Xtremehorticulture

Xtremehorticulture of the Desert

Don’t Forget to Thin Apples and Pears When Fruit are Small

Leave a Comment / how much fruit do you remove, how to thin apples, how to thin pears, thinning apples, thinning without chemicals. thinning organically /

Apples and pears require aggressive thinning particularly if you did not space your bearing limbs far enough apart.You can still do some summer pruning if the canopy is too dense. Try to think your fruit when they are small. Thinning is not required usually for nut tree, apricots and figs but fruit tree production on many trees will benefit from some thinning to very aggressive thinning. Apple fruit cluster before thinning. The fruit here are small, only about an inch in diameter. See the leaf sizes for comparison. Apples and pears require aggressive thinning particularly if you did not space your bearing limbs far enough apart. Thin so that only one, or at the most two, fruit remain per cluster. Remember it takes 60 plus leaves to support the size and sugars needed for fruit to look and taste delicious. Pears are thinned exactly the same way. Asian pears have to be thinned “harder”, remove more fruit, if you want really large-sized fruit.

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Harvesting Early Can Keep Fruit from the Wind and Hungry Birds

Leave a Comment / harvest apricots, harvest peaches, harvest plums, refractometer, sugar content, taste, when to harvest fruit /

The fruit in the grocery store looks good. But frequently when you taste it the taste does not match the look of goodness that you thought was there. This is why. Ripe fruit is different for the tree than it is to humans. Ripeness to us usually means a color change from green to red, yellow, purple or orange. Taking it a step further, fruit that is ripened fully on the tree will start to be slightly “soft” when squeezed. The bird doesn’t have hands or fingers so they “beak” it and go for the jugular. If the fruit does not taste good to a bird, the bird tries a different fruit or fruit from a different tree. We get really angry when a bird samples several fruits, damaging all of them. Kind of like a child taking a bite out of each fruit you bring home from the store. But a color change can be an indicator to you that harvest time is close. Harvesting a bit early can keep the fruit away from dropping in the wind or from hungry birds. Flora Gold apricot on the tree, very tasty looking and “ripe” from the tree’s point of view. The tree just wants to reproduce.It doesn’t care if you or the bird like the taste of its fruit or not. If the seed is ripe and can germinate, it would just as soon drop the fruit in hopes that the seed will grow. One less mouth to feed. When fruit is very unripe, the seed is not mature enough for good growth, the tree usually will hold on to the fruit unless winds are unbearable. When fruit ripens, the tree holds on to the fruit stronger. Flora Gold apricot at the orchard with Brix of 14 but still tart. I was out at the Orchard on Saturday and tasted some of the apricots that had some good color such as Flora Gold. It develops bright orange-yellow skin with a beautiful blush of red if the fruit develops in the sunlight. A volunteer told me it was not ready yet. Ah yes, ready for him, but was the tree or were the birds ready? The fruit had good color so I knew the fruit was close. That’s when you can pick the fruit, (peaches, plums, apricots) the fruit will still develop some good flavor off of the tree. Refractometer for measuring sugar content. I measured the sugar content with a refractometer. One volunteer guessed 7 Brix and another, with more experience with a refractometer, guessed 14. The latter one was right on. It was 14 Brix. By the way, when apricot hits a Brix of 16 it is considered “Excellent”. The less experienced volunteer mixed up his taste buds confusing tartness and sugar content. You see, sugars start developing from carbohydrates in the fruit pretty early, even before color change, but the high acidity masks its sweetness. If you rely on your taste buds, you will say it has low sugar content. Birds use color to indicate ripeness as well, along with a sense of smell and, of course, the beak test. If you want to stay ahead of the birds and fruit drop from the wind, harvest fruit that can develop off of the tree (apricots, peaches, plums NOT cherries, grapes or figs) when you see a color change in the fruit.

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Gopher Plant Adds Interest to a Desert Landscape

1 Comment / euphorbia, gopher plant, plant selection, what plants can I grow in southern nevada /

Gopher plant adds a lot of interest to an otherwise boring desert landscape due to color and texture during bloom and even after bloom. Use it as a specimen (planted alone as the center of attention) or in masses if you have a large area. In masses, plant them two to three feet apart. When it is flowering (spring and fall) it will draw attention so put it where you want people to go or see. Flower spikes turn brown so you can cut them back to their point of origin when they no longer look attractive or leave them if that’s the kind of thing you like. I asked Andrea Meckley, a Certified Horticulturist with the American Society for Horticultural Science, the most prestigious organization for professional horticulturists in the United States.

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Tomato Transplants Wilted and Died. Disease?

Leave a Comment / tomato seedling dying /

Q. Last weekend I started putting some tomatoes into raised garden beds. I had started these from seed about 8 weeks ago, transplanted them once into 20 oz plastic cups after four weeks, and hardened them off for a week before putting them in the ground. The were 4-6 inches tall. They went into good topsoil and I fertilized them lightly with Miracle Gro for tomatoes. Within about five days they started wilting from the bottom up and two are completely dead. I’ve noticed white lesions on several of the stems. Photos attached. Could this be blight? Is there a chance I overfertilized? I haven’t seen any insects on the plants.  A. I looked at the pics when you sent them and then ruminated about them and finally had a chance to get back to you. My reaction was that something had mechanically damaged the stems of the tomatoes. Mechanical damage can come from insect feeding, abrasion by wind blow sand, chemical sprays that were caustic to the surface tissue. This does not look like any common tomato disease that I am aware of. At this stage in their life tomatoes are so vigorous that diseases would have trouble getting established unless it was from the soil such as using “dirty” unsterilized soil for a seedling mix. But even if that were the case it does not look like one of the common or even less common soil borne disease of tomatoes (Phytophtora, Fusarium, Verticillium, Pythium). The picture looks like the problem “attacked” the plant at the stem a short distance above the soil. One of the pictures shows these “spots” starting a half inch or so above the soil level. You mentioned Miracle Gro. Miracle Gro is a good product but if it were mixed too concentrated and sprayed directly on the plants rather than diluted in water and used as a soil drench it is possible this could be salt damage from the Miracle Gro sprayed directly on the plant. My second guess would be mechanical damage from strong wind with sand and damage from “sandblasting” the stem. If it were from the compost or a soil borne disease of some sort it would start at the soil and work up. Viragrow has had no reports with damage to plants and I have seen none in their demonstration planting beds used at Viragrow. That is my best guess with the pictures and your information.

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I Told You to Spray Your Vegetables!

Leave a Comment / how to control vegetable insects, prevent disease problems on tomato /

Here is what to do when protecting your vegetables from insects: 1. Don’t wait for damage to appear. They are there. Count on it. Get ahead of the insect problem. When you see damage, it is usually too late. These are aphids feeding on the underside of an undamaged pepper leaf. Now is the time to control them! 2. Plants that have lower leaves that are shaded and touch the ground, cut them off. Remove any lower leaves that come in contact with the ground. This opens up the plant more, removes hiding places for insects and allows better spray application coverage. The lower leaves of this cabbage plant were removed on the left. The plant on the right still has its lower leaves in contact with the ground. Great place to hide and you cannot spray on the undersides of the leaves. They are shaded anyway so they are not contributing much to the plant anymore. Cut them off! 3. Remove leaves that are shaded on the interior of the plant to create better air movement through the plant, better light penetration and reduce diseases in the process. Thin or remove interior leaves of plants that are too shaded and have too many. Leave fruit shaded to prevent their sunburn. This allows better air movement and reduces disease problems. Fertilize once a month.

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This Question on Drip Irrigation Made My Head Hurt!

Leave a Comment / drip irrigation, how many emitters, how often to water, how to irrigate, how to water /

Q. I have a LOT of different shrubs and trees on only 2 valves. I don’t know how to water them. The shrubs have 2 drip emitters for each shrub and they range from 2 each at 2gph (gallon per hour; gallon = 4 liters) for plants like photinia, red autumn sage, fountain grass, jasmine vines, rhaphiolepsis etc.; 2 each at 4gph for euonymous, abelias, boxwood, honeysuckle vines etc. The trees have more emitters. My landscaper told me to water 6 days per week for twice for 20 minutes each day (equals 4hrs/week). The nursery people advised me to water only 3 times each week for 45 minutes each day. Another nursery advised 6 days each week. So, what to do? My biggest problem is my 8 year old magnolia tree, trunk diameter about 5″, has 4 each a t 4gph emitters. It used to be very full, now it’s about 10 ‘ high; the leaves are dark brown, dry and falling off.  All help would be appreciated. A. You even confused me! In their defense I would have to say it’s possible that all three could be right. Because plants are adaptable to different situations there can be several right answers to one irrigation question. Nurseries are there to provide service, the best answers they can muster up. I am an educator so let me take a stab at it from an educator’s point of view. I would like to give you enough information so you can solve your own problem with irrigation. But in my opinion, two valves are not enough to give you the flexibility of different watering schedules with all your plants and different microclimates. Bear with me on this. Let’s all agree for the most part that as plants get larger they will require more water. Let’s also agree that large plants will use more water, and considerably more water, than smaller plants. The larger the plant, the more water it needs and should receive. Three irrigation valves. They are basically on and off switches for water. Irrigation valves are basically an on and off switch for water; when the valve is open, water flows. When the valve is closed, water stops flowing. Since you have one valve in the front and one valve in the back, these switches open water to all of your plants in the front at the same time and the valve in the back does the same for plants in the back. There are three basic questions that must be answered when irrigating; 1) how long to water, 2) how much should be applied, and 3) when to apply it. The valves basically solve the question how long to water (on/off). Button type drip emitter Flag type drip emitter. The drip emitters solve the question about how much to water. An irrigation clock answers the question when/how often to water. The irrigation valves allow water to flow a length of time and the emitters determine the amount of water applied to each plant during that time. The length of time the valve is open combined with the size of the emitter determine the amount of water delivered to each plant. This is where the confusion begins. To make it as easy as possible to irrigate let’s hold one of these variables constant. Arbitrarily, let’s hold the length of time the irrigation valve is open: one hour.  Just for the sake of argument. It could be 30 minutes, it could be 90 minutes, but let’s just hold it at 60 minutes. If we make this decision first, how many minutes to open the valves, it can make our other decisions much more simple. So we now agree the valve will be open for 60 minutes for our drip emitters. For me, this is a common length of time to leave the valve open for drip emitters. To determine how much water each plant will get we have to size our drip emitters; the gallons per hour we want to use. Because of plugging, it can be dangerous to give plants only one emitter. If that emitter plugs, chances are we will lose the plant in a short period of time during our extreme summer heat. Three different button drip emitters color coded for three different amounts of water per hour (gallons or liters per hour) To determine how much water to give the plant at each watering (or when the valve is on) we look at its size. The smaller plants of course require less every time the valve is on. So for the sake of argument let’s do this. Let’s give a plant 1 gallon of water every time the valve is open (in this case one hour) for every foot of its mature size. Example only! A very small plant may get 1 to 2 gallons.  A medium-sized plant may get 3 to 6 gallons.  A large shrub may get 8 to 15 gallon every time it’s watered. The larger the plant, the more emitters it will need under its canopy. A very small plant may require one to two emitters.  A medium sized plant might require 3 to 4 emitters.  A large shrub might require 6 to 8 emitters.  So now you will take the number of gallons you are giving this plant and divide it by the number of emitters you will provide for each plant. When you do this, you will determine the number and size of the emitters you will give to each plant. So for instance a medium sized plant may get 3 to 6 gallons at each watering delivered by 3 to 4 emitters. So the size of the emitters might be 1 to 2 gallons per hour. But I would keep all the emitters going to one plant at the same size.    It doesn’t make much difference if it’s one or 2 gallons more than you calculated. What is important is that you apply enough water during one irrigation to

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Never Plant or Transplant into a Dry Hole

Leave a Comment / die, dying, new fruit tree died, tomato transplant almost dead, tomato transplant died, transplant brown, transplant death, transplant dried up /

Compost and soils amended heavily with composts can present some problems with transplants and seeds if you are not careful. I did some of my own testing with some local composts and guess what I found out! People contacted me who had problems with vegetable transplants and even fruit trees after planting in composted soil. I did some of my own testing with transplants, seed and fruit trees.             When planting in composted soils you can create problems if you are not careful, particularly now when temperatures are getting hotter. Here are my recommendations.              Never plant directly into any dry soil. I realize it is easier sometimes to plant directly into dry soils. However, roots of transplants and fruit trees, particularly bare root, are very tender. When young tender plant roots come in contact with dry soils, they desiccate or dry out very quickly. Root desiccation and death can happen in seconds, not minutes.             This is called “transplant shock”. When tender roots dieback, the plant has to make new roots to replace them. The plant wilts, leaves may get brown edges or leaves may dieback. If the plant cannot recover from this “shock”, it can die. Transplant shock, if it doesn’t kill the plant, can set it back days or even weeks. In trees transplant shock can last a month or longer.             Transplant shock is worse on small plants because they cannot recover as easily as larger plants. It is also worse when it is windy, air temperatures are high and the amount of compost added to the soil is high.             Always make sure soil is wet when transplanting. Don’t think you can plant in a dry hole and quickly water the plant.              There are good salts and bad salts. Fertilizers are good salts. But too much of a good thing can also be bad. If the compost is particularly rich, it can damage plants if it is not kept wet when planting.             As a precaution when you have purchased or amended garden soil, water the soil and let it drain two or three times before planting. This helps to “flush” some of the salts from these “rich” soils.             Wet the soil before planting. This helps reduce root desiccation due dry soils and “dilutes” salts contained in the soil.             Water transplants thoroughly, immediately after planting in wet soil. Do not rely on just the drip system to water plants immediately after planting. When planting during warm weather months, from April through September, water twice a day with a hose for one week right after transplanting.

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Brown Bumps on Quince Branches Probably Scale Insects

Leave a Comment / brown bumps on branches, stems /

Q. We have a three year old Quince tree which looked very good to me until today when I noticed brown or dark purple, small, pee-sized bumps on the top brunches. Removing the bumps causes a fluid to ooze out. I guess the fluid must be sweet since there are ants running up and down the branch. A. From your description, and the pictures you sent, it looks like it might be one of the scale insects. Yes, the picture is blurred but those are frequently the kind of pics i get. Just have to use your imangination a bit but I think i can see brown scale on the branches.             I have never seen scale insects on quince in the Las Vegas valley but they do infest trees in other climates. Scale insects, particularly the soft scales, will exude a sugary liquid that drips on limbs and leaves and attracts ants.             They are easy to squish and act just like you are describing it. There is an insect under the harder outer shell. Young are produced by the female and they leave the protection of the mother’s shell, move about and find a new home. Here they can suck plant juices and also build their own protective shell on the outside of their body. This is oleander scale and you can see they are quite similar. Basic biology is the same. Soft bodied insect under a hard shell. They feed under that shell which protects them from predators and insecticides. Systemic insecticides will get them or waiting for them to come out and they are then vulnerable. They come out to mate and when they are ready to find a new home.             The usual method of control is using horticultural oils and spraying the oil on the plant to suffocate the insect. This is done in winter or early spring.             If you are lucky enough to see the young emerge and start looking for a home, most any spray will kill them including soap and water sprays like Safers insecticidal soap. But you will have to spray oils and soap and water sprays through the year to get them under control.             Once under control an oil spray in the dormant season such as winter months when it is warm should help keep the populations reduced.             A wild guess from the picture, it might be brown soft scale particularly because you mentioned the ants.

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Asparagus Production in Kosovo Just Taking Off

Leave a Comment / how long will it keep, how to grow asparagus, how to harvest asparagus /

Kosovo is now an exporter of asparagus inside its own country, to the EU and beyond. I was there consulting in 2013 and 2014. They are filling their first orders now thanks to a USAID project, CNFA and Tetra Tech. Kosovo was born as a result of the four Yugoslav Wars during the 1990’s. The Kosovo War was the last of the four wars fought in 1999. Kosovo is still not recognized as a country by some political entities. Kosovo is in the process of rebuilding and agriculture is a key ingredient in that process. Farmers in Kosovo had never tasted asparagus before. In fact, very few of the ethnic Albanians and 80% moderate Muslims living there had. But the potential for production due to its climate and location to other countries whose people consumed it (Germany, Netherlands, France. Belgium, UK) appeared promising. Farm land in Kosovo countryside Around the same latitude as Oceana County, Michigan, the self-proclaimed capital of asparagus production in the US, the climate was promising for many crops that favored cold winters and warm summers. Asparagus trials were started, farmers interested in diversifying their crops joined in committing their land and labor and they were on their way. Pests are not a big problem yet on asparagus there yet because it is pretty isolated from asparagus production areas in Europe. The biggest problem is weed control. Weeds will dramatically reduce production and harbor pests and diseases. The good farmers control weeds. The less committed, don’t. Planting with crowns grown outside the country, spears look good from the better farmers. Asparagus can keep fairly long (2 to 3 weeks) after harvest if cooled immediately after harvesting, temperatures are kept low (33 to 35F) and humidity is high (95%). But it has to be cooled as soon as harvested. Every hour not cooled = loss of 1 day in harvest life. Asparagus trials in Kosovo Hydrocooler built in Kosovo for a small fraction of its commercial price will lower the temperature of asparagus spears to 34F using ice cold water before putting it into refrigerated coolers. Once spears are harvested in the fields they are quickly transported to a central facility for washing, grading and sorting, hydrocooling, and packing before put inside the cooler. Project technical advisors figuring out the grading and sorting procedures before training Kosovo farmers. Asparagus spears have different grading requirements depending on the market so each must be established before the process starts. Asparagus spears bagged to keep the humidity high and prevent losses from dehydration Getting my selfie in before the Ambassador shows up for the kickoff at the Swiss Diamond Hotel in Prishtina, Kosovo. There is the asparagus display for the event showing the asparagus graded, sorted and wrapped in rubber bands of about 350 g each. Plastic bags keep them fresh and looking good. Boxes are for shipping on palettes for export.

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Leaf Cupping Normally Aphids…But Not This Time!

Leave a Comment / apricot, leaf damage, new leaves browning, stinkbug damage /

Q. My Blenheim apricot tree planted in 2012 is not doing well. A few branches have lost all their leaves. Other leaves are starting to curl and cup. This year it had plenty of apricots but few leaves. I thinned them out since the tree is young. Note: Since this posting I have had numerous emails and pictures about a flurry of activity from stinkbugs in the valley. Stinkbugs are notorious for this kind of damage because there is not much to feed on early in the season and expanding buds/leaves are tender and juicy. I had to go out on this one and Andy spotted the critter before I did. Sometimes you just need an extra pair of eyes. A. First thing I see in the picture you sent is that you have wood mulch. Please pull it back 12 inches from the trunk. The symptoms you sent to me could be damage to the trunk from wet mulch.             Cupping is due to damage to leaf edges, not the entire leaf. The damage to leaf edges could be lack of water, salt damage, wind damage, damage from sprays or insects. Leaf cupping due to damage to the leaf margins followed by expansive growth from the center outward.             The lack of water could be either from a lack of applied water or damage to the trunk from wet mulch.             Salt burn can be from applying fertilizer too close to the trunk or applying a heavy rate of fertilizers in the irrigation basin. Always keep fertilizer at least a foot from the trunk.             It is best if the fertilizer is buried slightly in the soil or there is wood mulch present to keep the fertilizers from washing against the trunk after watering. Water the soil generously when applying fertilizers.             When watering the fertilizer into the soil and you do not have wood mulch, try not to flood the basin around the tree. This can push fertilizers against the trunk and cause damage.               Even “hot” manures like chicken or other poultry manure can cause problems like this if they get too close to the tree trunk. This stinkbug was not Andy’s. This is from someone else down in Henderson area. Andy’s was brown but looked the same otherwise.             We have had quite a number of reports of stinkbugs in neighborhoods in Henderson and other places. Stinkbugs can cause feeding damage to leaves as they are expanding, causing leaf cupping. Look for stinkbugs on the trees and apply an appropriate insecticide if they are present in large numbers. This is actually one of Andy’s stinkbugs from last year. I am sure he died of old age. Not Andy, the stinkbug.

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