Hillsborough County Nursery Seeking Grower

A Hillsborough County Nursery is looking for a woody ornamental grower with the following credentials.  If you or someone you know is interested please email Shawn Steed at UF/IFAS Extension Hillsborough County.

-          Self-Starter

-          Organized

-          Knowledge of woody ornamentals

-          Develop a crop/nursery maintenance program

o   Knowledge of chemicals – When and where to use them

o   Knowledge of pests/insects – Scout regularly and know how to identify them.

o   Knowledge of fungus/bacteria

o   Knowledge of herbicides and seasonal weeds

o   Assist in conducting training programs to protect workers involved in pest/fungus/weed control. 

o    Direct all aspects of nursery production

o   Assist in managing inventory and availability – input on when and what to pot up when inventory is getting low

o   Knowledge of planting, pruning, fertilizing, and weeding, AND having the ability to direct others in these activities.

o   Provide direction to other employees and process the ability to train or teach others along the way

o   Assist in purchasing and receiving raw materials, and step up material by communicating with us on what and when you need something for production.  This includes procurement of products such as fertilizer, chemicals, pots, soil, etc.  

-          Knowledge of human resource issues in the production area – conscience of practices that are unsafe and harmful to all employees involved

-          Ability to coordinate equipment needs/service and maintenance. 

-          Assist in daily sales, and coordinate pulling orders correctly.  This includes being able to direct other employees to help in this process.

-          Oversee all orders for delivery to ensure the right plants and quantities are pulled. 

-          Knowledge of loading trucks and how to organize multiple orders on one truck.  

Important Nursery Insurance Meeting 6/27/17

This important message from FNGLA to growers who have nursery crop insurance...

A significant meeting is set for Tuesday, June 27 for Florida's nursery growers to share your frustrations with the federal nursery crop insurance policy and what's needed to improve the policy. USDA's Risk Management Agency (RMA) recently awarded a contract to conduct research and obtain information for a proposed new alternative nursery crop insurance policy. The proposal is the direct result of FNGLA's persistent multi-year push to overhaul the existing policy, in part, by eliminating most of the upfront burdens such as price lists, Datascape plant values, and plant inventory inspections at time of application. If adopted by RMA, the new policy crafted by FNGLA allows you to select a level of insurance coverage which makes business sense for your nursery. Sales records will need to be produced only at times of loss.

The meeting is 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the Palm Beach County Extension Exhibit Hall B located at 559 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach 33415. RMA is requiring "listening sessions" be held throughout the country so input can be gathered from nursery growers. This grower session will be followed by a 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. "listening session" for Florida crop insurance agents and insurance company representatives. If you are upset with crop insurance coverage at time of loss, or believe the paperwork and plant inventory inspections at time of application are overly burdensome, then please attend this crucial June 27 meeting! If you're happy with the policy, RMA needs to hear that too.

Since Florida's growers purchase the lion's share of the nation's nursery crop insurance policies, FNGLA pushed for three sessions to be held (one each in North, Central and South Florida). Nonetheless, June 27 will be the only Florida session. So, it's important lots of nursery growers show up from all across our state! This is an opportunity to voice your concerns with the existing policy! To make it easy for you, FNGLA will have available at the meeting a one-pager of suggested talking points to help you drive home the need to overhaul the current nursery crop insurance policy. If you plan to attend, yet have not let FNGLA know, please do so ASAP by emailing info@fngla.org. If crop insurance is important to your nursery, then you need to be with us on June 27!

Flumioxazin Plant Injury

Dr. Nathan Boyd, weed scientist at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center and I have been working on tropical ornamental crop tolerances to preemergent herbicides as part of an FNGLA research grant.  He sent this picture of firebush BoradStar herbicide damage to me and thought I would share.  BroadStar can be applied to ornamental plants growing in containers, the field and in landscapes.  Mild spotting is a common reaction of tolerant plants with symptoms showing up 1-2 days after application.  Do not apply BroadStar to wet foliage, stressed plants, or some plants that can funnel the herbicide into leaf bases.  Below is his description of what is going on.

The active ingredient in BroadStar is flumioxazin.  This herbicide is a PPO inhibitor that is generally applied preemergence (before weeds emerge).  It can, however, damage plants when the herbicide comes in contact with green foliage.  When applied preemergence, the emerging seedling absorbs the herbicide and subsequently dies when the shoot is exposed to light.  Flumioxazin can also be absorbed by the root system of larger plants.  When this occurs the roots generally are not damaged as they are not exposed to light and do not contain chlorophyll.  Flumioxazin can travel through from the roots to the leaves.  Once it reaches the leaves where it is exposed to light the veins turn purple and die.  Leaf death follows soon afterwards.  Symptoms of flumioxazin damage include, purpling of the veins in the leaf, purpling or tissue death moving from the veins outward.

Nurseries Seek Forming Peer Group

A few wholesale nursery businesses are seeking interest from other nurseries to develop a peer group to evaluate production and financial aspects of operating a nursery business.  Some of the benefits that belonging to this group could be nursery visits, production chain evaluation, production finish times, finding inefficiencies in  production, financial benchmarking, finding future research and education needs to solve common industry problems,  having peers to network with to solve issues and cost/waste savings.  If you are interested in having a introductory discussion about developing a nursery production peer group please email Shawn Steed at ststeed@ufl.edu.