Improving plant shelf life with fungicides
{Sponsored} Due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, many independent greenhouses and nurseries have had to adjust their daily business operations — including how to better prepare plants for shipping, unexpectedly long shelf life and stress management.
A 450-acre nursery in the Houston, Texas area, Creekside Nursery uses a handful of BASF products to help prepare their plants for the pre-shipping process, as well as to aid in stress management. Leonila Labrada, the technical services manager at Creekside, said the nursery uses three main products — Empress® 
Intrinsic® brand fungicide in propagation, Pageant® Intrinsic® brand fungicide for downy mildew and, just recently, Orkestra® Intrinsic® brand fungicide.
“We start baby plants with Empress [Intrinsic brand] fungicide, which works well for props,” Labrada said. “Then either Orkestra® (Intrinsic brand) fungicide or Pageant® (Intrinsic brand) fungicide, depending on the disease, every two-to-three weeks. We have to have a pretty good rotation. (We don’t use) the same active ingredient every few weeks because of resistance … depends more on the disease.”
When used properly, the Intrinsic brand fungicides can help greenhouses and nurseries mitigate some of their more recent issues, like inventory and preparing for shipment. Labrada said using the products routinely, and in a rotation, can help with treatment and prevention of key diseases such as anthracnose, downy or powdery mildew, rot, blight and more.
“I would say that (retailers) should give application rotation to keep the plants healthy,” Labrada said. “Rotation as a suggestion to take care of them and stay healthy … (providing) some sort of care, treatment or prevention, for products.”
When preparing plants that will be in stores, Labrada said that utilizing
Pageant Intrinsic brand fungicide and Orkestra Intrinsic brand fungicide can help with the longevity of the plants’ shelf life by using the products up until the plants head into the nursery. And an added benefit of utilizing the Intrinsic brand family of fungicides? Labrada said they feel it not only helps with disease prevention, but also creates stronger, more robust plants.
“(Using the products) makes the plants stronger, I feel. If we start with Empress Intrinsic brand fungicide, they start really strong … lots of roots,” Labrada said. “Then we start the other rotations, making plants less susceptible to diseases and pests – (it creates) more robust plants.”
Empress Intrinsic brand fungicide helps protect young, susceptible plants from root-infecting pathogens, and can be used as a drench application in the plug, rooted cuttings and transplant stages of production. It helps protect plants from major root diseases, resulting in an enhanced growth efficiency and stronger roots.
Orkestra Intrinsic brand fungicide is intended for mid-production use and helps provide fast, long-acting control of foliar and soilborne diseases in nursery and greenhouse operations. Utilizing two modes of action, Orkestra Intrinsic brand fungicide is an effective form of disease control and offers many plant health benefits, including improved plant resilience to stressors like disease, cold, heat, drought and shipping.
Pageant Intrinsic brand fungicide helps nursery and greenhouse operations to achieve exceptional disease control and plant health throughout the propagation, production, finish operation and shipping stages. Pageant Intrinsic brand fungicide also helps provide a broad-spectrum of superior disease control and helps produce consistent, high-quality plant growth.
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