Dealing With the Inevitable

Jennifer Zurko

It seems like only yesterday when we brought our daughter home from the hospital six days after she was born. Parenting veterans told me how fast the time would go, but I didn’t believe them.

I do now.

This fall, we’ll be the parents of a Kindergartener. When I started my career at Ball Publishing, she was 10 months old. Now she’s 5 and it’s amazing how quickly it went. But, it was inevitable. If I really stop and think about it, the next five years will also go in a flash and I’ll be lamenting about how I’m the mother of a 10 year old and how did that happen …? Best not to dwell on that.

Watching our children grow too quickly is another one of those things that comes with the territory, as they say. Like when you make a mistake at work (how could I miss that typo?!). Or get into a fender-bender. Or put your foot in your mouth. It’s gonna happen.

Many of the disease and bug experts I talked to for this issue said pretty much the same thing about pest issues this season—they’re gonna happen just like they do every year. Is there any grower out there who goes a full year without some sort of pest incident? I doubt it’s very many, if any at all.

So, in order to help you tackle those problems—and try to avoid big outbreaks in the future—we’ve got informative articles for this month’s pest management issue, starting with “Controlling This Season’s Scourges." A handful of entomologists and disease experts chose one problem child that you’ll have to be wary of this year.

Our friend and bug genius Dr. Raymond Cloyd of Kansas State University provides a checklist to help you determine whether implementing a biocontrols program in your greenhouse is a good idea or not. And if you’re already dabbling in biocontrols, you can see if you’re doing it right.

More and more bedding plant growers are also producing vegetables, and because of this, disease experts are noticing a rise in tomato leaf mold.
 
I hope this spring brings you great weather and a successful, pest-free season! GT