinsettia Problem that’s Here to Stay?”
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”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.
Continue reading “Garden Mum Refresher 2025: Managing Nutrients, Size Tracking, and PGRs”
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!”
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!”