Grower News

At Riverview Flower Farms, Gregg Meyer helped introduce new solutions to eliminate pest problems like chilli thrips, mealybugs and spider mites.

Subscribe In the Tampa/ St. Petersburg area, Riverview Flower Farms grows annuals and perennials for Home Depot. Riverview Flower Farms grows annuals and perennials exclusively for Home Depot at three different locations in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. With seven acres of greenhouse space in Seffner, Florida, and 30 and 18 acres in Riverview and Wimauma, Florida, respectively, the business grows year-round to fulfill its orders for Home Depot, according to senior manager and head grower Gregg Meyer.

“The advantage of that is that when we produce, we don’t have to change labels or change anything else, and they take everything that we have,” Meyer says. He adds that, ultimately, every product comes through the Riverview location in some capacity and that the operations uses a belt system where everyone works in teams to correctly sort and organize plants. “It’s all done very quickly,” he says.

Meyer, who joined Riverview about five years ago, has had a long career in horticulture. Before starting his current position, he worked at Grower Direct Farms in Connecticut under Leonard Van Wingerden, moving on to become the operations manager at Costa Farms’ North Carolina location. He then moved on to work at Dan and Jerry’s Greenhouse in Minnesota. At these previous stops, he used various SePRO products, including plant growth regulators, to help combat insect pest and disease issues and has since successfully brought his methods to Riverview.

“We’ve taken a lot of the insect issues out of our growing space,” Meyer says. “It’s about taking these products that have worked over my 40 years in the space and bringing them and updating what we were doing here.” Gregg Meyer, Riverview Flower Farms’ senior manager and head grower Game-changing solutions

One product Meyer uses is Topflor, a PGR that he calls a “game changer.” The product can be used as an utilizing spray, drench and in pre-plant soak applications, according to SePRO’s label. According to the label, it can be used in commercial nurseries, greenhousese and shadehouses.

“It does not delay the buds or the flowering of the plant, so we can use the other products first, but as the buds come up and we switch to the Topflor, it doesn’t delay anything,” he says, noting that this is vital for Riverview when it is working to meet shipping deadlines for Home Depot.

Another product Meyer has had success with is Obtego, a fungicide and plant symbiont. He says Riverview uses it to primarily prevent disease, but has also found that it has helped the operation’s succulents develop roots faster, speeding up the growing process by about two weeks on average.

“It has the benefits of rooting and now we’re dipping our succulents, sticking them and, on certain crops, drenching with Obtego,” Meyer says. “We use it once per crop cycle and always at the beginning of the cycle. [With] certain crops, like our succulents, we have petri […]

Source: Solving pest problems