Starting Strong with Vegetative Production

Our guest this episode is Dr. Todd Cavins. Todd is one of our technical services experts at Ball Seed and has been helping professional growers solve greenhouse production challenges for more than ten years in the field and before that was a professor at Oklahoma State University. He was actually my second guest on STEM almost a year ago and shared tons of tips and advice for getting off to a great start with plugs and seed raised young plants. If you missed the episode or hadn’t started listening to STEM yet, I’ll put a link in the show notes. Well, Todd is back in episode 25 to talk about vegetative production – Unrooted Cuttings and Liners – and how to start strong and work to ensure a top-quality saleable crop with few to no losses.

This is a very informative discussion where we cover topics including some ways to be prepared to receive and handle inputs, the importance of maintaining an optimal environment for cuttings, managing conditions that are less than ideal and the overall life of a URC. He shares tips and tricks for creating a replicable process for your production team from high tech systems for misting and computerized VPD to low tech approaches like posting pictures and specs to get everyone involved in young plant production on the same page. We spend some time discussing what to do when things start to go wrong and common times the uh-ohs happen and a reminder to go back to the five factors of plant growth when challenges pop up. Todd ends by sharing specific crops that need to be treated differently and also some of his favorite resources and go to materials if you want to dig deeper into this critical topic. This is definitely an episode you’ll want to share widely within your greenhouse team.

Check out Todd’s previous podcast episode!

STEM Episode 2: Getting Off to a Great Start

Refer back to STEM episodes on Watering:

Pt. 1 - The Language of Watering: https://stempodcast.podbean.com/e/the-language-of-watering/

Pt. 2 – Watering, The Rest of the Story: https://stempodcast.podbean.com/e/watering-the-rest-of-the-story/

Technical Resources Referenced:

• BFP TV: https://www.ballfloraplant.com/BFPTV/
• Grow a Better Liner Video Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbUnKHXk07I
• E-Gro Online Resources: http://www.e-gro.org/

 

Contact Links:

Email Guest Dr. Todd Cavins: tcavins@ballhort.com

Ball Seed Customer Relations: 1-800-879-BALL

Email Host Bill Calkins: bcalkins@ballhort.com

NEW! Connect on Instagram - @STEMGreenhousePodcast

Tweet Host Bill Calkins: @billcalkins

Connect with Ball Seed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ball-seed-co/

Follow The Gardens at Ball on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GardensAtBall/

See Ball Seed Videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BallSeedVideo