Greenhouse growers across New Hampshire have a new digital friend in an application designed by UNH Cooperative Extension’s Cheryl Smith and Bryan Krug that will help in the fight against plant diseases.
The Greenhouse Disease Control Guide offers a very simple service: Using a pulldown menu, a grower selects the disease encroaching on his or her greenhouse crops from a list of the 15 most common disorders. The app then provides a list of the treatments appropriate for fighting that disease.
The users can select any of the treatments to learn more about its manufacturer, status with the Environmental Protection Agency, appropriate dosages and timing, and other information critical to effective use.
The app makes the grower’s life easier by eliminating the work of researching the possibilities for fighting an identified disease and reduces the chances of improper selection or use of the many pesticides available.
The free app is available at http://egro.mobi./.
The app is the latest in a series of products and services provided by UNH’s Smith and Krug and their colleagues through e-GRO (Electronic Grower Resources Online), a clearinghouse for floriculturists with alerts about disease, insect, environmental, physiological, and nutritional disorders found in commercial greenhouses. Named the “Top Extension Website” of 2013 by the American Society for Horticultural Science, e-GRO combines the professional expertise of horticulture experts from UNH, North Carolina State University, Purdue, Cornell, Kansas State University, Virginia Tech, Michigan State, and the University of Georgia. All products and services are free and can be accessed at http://e-gro.org/.
Recently named one of the “40 under 40” brightest minds in horticulture by the Greenhouse Product News online magazine, Krug has conducted significant applied floriculture research and been instrumental in creating new and innovative electronic delivery methods for presenting research and educational materials. At Cooperative Extension, he serves as a greenhouse/floriculture specialist.
As a plant health supervisor at Cooperative Extension, Smith also serves as director of the UNH Plant Diagnostic Lab (UNH-PDL), which offers diagnostic services to help solve plant health-related problems for both commercial producers and home horticulturists. She delivers outreach and educational programs on plant health and provides training in the identification and management of plant diseases and disorders to commercial producers, Extension educators, and home horticulturists.
Source:unh.edu