Keep it clean

Remember the old saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?” It certainly fits today’s plant growing industry.

The cornerstone of a successful growing operation is proper sanitation. From benches and floors, to tools and equipment, and from employees to plants, a clean organization will boost crop quality and keep customers coming back. The family of BioWorks products prevents and controls diseases and insect pests in a cost-effective and safe manner.

Sustainable production practices are important to an increasing number of growers, retail garden centers and consumers, and BioWorks products answer the needs of environmentally conscious growers. Many are certified by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI), which denotes they are approved for organic production in the United States. All BioWorks products have low REIs.

Give your plants a healthy start and keep them clean throughout the production cycle.

Protect the roots

To ensure a healthy, attractive crop, start at the bottom – with the roots. Provide longterm protection against root diseases with RootShield® on stock plants, in propagation, on cuttings or on finished plants. RootShield applied in a preventive manner protects roots from several pathogens including, Pythium, Fusarium, Rhizoctonia and Thielaviopsis. It’s available in granular form or a wettable powder and contains spores of Trichoderma harzianum strain T-22, which colonizes the root hairs, root surfaces, branching sites and callus tissue.

Within 24 hours of applying RootShield, the spores germinate and begin to grow on and around the root system, forming a shield to protect the plant. As it grows, RootShield releases enzymes that dissolve the cell walls of fungal pathogens. It grows on the roots within a pH range of 4-8 and at soil temperatures of 48° to 97°.

With its very low toxicity profile, Root- Shield has a 0-hour REI and it’s cost effective because it reduces or eliminates the need for chemical fungicide applications. Both Root- Shield formulations are OMRI Listed.

“Growing with RootShield resulted in a tremendous difference in our crop,” said Doug Andrews of Alex R. Masson in New Mexico. “Roots were thicker, whiter and more vigorous than I can remember.” RootShield WP is easily applied through many means, including an injector with a watering wand, an overhead boom, watering tunnels, a Chapin® tube system, drip tape or emitter systems, sprayers and ebb-andflood systems. The granular version may be blended into growing media and field soil or top dressed. RootShield is compatible with all bark, coir, peat-based and soil-less mixes. A RootShield application will protect your crop for approximately 10-12 weeks. A second application, which can be made at half-rate, provides extended protection. A second application may be used on longterm crops when growers shift-up plants to a larger container, when a crop comes out of dormancy or during extended periods of plant stress.

For more information on foliar protection and fighting fungal and bacterial pathogens, click here to read the rest of the BioWorks white paper.