Common Horticulture Pest

Aphis spp.

The female insect able to reproduce without mating with male insect or it is called parthenogenesis. This insect carried virus also known as mosaic virus. This kind of insect commonly damage leguminosae crop and would resulted in shrunk and dried fruit.

Aphis spp.
Aphid attacks crop in 3 ways, sucking plant sap on leaves, flower, and young shoot. This would caused stunted growth and curled fruit and leaves. It caused dirt on the attacked part and lower the photosynthesis rate.

Flower attacked by aphid would stunted and die.

Source : Horticulture, Laman impiana

Healing power of plant

Seeking inner calm? Look no further than your garden. Research from the Texas A&M University has found that green spaces have direct effect on our health. When patients' rooms had a view of hospital gardens, they recovered faster from surgery, had shorter hospital stays and needed fewer painkillers. The team also found that showing patients photos of nature reduced blood pressure in five minutes or less.

Nature stops us from worrying and obsessing over detail, according to environmental psychologist Clare Cooper Marcus.

"Gardens create a state of 'diffuse awareness' rather than focused attention. All our senses sight, smell, etc are aroused, making us aware of our surroundings. This relaxes our mind and restores our ability to pay attention when we return to work."

Quoted by Health Smart, Reader Digest

Shine the Light on Spinach (Spinacia oleracea)

When next shopping for leafy vegetables, choose those under supermarket lights. New research by the US Department of Agriculture has shown that spinach packed and refrigerated under bright light for three days had significantly higher levels of vitamins C,K,E and folate. It also had higer levels of carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin.

In contrast, spinach leaves stored in darkness had declining or unchanged levels of nutrients. Leafy green continue to photosynthesise even after they're picked, says plant physiologist Dr. Gene Lester who led the study. "The supermarket is a perfect environment, especially when the light are on 24/7."

The good news also applies to other leafy vegetables. "If the light is sufficient for photosynthesis in spinach," says Lester, "It is likely to be for all salad greens."

Quoted by Health Smart, Reader Digest

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea)

Chilli mosaic virus

Plant disease is caused by two factors. Abiotic (environment) and biotic (pathogen). There are so many plant pathogen which can caused disease to plant. Virus is one of them. A plant infected by virus, cannot be cured anymore. The least you can do is remove the infected plant to prevent it from infect another plant. Chilli mosaic virus (CMV) is common disease of chilli. If a plant is infected the virus would spread to the whole planting area in a short period of time since the size is very tiny so it can be spread or distributed so easily on the ground even in the air. See the image shown below.

Chilli mosaic virus
The leaves turned to unequal yellowish green. This will lesser the photosynthesis process hence the fruit produced would be low, or the fruit produced would be distorted and twisted. Beside of yelllowing leaves, the leaves tend to be twisted and curled as shown in the image below.

Curled leaves of chilli

Since the disease cannot be cured. We must do some practices in term of prevention. For example, make sure that all your gardening tools cleaned before you use it and wash it back after used, keep the planting area clean, do not smoking in the planting area, make sure that the seed you obtained is high resistant to disease and guaranteed by agriculture department of certified company which produced the seed, adjust irrigation if necessary, etc.