Its my first crop. I am about to pinch my Winter Rose and am wondering, with the insane heat in the MidWest right now, would it be safe to add Capsil to Florel? I am very cautious about burn and with today reaching 102 I would rather just use Florel without any Capsil.

I would avoid afternoon and late mornig applications. Try to apply as early as you can in the morning. We do Practice capsil ,Florel mix at our location in New York. We always apply same time of day, early morning before the heat hits. Most likely the plants are going to shut down with extreme heat. Thats just my thoughts. Have a good growing season

We use florel 3 days prior to pinch and then 3 days after pinch. It's said that it promotes lateral breaks and in some cases it can act as a minor growth retardant. We use 50ml FLorel to 1 gal water.( no buffering capacity )distilled water or a PH lower than 5.0

You need to be careful with the Capsil and the Florel when temperatures are excessive in the greenhouse. The ethylene response that the Florel triggers in the plant is a stress reaction. If the plants are under moisture stress or heat stress at the time of the application the response from the Florel will be enhanced. With the Florel you will also see some growth regulator effects. If the plants are already stressed from the heat you may see too much growth regulating. On a cultivar like Winter Rose too much growth regulating can destroy a crop fast. It is a low vigor plant and it takes the plant a long time to grow out of too much growth regulating. Our caution here would be to use the lowest rate on the Florel (250 ppm), keep the Capsil rate low (1 oz/100 gallons), and to keep the plants shaded and watered well. Make your application in the coolest part of the day. Keeping the plants as stress free as possible with the high heat will ensure that you don't see damage from the Florel and Capsil and don't see any excessive growth regulating effects from the Florel.

Adam, since this is your first crop, my suggestion would be to keep it simple. Do not use the Florel. Florel does promote branching and uniformity in Winter Rose. However, Florel is not a “requirement” on Winter Rose. Without Florel they are fine and perfectly marketable. Good luck with the crop.

Another wrinkle in the discussion of Florel and high temps – Here in Florida, I find that I have to go to higher Florel rates (1,000 – 1,500 ppm) when the temperatures are high before I get activity on poinsettias. I do not get burn at those rates. For most crops, we have to lower the rate at high temps to avoid burning with Florel. For those of you experienced with use of Florel on poinsettias you might want to do tests using higher rates. Remember Florel (on all crops) works better the longer the spray solution stays wet on the leaves and at cooler temperatures. So it is better to spray early morning or in the evening.

Also, as pointed out, you do have to be careful with the surfactants like Capsil at higher temps.

Good luck this fall everyone!!

Jim

OK, we're getting ready to pinch our 8" and 10" Prestige and SnowCap and want to try the florel/capsil treatment. Normally we do our spraying around 7-8 pm. We need to spray tomorrow. The forecast for the next 2 days in NC is the lower 100's. Is it best to spray at the coolest time (like 6 a.m.....it will be 90 by 9:00) or wait until the evening when it will be in the 80's but no sun and stay cooler longer? Follow that? Or, should we not spray at all b/c of the heat?

As Jim mentioned, the longer the Florel can remain wet on the foliage the better the chemical works. Spraying in the evening will probably allow for a longer time before the chemical dries. The heat is also not a big concern with the Florel, you should be more concerned about using the Capsil. Again, keep rates low and spray when its as cool as possible in the greenhouse.