February March 2018

9 At her nursery, all B&B trees tend to come in when there is still a threat of extremely cold temperatures. Trees on refrigerated trucks have more stable temperatures and are more protected than ones that arrive on flatbed trucks. One yearly shipment of conifers that ships on a flatbed always seems to come over I-70 when it is snowing. Even though covered with a tarp, the trees are always splattered with mag chloride when they arrive and need to be rinsed off with a hose to avoid damage. Dantino can’t remember a time when any dead plants arrived. Other than damage in transit, some plants arrive dry and have to be watered immediately. Very rarely do ugly plugs and liners come in that are rejected and require replacements. Disease and pest issues are also rare. “Generally, if it’s something we can treat with success, then we’ll pull it off to the side and treat it here. We might get a small amount of credit from a vendor to pay for chemicals and labor. If it’s a viburnum or other plant that we know will completely defoliate and not be viable if sprayed, we will reject them and ask for a full credit,” she said. Disease & pest issues, temperature damage & shortages Austin of Dutch Heritage Gardens said the most common greenhouse plant pests he sees are the smaller insects like spider mites, thrips, white flies and fungus gnats. “Those are hard to scout for on products going out, and there’s not really a systemic pesticide or treatment for them, so they tend to hitchhike the most,” he said. It seems like every year a different supplier ships a virus or bacteria that is hard to detect early. Spring is when everyone is shipping the most product, and contaminated plants show up more often because they slip by. “A lot of times products like unrooted cutting material are ordered from an international producer from somewhere like Africa or Guatemala. They are constantly testing the mother stock, and if they do come back with positive test results, they look at all shipments for that week and notify us about the potential problem with that shipment. They do a pretty good job of tracking and usually notify us before it arrives so we can throw it away immediately,” he said. His greenhouse began implementing a new protocol last year to head off pest and disease issues with unrooted cuttings. Adopting the practice learned at a grower summit from Battlefield Farms in Virginia, the greenhouse dips the whole cutting into a rooting hormone and organic solution that covers the entire plant, sterilizing it and killing eggs and insects before planting in the greenhouse. It’s easier and more effective than spraying later, and can be done during the transplanting process. But, the more common shipping issues that he sees are temperature damage, physical breakage and shortages where the shipment contains less than the number purchased. “Shortages are rare, but we still have to check for them,” he explained. All of the physical damage to plants is caused by how they were loaded. Damage can happen when plants are packed too tightly, too loose or not secured. Soil on the floor of the truck is a big red flag that you should check for damage. Wilted, droopy, burned, or frozen leaves from cold and heat damage are usually the biggest issues. Heat is not as big of an issue in Colorado as other states like Texas, but can still be a problem in non-refrigerated trucks if plants are touching the inside walls that are heated by the sun. More sensitive products like poinsettias and young plants need the protection of refrigerated trucks, or at least well-insulated boxes with cooling packs, to avoid temperature swings, said Austin, adding that watering well before shipping also helps ensure delivery of healthy plants. “You can spend eight weeks growing a product and it can take just eight seconds during shipping to destroy it,” he concluded. Brian Austin, Dutch Heritage Gardens Head Grower Damaged cuttings: left, upon arrival; right, after planting Three Steps to Reducing & Addressing Shipping Issues colorad o nga.org LooseLeaf February/March 2018