October was a poor month for the gerbera farm. Despite the warm weather, the flowers weren’t at their best. The stems were short, and a lot of the flowers were distorted. Our figures for 2005 showed the same downturn in October last year, so was it just a seasonal thing?
In any case we had the usual spring problems with bugs. Butterflies or moths got in, laid their eggs and produced a whole lot of grubs that ate their way into the leaves and flowers. They seemed to resist the constant spraying. Then the Rutherglen bugs came. The infestation of the latter was amazing. They were thick up the walls of the hot house, in the flowers and flew into our faces as we picked. We just couldn’t seem to get on top of them.
But why were the flowers less than perfect and the stems short? So we brought in our Horticultural Expert who initially couldn’t find the problem.
We now know. Because we are in the worst drought for somewhere between 100 and 1000 years (depending on which expert you read), we have tried to reduce our use of water. We had been told that we needed 30% run off, so that 70% of the water and nutrient remained in the pot, and the remainder was flushed away. Because of the drought, we felt that runoff was a waste and reduced the water. What we had indeed done was not allowed the chemicals/salts to be flushed from the plants and they collected around the roots of the plants choking them.
The solution? Use our precious water to flush out each plant, to dilute the salts. It was along and painstaking task, but the results were pretty dramatic.
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