Location: Application Technology Research
Project Number: 5082-21000-001-106-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2024
End Date: Aug 31, 2025
Objective:
1) Determine the technical and financial benefits of automated irrigation in commercial greenhouses producing ornamental crops.
2) Evaluate alternatives to reduce the rooting time of unrooted cuttings and cropping time of container-grown ornamentals in greenhouses.
3) Evaluate the compatibility of water treatment technologies and microbial-based biofungicides.
Approach:
We will estimate the potential technical and financial benefits of implementing automated irrigation in commercial greenhouses producing ornamental crops. We will track or estimate labor hours (full-time equivalents), water (gal), and fertilizer (kg) to fertigate container-grown ornamentals and the cost of each. The outcomes of this project are expected to help inform growers about the feasibility of implementing automated irrigation in greenhouses to produce container-grown ornamentals.
We will evaluate if application timing and rate of single,combined mineral and hormonal-based sugar translocators will reduce rooting time and improve quality of plugs. Sugar translocators will be applied to unrooted cuttings at different stages of adventitious root formation and then the quality of the plugs will be assessed over time to determine if the timing to produce a finished plug is affected. The quality of plugs and production costs of each treatment will be estimated for each treatment and compared.
We will evaluate the effect of water treatments (e.g., chlorine-based products, UV, activated peroxygens) on the survival of microorganisms from microbial inoculants (i.e., biofungicides) in water and the efficacy of the biofungicide to control root-rot in young plants and mature plants.
