The Maine Pest Management Program received a small funding increase just as the greenhouse industry was asking for help in developing and implementing IPM programs. The natural step was to start the Greenhouse IPM program. Ron Mack manages a demonstration scouting program, presents educational meetings, produces educational literature, and monitors the phone lines. His program cooperates with those in New Hampshire and Vermont to present annual workshops that are so popular participants crowd the hallways to get in. The Maine Pest Management Program helps greenhouse growers to implement new techniques for poinsettias and bedding plants.
Workshops teach growers from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
In 1994 a Maine grower suffered the loss of an entire crop of poinsettias to powdery mildew in one greenhouse. In 1995, staff of the Greenhouse IPM Program identified the same disease in the same greenhouse, protecting all but three plants. IPM for poinsettias could translate to tremendous savings for hundreds of producers in the Northeast.