Educating the end consumer

Pablo Costa oversees the Finished Plants Business Unit at Van Belle Nursery in Canada.

Pablo Costa’s love for horticulture began on his family’s farm in Chile. He studied agricultural engineering at Santiago’s Pontificia Catholic University. After graduation, his first full-time job was at Sone Seeds, introducing him to ornamental horticulture and the unique niche of seed production in ornamentals. In 2007, he and his family moved to Canada. He joined Van Belle Nursery, where he now oversees the production operation of the Finished Plants Business Unit, shipping plants across Western Canada and the US Pacific Northwest.

“Growers put an awful amount of time, energy, and money into keeping their products as healthy as possible for the final customer, ensuring that their flowers and plants are pests and disease free and that they have the balanced nutrition they need. The ultimate goal is to provide the consumer with gorgeous, sustainably grown plants with drop-dead looks.

In doing so, one of the biggest challenges they face is the final consumer. The latter usually needs more experience and knowledge to recognise which insects are good (beneficials) and which are bad (pests). So, in the eyes of a consumer, whether beneficial or harmful, an insect in a plant is something bad.

Growers use biocontrols, biostimulants, and biofungicides to avoid and control pests and diseases. Regarding biocontrols, these are by the industry, the well-known predators or parasitoids, the beneficial insects that control, for example, mites or aphids in an ornamental plant crop.

Usually, growers have to spray chemicals at the end of the season. Not because the pest is taking over the crop but for purely aesthetic reasons. Before shipping their plants to the final consumer, they want to be sure there are no insects left (good or bad) in the plant.

DOING THIS NEEDS TO STOP! The pertinent question is how to educate gardeners and homeowners that beneficial insects are beneficial for the plant but also for the environment. They keep the plants pest-free for longer periods of time and can even be released in a controlled way while they are on the retail shelf, keeping them healthy as long as possible.

I believe that marketing departments have a role in informing and educating end customers through labels and QR codes. Also, it would be good to advise wholesalers on what can be done to keep dreaded pests under control and extend shelf life, free of truly “bad” insects.

The best example that comes to my mind is of a customer spotting a plant with some Addalia bipunctata, also known as the two-spotted ladybird, in it.

Ladybirds are efficient predators against aphid species; consumers will easily identify them as good insects. What can be done so that that same consumer also sees different species, such as Amblyseius andersoni controlling mites or the thrips controlling Orius laevigatus as good doers?”

This opinion was first published in the June 2023 FloraCulture International.