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Grower Notes in fourth decade of extension work

OMAFRA’s Grower Notes was published as a hard copy newsletter mailed to Ontario growers from the 1980s through until March 1997.

OMAFRA’s Grower Notes was published as a hard copy newsletter mailed to Ontario growers from the 1980s through until March 1997. Since 1997, the newsletter has been published in partnership with Greenhouse Canada, initially under the same name and since spring of 2006 as a regular column called Greenhouse Grower Notes. The articles published under this column heading are written by OMAFRA greenhouse specialists and other staff such as Jim Chaput, the OMAFRA Minor Use Pesticides Coordinator.

A Greenhouse Grower Notes cover story from last fall. Advertisement

It is one thing to write articles to inform growers about production issues such as scheduling a crop, nutrition, pest management and growth regulation. However, it is another thing entirely to know the impact of those articles. Feedback from readers often occurs directly to the author when an article has particular relevance to a grower. But the broader views of the readership are seldom (if ever) heard. That is the purpose of this article: to direct you to a web-based feedback form that allows you to tell us what you think about the value of these articles.

The website used for this is a very cool one called Survey Monkey. The name itself should be interesting enough to get you to have a look. And once you are there, the questionnaire itself can be done in less than five minutes.
To jog your memory of the articles published under Greenhouse Grower Notes in 2010, below is a list of the titles, with links to the actual articles on the Greenhouse Canada website – if you wish to refresh your memory.

We’re also very interested in finding out what topics you are interested in seeing articles on in 2011.

• January – Starting a biocontrol program? (Graeme Murphy) … www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/2000
• February – Predatory mites and WFT (Gillian Ferguson) … www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/2021
• March – Nematodes in pest management (Graeme Murphy and Michael Brownbridge) … www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/2060/
• May – New root rot assist (Jim Chaput)  … www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/2217/
• August – Biocontrols with poinsettias (Graeme Murphy) … www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/2366/
• September – Greenhouse Grower notes: Common cucumber viruses (Gillian Ferguson) … www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/2414
• October – Making a clean sweep (Gillian Ferguson) … www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/2453
• December – Leafminer control options (Graeme Murphy) … www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/2538

To go to the survey follow the link www.surveymonkey.com/s/greenhousegrower

Once there, follow the instructions. The responses to the questionnaire will be automatically tabulated and available to help us make the articles we write for Greenhouse Grower Notes more useful to you. Thank you for your time and feedback.

Wayne Brown, Gillian Ferguson, Shalin Khosla and Graeme Murphy are OMAFRA greenhouse crops specialists.