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Plant Growth Facilities User Manual

Emergency Contacts The Greenhouse Team Facility Specs Supplies Available Storage Keys Plant Transfer Records Leave Room for Watering   Transplanting Long Term Crops Safety Audible Alarms When things go wrong

Mission Statement User Responsibilities Fees charged to Faculty Housekeeping Space Acquisition Plant/Cutting Inspection Plant Spacing Quarantine Areas Orphaned Plants Harvesting Arabidopsis seeds Pesticides Policy Violations Contacting the Manager

Emergency Contacts for Horticulture Greenhouse

Dial 911 in Any Emergency

Rob Eddy, Plant Growth Facilities Manager
Office (HGRH 1139C): 49-63710
Home: 583-4156
Cell: 412-1080

Dan Hahn, Greenhouse Technician
Office (HGRH 1139B): 49-63745
Pager: 420-6968

Indiana Poison Control Center: 800-382-9097
Chemtrec: 800-424-9300
Indiana State Chemist: 494-1585

For Pesticide Spills
Indiana Dept. of Environmental Management: 317-233-7745


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Mission of the Horticulture Greenhouse

To create environments for excellence in plant research, teaching and outreach, using current technology and a customer-focused service team

Vision

To be the best university plant growth facility in the country

Focus

People development through continuous learning by the greenhouse team and users of the facility

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Greenhouse Team

Rob Eddy, Plant Growth Facilities Manager

Accountable for all activities of the Greenhouse Team, including hiring, training, scheduling, providing instruction, and monitoring performance. Programs, monitors, and maintains computer controls for greenhouses, growth rooms, growth chambers, and coolers, as well as timers for lighting in greenhouses. Responsible for the installation and proper maintenance of greenhouse equipment. Provides orientation to new students and staff using the facility. Also in charge of space allocation for the facility.

Dan Hahn, Greenhouse Technician

Responsible for all tasks in pest scouting, tracking, and control measures. Irrigates crops and monitors fertilizer levels. Installs and maintains equipment, maintains greenhouse sanitation, provides training/instruction to employees, and is familiar with most greenhouse controls.

Eric Whitehead, Building Deputy

Maintains both the HORT building and the HGRH (greenhouse) by performing maintenance and coordinating repairs. Does minor repairs, installations, fabrications, moving and painting in HORT. In HGRH, does minor repairs and maintenance on motorized shade curtains, evaporative cooling pads, plant growth chambers and other equipment. Also in charge of key distribution and departmental vehicle maintenance.

3-5 part-time student employees

Services provided are:

• temperature and light programming
• watering 365 days a year
• weekly pest scouting and control measures
• greenhouse maintenance and routine sanitation
• autoclaving of greenhouse plant material
• setting up supplemental lighting and irrigation systems
• other tasks as time allows

Facility Specifications

25 glass greenhouse rooms, 1 plastic polyhouse, 2 air-conditioned growth rooms, 17 growth chambers, 5 walk-in coolers, three teaching labs, work areas.

Facility User Responsibility

Users share responsibility for plant quality with the greenhouse team. Users should take an active role in monitoring and maintaining their crops, including:

• planning space needs and supply needs in advance
• filling out plant transfer record (PTR) form when placing plants in facility
• checking on plants at least twice a week
• spacing plants properly to ensure air movement and access for watering
• giving instructions and feedback to the team
• monitoring for insects and diseases (in addition to greenhouse team’s program)
• keeping growth areas and work areas sanitary and orderly
• transplanting
• staking or caging tall plants
• discarding plants quickly in proper receptacles

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Supplies Available

Supplies are kept in potting area and soils storage room, and storage closet 1144-west half. Supplies provided are:

• soilless potting mixes, mineral soil, vermiculite, peat, sand and perlite
• rooting hormone
• pots: square 3" and 4" diameter pots; round standard-style pots of diameter 5", 6", and 8"; round azalea-style pots of diameter 5", 5.5", 6", and 6.5"; assorted nursery pots
• Shade cloth & Black-out cloth
• seeding trays and various cell trays of 6, 32, 36, 48, and 72 cells/tray
• wire support cages for tall plants
• carts for transport
• safety items including disposable gloves and personal protective equipment (PPE)
• small supply items such as bamboo stakes, twist ties, and pot labels

Costs Charged Back to Faculty

Use of soil mix more than 40 bags. Use of more than one case at a time of any given pot or tray size. Check pot supply if you’re planning a large experiment. Supplies not listed as provided above (special containers, root medium, etc.) can be ordered and will be charged back to the faculty responsible.

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Storage

Storage in the greenhouse facility is very limited. We need to avoid the accumulation of items left lying around the facility or it will soon appear junky and unsafe. No items may be stored in greenhouse corridors. Do not use the ledges along the windows for storage. Items found there will be removed. Small supplies used often in the greenhouse can be kept in the shoebox-sized plastic boxes provided just inside the door. Water-tight containers can be purchased and stored in greenhouse if labeled with owners name. Plastic cabinets should be purchased by faculty for storing many items or larger items—see cabinets located in greenhouse zones 11 and 22 for an example.

All containers should be labeled, including those containing only water. Pesticides for research use—either concentrated or in final solution (such as herbicides for screening)-- can not be stored in the greenhouse. They should be stored properly in a laboratory hood and brought to the greenhouse for application only.

Only chemicals used for greenhouse may be stored in the pesticide storage room. No herbicides will be stored in the pesticide room at any time.

Think Safety--Keep in mind that the public will often be in this facility, including children.

Housekeeping

Keep your greenhouse area clean and organized. HGRH is a working facility, not a show place, but orderliness is still expected of all users. Failure to keep a sanitary, orderly growth area may result in loss of greenhouse team services or re-allocation of that space to a different user.

The greenhouse team disposes of trash one time per week. We also cleans floors, but no more often than once per month. We will help discard large experiments if you ask.

Please dry down your pots or trays of soil before discarding plant material, to lessen the weight of trash cans and bags. Wrap pots/trays with pink/black tape to indicate DO NOT WATER to our team.

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Keys

Building Deputy Eric Whitehead has keys to the HORT and HGRH entry doors, offices and labs. A greenhouse entry key is available to any HLA or Forestry faculty and staff upon request. Download key request form. The key must be returned upon leaving department employment. Keys will not be issued to undergraduates but to the faculty in charge of their projects. The key opens the north entrance and the door on the south wall of the potting area HGRH 1133. Dr. Raghothama distributes keys to tissue culture lab in the greenhouse building.

Getting Space in the Facility for Your Plants

Space is allocated by the facility manager to HLA Faculty. Space request forms are sent to faculty three times a year, in August, December and April. Graduate students, post docs, and visiting scientists should provide information to their responsible faculty about space needs.

Once allocated, labs need to coordinate among their members to not use more space than allocated. One person in a lab group should be identified to greenhouse manager as having this coordinating role. This will ensure the best use of the limited space in our facility. Some additional space can be allocated, but only on faculty request.

Forestry Department utilizes two greenhouse zones, and makes decisions on allocation within those zones.

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Plant Transfer Record (PTR) Form

PTR forms must be filled out whenever plant material is placed into the facility, or transferred from one area to another. This allows us to keep track of who owns which plants, what special care they may need, and to track pests. It also ensures that plants in the facility are being used for active research and teaching, not for personal use. PTR forms are available in the potting area and can be placed in the bin on Rob’s door in room 1139C. Print a PTR now, or fill out the online PTR.

A "blanket" PTR can be filled out for a sequential seeding or transplanting for the same project, explaining the planting schedule. A good rule of thumb: will out watering team easily understand that these new plants are a part of the current project? A PTR can also indicate the mist area followed by the zone the plants will be moved to following germination. Otherwise, a PTR must be filled out when transferring plants from one location to another.

Plants will not be serviced, including watering until we receive the PTR. Continued non-compliance will result in the plants being discarded without notice.

Plant/Cutting Inspection

Plants or cuttings from the field, other growing facilities, or commercial sources should be checked by the greenhouse technician for pests before being placed in growing areas.

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Providing Room in Pots for Water

"Head space" is the space in the pot from the soil line to the pot rim. If you fill the soil to the rim of the pot, we will not be able to water the plant properly. A good guideline is to fill to just above the inner lip of the pot. A pot over 8" in diameter needs 2 inches of head space. Some settling does occur after first watering, but not as much as many people think. Test with one pot before potting your whole crop.

Spacing Plants

Plants should be spaced properly on the greenhouse bench or in growth chamber to allow for air movement and for access by greenhouse team to water, scout and spray.

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Transplanting

Place brown craft paper on the table when you transplant. This will keep root diseases off the table. The rolls of craft paper are on the windowsills of the potting room.

Quarantine Areas

Some areas have special quarantine restrictions due to the presence of a viral disease. Policies for working in these zones are posted on the doors, and are often determined with input from the user. It is the responsibility of the user to read about, learn and follow these procedures.

Users must let us know if you suspect plant material you will be transferring to the facility may be infected with viral diseases.

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Collections, "Pet Plants", and Other Long-Term Crops

Space in the facility is reserved for active teaching and research only. Personal use "pet plants" are not allowed. Starting personal garden plants or houseplants is not allowed. Plants should not be kept longer than necessary in the facility, particularly if they’ve completed their life cycle and are not actively growing. Insects and disease really become a problem in all these cases, plus space is kept unavailable for active work.

"Orphan" Plants

Users must check their crops at least once weekly. Leaving "orphan crops" in the care of the greenhouse team often results in our team caring for plants that have been forgotten about and no longer needed. You will be better satisfied with the results if you monitor your plants and work with us to achieve your goals. Forgotten plants become pest reservoirs.

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Harvesting Arabidopsis Seeds

Harvesting seed near other pots or bags of soil can lead to unwanted seed germinating later, possibly ruining experiments. If you can conveniently harvest seed somewhere besides the potting room, please do. If you harvest in the potting room, please use one of the tables along the walls and not the potting tables in the center of the room. Be aware of other sources of seed contamination, such as the brooms used to clean tables. There are brooms designated for floors and brooms designated for tables.

Safety

Facility users must inform manager or greenhouse technician prior to chemical applications of herbicides, fungicides and other regulated chemicals to ensure compliance with all appropriate regulations.

Faculty are responsible for their staff’s safety compliance in the Horticulture Greenhouse, and their staff receiving applicable safety training. The same departmental policies toward glove contamination and labeling chemicals applies in the greenhouse.

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Pesticide Safety

It is a reality of our greenhouse operation that pesticide applications are made. Pesticide purchases make up 20% of our operating expenses and the IPM program constitutes nearly half of the greenhouse technician’s job description.

A pesticide application record manual is posted outside office HGRH 1139B. Material safety data sheets (MSDS) and copies of labels are available in the same location.

Greenhouse technician will post notice of applications on greenhouse corridor doors, including what greenhouse zones are affected and time of application. EPA-approved NO ENTRY signs will always be on doors of treated areas, meaning the restricted access is currently in effect. These will be taken down shortly after the label-designated period of restriction is over. We post yellow signs next to NO ENTRY signs stating the re-entry conditions if allowed.

Greenhouse users must abide by all restrictions in areas treated with pesticides. Repeated violations of entry restrictions by a user (including faculty) will result in the door being locked following any application in their greenhouse.

Due to pesticide residues, do not bring food and drink into a greenhouse zone. It’s always a good idea to wash your hands after working in the greenhouse. Some may choose to never enter treated areas and always wear disposable gloves when handling plants as a precaution.

Greenhouse Audible Alarms

The greenhouses and growth rooms are alarmed for temperature emergencies. In case a piece of equipment fails and the temperature rises or falls above alarm setpoints, you will hear a beep coming from the computer cabinet in the corridor near the location. You don’t need to do anything unless it continues for more than 30 minutes, in which case you can contact greenhouse manager or technician. Here’s what happens: The alarm appears on the computer in manager’s office and manager is also paged by the computer one minute later. Even if it’s after hours, manager can acknowledge these alarms and fix the problem within 15 minutes remotely.

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Policy Violations

Users of the facility are responsible for learning and following these policies. Manager will communicate policies and remind users when they are in violation. Policies can be changed when they are no longer appropriate, or when a better solution is proposed. Repeated, deliberate violations of these policies may result in greenhouse services being suspended for that user or a reduction in allocated space.

When Things Go Wrong

Things go wrong when human beings care for perishable products in the dynamic environment of a greenhouse. If you see a problem with something a greenhouse team member is doing, you may tell them directly. Users may also choose to tell manager or technician of problems they see. In either case, please don’t be rude.

When things go wrong with manager’s performance, you can tell him directly. You can also contact HLA Department Head to whom he reports.

Contacting Manager

You can contact the manager in person, by phone, voicemail, email, memo, note or pager. There is also a marker board on the office door. Email is preferred unless problem is vital. (Rob Eddy) This will limit interruptions in tasks and give a written record to you and the manager.

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