Dec 7, 2009
Media contact: Patty Wellborn
Office: 604-795-2819
patty.wellborn@ufv.ca
 |
| UFV instructor Renee Prasad (centre) inspects the pointsettias for tiny pests, just before they are shipped to local retail outlets. With her, from left to right, are students Brad Alexander, Karen Scott, Sarah Zonneveld, Alex Bragg, Deanna Benson, and Taylor McPherson. |
Colourful poinsettia plants replace text books for UFV Agriculture students
When first-year agriculture student Alex Bragg walked into the greenhouse on the University of the Fraser Valley’s Chilliwack campus in September, she saw 300 tiny poinsettia plants needing to be nurtured. From that very moment, she knew she was in the right program.
"I’m a hands-on learner. It is really hard for me to learn if I’m not touching or working with something," she says. "So taking these teeny-tiny plugs and working with them all semester has been a great motivator for me."
The poinsettias are an annual part of the horticulture curriculum, explains UFV agriculture technician Brent Bailey. Raising a plant from a tiny plug to a market-ready product covers a lot of practical learning. The students are taught everything from pest management, to soil health, to marketing skills — all with the poinsettias.
UFV Chancellor Brian Minter, owner of Minter Country Garden, donated the poinsettia plugs to the university. Bailey says the students have worked diligently, nurturing the tiny plants, fertilizing them and, when the time was right, separating and spacing them so they would grow sideways and not up, creating a healthy, bushy plant. Getting the leaves to turn the festive colours is another trick, as the leaves on the tropical poinsettias only change when the plant is kept in the dark for a certain number of hours each day.
"This is a finicky plant to grow," says Bailey, "with particular light requirements involving a shading program. It must be completely blacked out from late September onwards, fertilizer must be routinely monitored and adjusted, and they must be properly spaced to have uniform growth."
There is some science involved, too, as the plants are treated with growth regulators to maintain shape and size, and they are also routinely monitored for pests.
"We used only beneficial insects for pest control," adds Bailey, "some of which are a native species of insect that the students reared in UFV insectaries. No pesticides were used on this crop at all."
Second-year horticulture student Brad Alexander is a work-study student with the UFV Agriculture department and he has spent many hours in the greenhouse babysitting the plants and ensuring that they were spaced on two different occasions to allow maximum growth.
"I really like the way the instructors turn everything into a lesson with one seasonal plant," Alexander says. "It has been a lot of fun watching the poinsettia plants grow bigger and more beautiful each day."
Now, the plants have grown to maturity and many of them have been purchased by the owners of the Chilliwack and Langley MarketPlace IGA stores. Last week, students spent their last days with the plants as the red, white, and purple poinsettias were foil wrapped and packed for the consumer. Most of them were shipped out to the retail outlets just in time for the Christmas sales season.
UFV Dean of Trades Harv McCullough confirms that poinsettias play a vital role in the students’ education, but he also stresses that when the community takes note of what the students are doing and creates the demand for the products they’ve grown, that’s almost better than acing an exam.
"Having companies like Minter Country Garden supply the plugs to us and MarketPlace IGA wanting the full-grown plants in their stores, gives our students the opportunity to see the business side of a greenhouse production," says McCullough. "Not to mention the pride our students gain by having a local company wanting to purchase the plants they have grown. Those poinsettias were sold sight unseen because of the reputation our students have."
The project works as a small fundraiser for the agriculture department, and this keeps student fees and costs down, explains Bailey. In a few months time, a variety of ornamental grasses, perennials, and shrubs — grown and nurtured by these same, keen UFV ag students — will be on Minter's shelves as the summer gardening season begins. The cycle of growth and regeneration continues — something the UFV agriculture students seem to appreciate.
"The instructors have such a wealth of knowledge," says Deanna Benson, who fell into the Agriculture program almost by accident. She was majoring in sociology, but needed a science elective, so she signed up for an agriculture course. One course led to another until she finally switched her major and her career aspirations.
"I get such a good feeling in this program, because the instructors are passionate about what they teach, and they all work in the industry, so they know what they’re talking about," she says. "It is really cool, because they are not just teaching us lessons from a book. They are relating our lessons to what is actually going on in this industry at the moment."
-30-
