Techniques for Fighting Rising Energy Costs   Greenhouse Product News May 2008   By Patricia Dean
Faced with increased material costs, labor issues and rising energy prices, growers are looking to gain a competitive advantage.

Greenhouse Weed Control Tips   Greenhouse Product News March 2008   By Fred Hulme
Controlling weeds in the greenhouse can be quite challenging. Read on to explore the basics of weed management and learn about some best management practices.
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Media Selection — Reality Speaks   Greenhouse Product News December 2007   By Hugh A. Poole
The concept of media selection comes straight from the textbook and every how-to-grow lecture. Most growers can identify the perfect combination of media components for ideal plant growth, and every research project can define the proper physical and chemical properties of a growing medium for a specific crop. But the reality of growing is entirely different.

Grower 101: When Water Becomes an Issue   Greenhouse Product News December 2007   Sylvain Hélie
Capillary mats are nothing new, but with the relatively recent design revisions, growers are finding they can help produce a uniform crop while conserving water.

Handling Drainage Water   Greenhouse Product News October 2007   By John W. Bartok, Jr.
Ensuring proper water drainage both within and around your greenhouse can prevent pesky problems down the road, such as erosion, flooding, disease and accidents. Here’s what you need to know to keep your greenhouse dry and healthy.

Are You Ready For…   Greenhouse Product News October 2007   By Stan Pohmer
Fundamental changes in the economy, along with the consumer’s desire to buy sustainable products, will require growers to alter the way they operate.

Grower 101: Improving The Workplace Environment   Greenhouse Product News June 2007   By John Bartok, Jr.
The workplace environment — from how a workspace is arranged to if an employee sits or stands — can help make happy, productive and injury-free employees.
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Grower 101: Demystifying Patents And Trademarks   Greenhouse Product News May 2007   By Lane Greer
The differences among patents, registered trademarks, unregistered trademarks and cultivars can be confusing. Read on for a breakdown of the different terms and symbols and what they mean to growers.
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Grower 101: Using Insulation To Save Energy and Money   Greenhouse Product News April 2007   By John Bartok, Jr.
Insulation is one of the first measures to consider for energy savings. Available in many materials and forms, it is easy to install, lasts a long time and quickly pays for itself.
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Dealing With Rising Energy Costs   Greenhouse Product News March 2007   By Robin Brumfield
How do you deal with high energy costs in your greenhouse? Since profit equals price minus cost, to increase profits, you have to cut costs or increase prices. This article presents a number of options for dealing with rising energy costs.
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Grower 101: Quenching Your Thirst for Irrigation   Greenhouse Product News March 2007   By George Elliot
Last month, this 2-part series discussed principles of irrigation management and looked at irrigation management systems. This article discusses irrigation delivery systems in terms of functional characteristics and management potential.
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Keeping Your Employees Safe   Greenhouse Product News November 2006   By Barbara Mulhern
Keeping Your Employees Safe
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Marketing Strategies For Small Growers   Greenhouse Product News November 2006   Robin Brumfield and Lawrence Martin
Small growers exhibit many different reactions and strategies when a big box moves into the neighborhood; the most successful ones turn lemons into lemonade and compete by returning to some marketing basics.
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Controlling Energy Costs   Greenhouse Product News September 2006   By William Swanekamp
Fuel prices are increasing rapidly, and growers are feeling the pinch. Learn from a fellow grower about greenhouse technology that can help keep your costs down throughout the energy crisis.
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Understanding (And Avoiding) Heat Loss   Greenhouse Product News August 2006   By George Elliott
With costs on the rise, growers need to examine energy conservation options in relation to the basic mechanisms for greenhouse heat loss and look at energy conservation.
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Growing The Greenhouse Industry   Greenhouse Product News August 2006   By Neil Reid and Michael Carroll
Growers in Northwest Ohio have joined together in a unique economic development program that promises to increase consumption while retaining each company’s individuality.
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Who Decides What’s Important?   Greenhouse Product News April 2006   Bridget White, Editorial Director
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Knowing Your Customers’ Tricks   Greenhouse Product News April 2006   By Lawrence Steinmetz
When selling your product, it’s important to know the tricks customers use to drive down your price. If you know their tactics, you can avoid selling at too low of a price.
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Calculating Costs Part I: Media   Greenhouse Product News April 2006   By Thomas Boyle
Learn how to calculate the costs associated with preparing media or purchasing a commercially prepared mix.
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Testing For Success   Greenhouse Product News March 2006   By Carol Hacker
Learn how testing potential employees can save you a lot of time during the hiring process.
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A Controlled Curtain   Greenhouse Product News February 2006   By Meghan Boyer
Together the EnviroSTEP environmental control unit and the PowerPull energy curtain reduced energy and labor costs and gave these growers some peace of mind.
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Innovation Sensations   Greenhouse Product News December 2005   By Meghan Boyer
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The Benefits Of Recycled Perlite   Greenhouse Product News December 2005   By H.Y. Hanna
This sterilizing procedure may minimize the risks of reusing perlite, reduce costs and result in greater plant yields.

My Second Year   Greenhouse Product News November 2005   By Roger C. Styer
The overall goal of the business for the next year is to make a profit (really!), have a better product mix, produce and cut the flowers easier with the best quality possible, and develop more markets for my flowers.
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My Office Is Not a Zoo!   Greenhouse Product News September 2005   By Stan Pohmer
By taking on the responsibility of making, or being involved in making, all of the decisions, we lose the opportunity to develop our team into independent, thinking, confident and responsible employees.
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Spring Season Success?   Greenhouse Product News August 2005   Carrie Burns
“It was a very bad year for weather, probably one of the worst we’ve had in many years. It was so stagnant this year for sales. Just terrible weather for sales when it comes down to the consumer buying from the retail customer; if they’re not selling, we’re definitely holding onto product a lot longer. — Kirby Taranto, D&D Farms Greenhouses, Minneapolis, Minn.
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An Industry of Silos…or the Power of One?   Greenhouse Product News August 2005   By Stan Pohmer
Repeating the way we do things today will only cause us to further lose touch with our elusive consumer and perpetuate a stagnating industry focused on channel conflict, not growth.
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Summer Shows   Greenhouse Product News August 2005   By Carrie Burns
Seeing Banner’s situation brought up a point of contention — with so many larger growers taking over the box stores and gaining exclusivity within those stores (especially with pay-by-scan being implemented), how are the small- and mid-size growers going to stay in business and be successful?
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Training with Crop Simulations   Greenhouse Product News July 2005   By Jim Faust, Pranahita Andolu and Kelly Lewis
It is surely not possible to include every possibility of what can happen in a greenhouse, so we narrowed our initial focus.
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Grower 101: A Greenhouse IPM plan   Greenhouse Product News July 2005   by Scott Ludwig
You can divide your IPM plans into three key parts: sanitation, pest monitoring program and pest managment.
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Grower 101: Scheduling Perennials   Greenhouse Product News June 2005   By Leonard Perry
If you wish to do your own vegetative propagation, keep in mind this is easiest when the plant itself wants to be vegetative and not flowering. This is often in spring for divisions and various times of summer for cuttings.
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The Perfect Plans…For Disaster   Greenhouse Product News May 2005   By Stan Pohmer
Too often we plan for perfection in an imperfect world and we wonder why we don’t achieve the results that we expected. In our industry, there are too many variables to ever expect that we’ll be able to execute the perfect plan.
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Capturing Spring Information   Greenhouse Product News May 2005   By Roger C. Styer
What happens at retail is not only for garden center managers. It should be important to production managers.

Braving the California Coast   Greenhouse Product News March 2005   By Carrie Burns
Right now, as I write this, I am trying to schedule more than 20 very important stops into a short five days — it’s not easy!
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Discipline for a Fair Workplace   Greenhouse Product News March 2005   By Bernie Erven
Disciplining employees is one of the toughest things an employer has to do. Here are a few ways to make it easier.
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Donating For a Tax Deduction   Greenhouse Product News March 2005   By Carrie Burns
According to section 170(e)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, you can donate inventory to a qualified not-for-profit organization and receive a tax deduction.
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Grower 101: A Business Plan   Greenhouse Product News February 2005   By Charles R. Hall
Managers sometimes argue that it is useless to write a business plan because the marketplace is changing so rapidly that any plan is quickly outdated.
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Understanding UCCnet, Part I   Greenhouse Product News January 2005   By Randy Goldbeck
When we received word late last year that some of the largest retailers of green goods would be implementing those processes in 2005 and that the vast majority of our industry was unprepared, we started working on this series of articles.
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The Utility Audit: Challenge Solution   Greenhouse Product News December 2004   By Kathy Kiernan
We all suspect that today’s complex utility tariffs and billing structures translate into errors on our utility bills…
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Progressive Plants: A Lesson in Patience   Greenhouse Product News November 2004   By Bridget White
After changing sites for their new location (post purchase), waiting a year for electricity and finally making it through the build, these long-time nurserymen know first hand the good and the bad of building a new location.
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Committed Employees   Greenhouse Product News November 2004   By Carol Hacker
Employees who feel like they make a difference in your business will work harder to never let you or the business down. Here are a few ways to make that happen.
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Reflections on Greenhouse Cost Accounting   Greenhouse Product News October 2004   By Jim Faust
I have gleaned a few key components to successful cost accounting. These ideas are not purported to be “truths,” just some ideas that make sense to me.
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10 Ways to Increase Production Space   Greenhouse Product News September 2004   By John W. Bartok, Jr.
The following are ways in which production can be increased as much as 100 percent.
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Changing Nursery Sales Agreements   Greenhouse Product News August 2004   By Roger A. Hinson and Roberto Navajas
Retailers often make specific demands on growers. New research quantifies how these demands have affected sales agreements.
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2004 Spring in Review   Greenhouse Product News August 2004   By Carrie Burns
A slow, but ongoing trend that seemed to make a big statement this spring was the emphasis of large mixed containers, using unusual crops.
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Cost of Producing Pansies   Greenhouse Product News July 2004   By Brian Whipker
This case study shows how understanding your production costs will help with all of your business decisions.
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Creating an Employee Handbook   Greenhouse Product News June 2004   By Bridget White
Having an employee handbook that is tailored to your industry and your company’s needs will act as a preventative for both litigation and time-consuming employee disputes.
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Store Pesticides Safely   Greenhouse Product News May 2004   By John Bartok Jr.
With heightened security awareness and the potential for vandalism and theft, it is important to keep the pesticide storage locked when not in use.

Credit and Debt Collection   Greenhouse Product News March 2004   By Abe Walking Bear Sanchez
The methods most growers use to evaluate credit and collect debt are flawed. This new system will help you better evaluate credit risks and stop being treated like a bank.
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Grower 101: Labor Sources   Greenhouse Product News March 2004   By Randall A. Countermine and Tony Moe
Quality employees are hard to find, and a long, extensive search could be very costly.
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Grower 101: Rapid Diagnostic Kit   Greenhouse Product News February 2004   By Mike Tiffany
Viral infection often reduces the number of cuttings that a stock plant can produce and can affect the flower color and quality of the plant. Results from rapid diagnostic kit tests are ready in about 10-30 minutes.
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Where Do We Go From Here?   Greenhouse Product News February 2004   By Roger C. Styer
Some greenhouse problems you can deal with directly, others you cannot. The trick is to figure out which ones you can deal with and how.
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Fair Labor Standards   Greenhouse Product News January 2004   Wesley B. Tailor
While it is true that most greenhouse employees generally are not entitled to overtime, this is not always the case. It is important for you, as a greenhouse employer, to be aware of how federal overtime laws apply to your individual business.

Financing the Industry   Greenhouse Product News December 2003   Bridget White
Our industry finances itself. Many greenhouse operations do not have a line of credit with their bank, and most don't even work with a bank enough to consider it "their bank."
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Crop Scheduling   Greenhouse Product News November 2003   Neda Simeonova
Our industry is moving forward and taking advantage of new technologies. The Internet and new software programs are implemented into the way we do business and may be what makes one operation more successful than another. Can the same be said about crop scheduling? Recently, GPN asked growers how they approach their crop scheduling needs and looked into some of the solutions currently available on the market.
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Decisions, Decisions   Greenhouse Product News November 2003   Roger C. Styer
Many growers cannot make decisions about the spring season until they get orders from mass-market customers, who seem to take longer every year. Still, other growers need to predict what they can sell based on what they did last spring. The longer you wait to make key decisions, the more it will cost you in the end.
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The Finances of Automation   Greenhouse Product News October 2003   Mike Porter
Since we are now in the prime season for purchasing automation equipment, it is time to address some of the concerns growers have about plunging into automation.
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Fall is upon Us   Greenhouse Product News September 2003   Roger C. Styer
Regardless of when it starts and how long the fall season lasts, the big question is: Are you ready for it? I mean, do you have a good crop to sell or can you buy in from another producer? Have you cleaned up from spring and summer, and do you have your fall displays set up? Do you have your personnel trained to answer fall planting questions from consumers? And if you are a grower, have you hit your specs for mums, pansies and other crops? Or did you have some problems here and there?
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Spring 2003 in a Nutshell   Greenhouse Product News August 2003   Carrie Burns
Spring brings out the best and worst of our industry, and GPN found out what those were for 2003. Here is what your peers had to say about the spring of 2003.
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How can you make your greenhouse greener?   Greenhouse Product News August 2003   Robin G. Brumfield
Do you know which individual crops are making money and which ones are losing money? Or more optimistically, if you are making money on everything, do you know which crops make the most? Once you know this, you can look at ways to increase sales of profitable crops and find ways to cut costs on less profitable ones. You can even decide to drop unprofitable crops and consider new, more profitable ones.
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The XY System   Greenhouse Product News June 2003   Mike Porter
Many bedding plant growers express two major concerns when considering systems for material movement. The first is the large amount of material that must be moved in a short time due to the compressed selling season. The second is how to deal with the large number of varieties typically grown in a bedding operation. The ability to selectively pick from anywhere in the greenhouse bay is critical. The new XY systems address these two concerns better than any other system on the market. Variations are also available that allow the same concept to be used by medium-size growers.

Inspiration to Innovation   Greenhouse Product News May 2003   Carrie Burns
To make an end consumer understand product and purpose, retail needs to understand first. Hines Horticulture's Inspiration Guide was designed to allow the retailer differentiation in product offerings. And this is why the guide has been chosen as runner-up for this year's marketing innovation award.

Keeping Your Best Employees   Greenhouse Product News May 2003   Bernard Erven
The best way to keep star employees is to convince them that they have excellent jobs and that their greenhouse employer provides an excellent place to work. Job design, team building and employer reputation are the key ingredients.

Successful Sales: Uncovering the Real Needs   Greenhouse Product News May 2003   Joe Fox and Gerry Giorgio
By following the sequence and method of the sales process outlined thus far, you have effectively sold yourself and earned the right to ask your customers the ever more important questions. Open questions with your customer should continue until you have heard numerous specific needs you can meet.

Too Busy to Talk?   Greenhouse Product News May 2003   Roger C. Styer
It is no wonder that May brings out the most conflicts between staff members. Whether in the greenhouse, the garden center or the front office, tempers run quick as patience wears out and exhaustion sets in. Here are some tips for coping.