ICL's Chloe Whiteside on peat-free, fertiliser and biocontrol use for growers this winter

Chloe Whiteside, ICL’s technical area sales manager covering Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire – has spoken on the HortWeek podcast about the highs and lows of the 2025 spring bedding season and what the strong start and weaker finish mean for the 2026 bedding plant season.

She talks about what bedding growers should be doing in the lead-up to the spring season and gives advice about watering, nutrition and storage regimes for peat-reduced and peat-free growing media.

On nutrition, she talks about using controlled release fertiliser and water solubles, as well as which biocontrol, biopesticide and biostimulant products are at the grower’s disposal and, as a BASIS qualified adviser, what she recommends.

Before joining ICL, Whiteside spent 10 years in horticultural research at ADAS, delivering research projects on a wide range of ornamental and edible crops. She managed the AHDB funded Bedding and Pot Plant Centre trials, as well as the AHDB, Defra and industry-funded project on Transition to Responsibly Sourced Growing

Media Use in UK Horticulture. The project ran for five years and covered all sectors of horticulture, from bedding propagation right through to container grown trees and soft fruit production.

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