Which Microscope Should you Buy for Your Greenhouse?

With new invasive species popping up, the need for growers to more closely inspect pests and damage is at an all time high. This has led to interest in on-farm pest identification.

When it comes to thrips identification, specifically, investing in a microscope is a necessary evil. But a decent microscope is now a LOT cheaper than it used to be. Here, we’ve provided a video to walk you through what features to look for.

The full post will also provide you with model numbers and links, to make microscope shopping easier!

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Updates to the Expanded Energy Management Program from Save On Energy

The Expanded Energy Management program now provides support to commercial and institutional facilities in Ontario (including Greenhouses) to improve their energy performance with energy savings opportunities in two areas:

  1. Funding for hiring an Energy Manager
  2. Strategic Energy Management: Identify and implement long-term energy-saving opportunities.

Continue reading to learn more and register here for the information webinar Wednesday June 4th, 1-2pm

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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.

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Garden Mum Refresher 2025: Insect Pest and Disease Management

In case you missed it, earlier this week we talked about nutrient management and growth regulation/tracking for garden mums.

This post will focus on which pests most often affect garden mums in Ontario, and preventative actions you may want to take. Keep reading to learn more.

A tarnished plant bug feeding on a bud of chrysanthemum, which can cause petal distortion. Photo by OMAFA.
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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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Are you developing a Product for the Agri-food Industry that uses Innovative Tech? Learn more about the CIT Cost-Share Initiative!

Don’t miss the opportunity to apply for 1:1 cost-share funding up to $100k through the Critical Industrial Technologies Initiative (CIT)! The application deadline is May 30th, 2025.

This program is geared towards small and medium-sized Ontario-based companies developing a solution or product that incorporates at least one of these six critical technologies: 5G & advanced networks, AI, Blockchain, Robotics, Cybersecurity or Quantum.

Some examples of greenhouse-specific projects that would fall under this program: robotics for planting or harvesting, AI for sorting on a production line, or 5G connected sensor systems for greenhouse monitoring.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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Introducing OMAFA’s New Floriculture Production Specialist (Permanent)

Kathryn Russell, the new Greenhouse Floriculture Specialist at OMAFA.

I’m thrilled to announce that Kathryn Russell will be joining me as my partner in crime as OMAFA’s new Greenhouse Floriculture Specialist.

She will be handling all things related to ornamental production, including nutrients, lighting, substrates, and the greater greenhouse environment. She will also be contributing to policy and programming behind the scenes.

(We hope to start a quarterly newsletter soon, to help growers in Ontario understand exactly what it is we do for you, whether we are in your greenhouse or not!)

Read on for more information about Kathryn’s experience and how to get in touch with her!

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