Today's Grower - Greenhouse Blog

It turns out that the 1960s activists who chanted "flower power" were onto something important, in more ways than they probably knew. Flowers, just like peace, are good for our mental health.

Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day, which aims to raise awareness of mental health issues and end the stigma that surrounds them. Mental health issues such as depression affect not only the individuals, but those around them as well, and it’s important to recognize these as we would a physical illness.

A while back we talked about why color sells plants, I’d like to revisit this idea and talk more about floriculture trends and ideas on how you can stay ahead. Color trends within the industry seems to be a key step in keeping up to date and with Pantone officially releasing their colors of the year for 2016, many businesses should start taking note especially in the floriculture and cut flower industry where color trends tend to filter through from home interior design and weddings.

The unavoidable is upon us; heating season! As unpleasant as it may be for all growers, winter is a fact of life and it must be considered. Heating costs during the cold winter months are of prime concern - here is a quick checklist to maximize the efficiency of your greenhouse heating system:

There is a current trend that has caused more and more commercial greenhouse growers to switch their oil and propane powered boilers to biomass systems. The factors that are leading to such changes are simple: in areas where natural gas is not accessible, the options of oil, propane or electricity to heat a commercial greenhouse are becoming far too expensive, in some cases there is a biomass supply close to the greenhouse location, and there has been growing government incentive toward sustainability.

Although we have generally experienced a milder winter so far, in the new year we can expect the weather to turn much colder and field crop farmers are likely to be looking for solutions to help protect their yields.

High Tunnels like the GGS Crop Protector are used by growers for this very reason. Though not a load bearing house ( ie. It is not designed to hold snow or support a crop ), these crop protectors are designed to cover crops in shoulder seasons when frost damage can dramatically affect a farmer’s bottom line.