Greenhouse Disease and Insect Management Recommendations for 2022

Feb 28, 2022

By Heidi Lindberg and Jeremy Jubenville et.al

Michigan State University Extension has updated their insect and disease management recommendations for the 2022 greenhouse season. There only have been a few minor changes from the previous 2021 recommendations. These recommendations are updated yearly to reflect efficacy of pesticides as MSU Extension specialists and their nationwide colleagues perform research trials evaluating the products against common greenhouse insects, mites or diseases. The pesticides are evaluated by a network of researchers involved in the IR-4 Project, a research group that facilitates the labeling of pesticides on specialty crops, including greenhouse crops.

Insect management

MSU Extension entomology specialist for ornamentals, David Smitley has released his “2022 Greenhouse Pest Management with Insecticides” recommendations. These are the recommended products to control thrips, aphids, whiteflies, spider mites, broad and cyclamen mites, fungus gnats, mealybugs and Florida fern caterpillar.

Growers of greenhouse vegetables and greens can use the guide, “Recommended Insecticides for Common Greenhouse Pests on Vegetables, Herbs and Leafy Greens,” when considering an insecticide application. The guide provides the names of the products, active ingredients, vegetable crops on the label and recommended pests they control. For more information on the guide, see the MSU Extension article, "Insecticides for common pests on greenhouse vegetables and transplants."

Download 2022 Greenhouse Pest Management with Insecticides Recommendations

Notes on insecticides for 2022

There have been a few new products registered and released within the last three years:

Novato (clofentazine) has been added for spider mite control. This is the same active ingredient that was in Apollo. It works very well if resistance is not a problem. Because it is not used in the greenhouse industry much anymore, resistance may not be as much of a problem as it was in the past, and it is certainly worth trying.
Ventigra (afidopyropen) is now labeled for control of aphids, whiteflies and mealybugs. Plants sensitive to Ventigra include coleus, poinsettia (in bract), impatiens and petunias (in flower).
Sarisa (cyclaniliprole) is now labeled for control of thrips, whiteflies and mealybugs. In recent research tests at Michigan State University we found Sarisa to reduce the number of thrips on marigolds as well as the most recent industry standard for thrips control, Pylon.
Pradia (cyclaniliprole and flonicamid) is a combination product, so it is like using Sarisa and Aria together. In research tests at MSU, Pradia also reduced the number of thrips on marigolds as well as Pylon, but it appeared to last a week or two longer than Sarisa. More testing of both products is needed.

In recent trials at Michigan State University, we found Sarisa and Pradia reduced the number of thrips on marigolds as well as the most recent industry standard for thrips control, Pylon. Thrips control from Pradia appeared to last a week or two longer than that for Sarisa. Pradia (cyclaniliprole and flonicamid) is a combination product, so it is like using Sarisa and Aria together. More testing of both products is needed.

For summaries of research evaluations of insecticides used for thrips on ornamentals, go to the IR4 Ornamental Horticulture website:

Environmental Horticulture Research Summaries – IR-4 Project (ir4project.org)
Scroll down to ‘Efficacy’ then click on ‘Entomology’
Click on ‘Thrips’, on the right side

Disease management

MSU Extension plant pathologist Mary Hausbeck has released her new "2022 Greenhouse Disease Management" recommendations. The products are classified on a range from “A+” or “B/B-” team products. The “A” team products provide the best control for the diseases, and “B” team products are those that provide limited control and are good to include in a spray rotation.

Hausbeck has also provided an updated “2022 Greenhouse Impatiens Downy Mildew Program” for both susceptible and impatiens downy mildew-resistant cultivars.

Hausbeck and her colleagues have also developed a guide for disease management specifically for vegetable and herb crops. The guide provides the following information about each registered product for vegetable transplants and herbs: 1) active ingredient, 2) trade name of the product, 3) FRAC code (a guide for alternating products to delay/reduce pathogen resistance) and 4) re-entry interval. The disease recommendations are grouped by crop groups: 1) brassica, 2) cucurbit, 3) leafy, 4) fruiting and 5) herbs. Within each crop grouping, the table includes the target pathogen including: bacterial blight, downy mildew, leaf spot, powdery mildew, Phytophthora, Rhizoctonia and Sclerotinia.

Download 2022 Greenhouse Disease Management Recommendations

Changes from 2021

The disease management recommendations are very similar between 2021 and 2022.

For the 2022 growing season, the recommendations for Thielaviopsis include only the “A” team – or very effective products – due to the seriousness of the pathogen. The two “A” team fungicides for Thielaviopsis are the high labeled rates of 3336/OHP 6672 and Terraguard SC.

While most fungicides classified as the “A” Team for Botrytis are the same as last year, Pageant Intrinsic has been moved to the “B” team (only recommended under low disease pressure). Due to increased fungicide resistance frequencies, the following products were removed from the “B” team and are no longer recommended for Botrytis control: Heritage, Compass, and Insignia.

Metconazole (Tourney) has been dropped entirely from the recommendations because the label states that the product is for outdoor use on ornamentals but does not mention greenhouse applications. In recent trials, that fungicide also had significant PGR effects on some plant species.

Source : msu.edu

Video: Can Gene Editing Give Seeds a Stronger Start?

Reagan Reed has a way of describing his research that might make a plant breeder pause.

“I’m the sort of person who likes to break things to understand them,” he says.

What he breaks are genes involved in seed germination. Reed, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis, is investigating whether changing those genes can help seeds establish healthy plants under a wider range of conditions.

Reed recently attended the National Association for Plant Breeding meeting in College Station, Texas, as an NAPB Borlaug Scholar. His work speaks to a question that matters well beyond a research lab: what does it take for a seed to get a crop off to a strong start?

A seed that germinates quickly, alongside the others planted with it, spends less time vulnerable to stresses before seedlings become established.

“If you’re able to bridge that gap between germination to stand establishment, then that’s going to give you the highest probability of having a solid yield that year,” Reed says. “There’s a bunch that can go wrong after that, but it maximises your yield from the start, at least.”

Reed works in Dr. Imtiyaz Khanday’s lab at UC Davis, where his research focuses on seed quality in tomatoes and potatoes. He brings an unusual academic background to the work: at Skidmore College, he studied both biology and Latin.

Reed believes that combination prepared him for research. Translating an ancient text means studying each word, weighing its possible meanings and using context to reach the best interpretation. There is rarely a way to know with complete certainty what an author intended. Science, he says, requires a similar willingness to work through uncertainty.

“Attention to detail and comfortability working with uncertainty,” is how he sums up what Latin taught him.

In the lab, uncertainty can produce a surprise. Reed describes changing one gene and seeing little effect. Changing a second gene also appears to do little. Put both changes in the same genetic background, though, and the result can be substantial.

“I break this gene, nothing really happens. I break this other gene, nothing really happens. I combine them into the same genetic background, and now there’s a massive effect,” he says.

Those interactions matter as researchers gain the ability to edit multiple genes at once. They also complicate any simple account of how a trait works: improving a seed may depend on understanding what several genes do together.

For Reed, the question is whether that knowledge could help seeds germinate reliably when conditions are difficult. Some of the genes he studies prevent germination under certain conditions. That response may serve a plant well in one setting while limiting its usefulness in agriculture. He wants to learn what happens when those genes are changed, and whether the result improves establishment.

Yet a discovery that works in a lab still has a long way to travel before it reaches a field. Reed argues that agricultural biotechnology faces an economic challenge as well as a scientific one. New tools can create value for farmers, he says, but developing them requires a way to support the work in an industry where margins can be thin.

His fellowship with Flagship Pioneering gave him a view across AI, agriculture-related work and human health research. It also reinforced the importance of bringing people with different expertise into the same conversation—a benefit of gatherings such as the NAPB meeting.

“You need to have a team of people with different backgrounds who are willing to work together and approach the same problem in different perspectives and different ways,” he says.

That thinking connects the different parts of Reed’s path. Latin taught him to examine details without expecting a perfect answer. Gene editing lets him test what individual genes do—and what happens when their effects combine. Working with people beyond his own field helps him ask what those findings could become.

He came to agriculture because of its reach: the possibility that work by a small group of researchers could eventually make a difference on a much larger scale. His immediate focus is smaller and more precise. He wants to understand what helps a seed get through its first days and become a healthy plant.