Taking Risks

Jennifer Zurko

Being a greenhouse grower is a risky business. So much is out of your control—like the weather, whether your main customer will still be in business next year, disease or insect issues—it’s a total crapshoot sometimes.

But what is life without a few risks? And besides a few daredevils out there who live for jumping out of planes or Bungee-ing over bridges, one of the biggest risks we take is our career path. This part of life begins with so many questions—Should I go to college? Which one? What should I study? Should I stay in the family business? Which job should I apply for? What do I want to be when I grow up?

For Doug Mead, this year’s Red Fox/GrowerTalks Young Grower winner, a career growing the plants he loves took a lot of risk. Switching schools and majors was a big risk to take; he went from Meteorology to Ornamental Horticulture. I’m sure he was wondering: Will this be better? And it turned out it was. He took a big risk by bypassing a job at a landscaping company to work in Dickman Farms’ garden center in an entry-level position—even though he wanted to be a grower. He asked himself: How long will it take me to work my way into the greenhouse? And it turned out not long at all. Read about how all of the risks Doug took earned him a job as a senior section grower for Dickman Farms. 

If some of your product is grown from seed, do you realize how important cell size is depending on the crop? Maybe you’ve grown in the same cell size for years or maybe you’ve taken a few risks and tried different sizes. Either way, you’ll want to see how other growers decide what plug size to use.

Did you miss Cultivate’14 (formerly known as OFA Short Course)? If you did, you risked missing out on a TON of stuff—and not just on the trade show floor. There was a whole new area especially for garden centers in the Retail Terrace (read more about that on the Green Profit side) and many sessions that covered some of the more hot-button topics, like neonics and immigration.  

 I risked boring you to death with this column. Hopefully, the chance I took paid off.