Xtremehorticulture

Xtremehorticulture of the Desert

Removing Nutgrass by Excavating Soil May Not Work

Leave a Comment / Controlling nutgrass /

Q. We have a large garden in an area that used to be underwater. The soil is dark, has very small particles, and it clumps like clay. It also has nutgrass. We have tried several way to get rid of the nutgrass and so far, none have been successful. The soil needs amendment and we are wondering if digging up the weedy surface and disposing of it and replacing it with compost and topsoil would fix the problems, or if there is a better solution. Nutgrass with its “nut” attached to the roots. Nutgrass with its triangular stems because it is a sedge, not a grass. A. Underwater? You are opening up a whole new area of horticulture that should be called scuba gardening. Yes, nutgrass is an important weed in rice paddies. Very difficult to control. I’m sure you have done your homework. They produce a nut like swollen stem that will generate new plants if it is separated from the mother plant.  So when you pull, hoe, burn or apply pesticides the tops die but the nuts regenerate new plants. Weed killers like Roundup and dandelion killer kill the tops but not the nuts. You do all these things and nutgrass comes back with two or three times the population.  Solid research has shown that you can exhaust these knots and nutgrass if you are diligent. The technique is to continually remove the tops at the time when they have exhausted most of the nut but not yet have rebuilt it.  Timing of the removal of the top is critical. The most effective stage to do this is when the top of the plant has produced four leaves. If you wait longer than this, the plant begins rebuilding new nuts. If you remove them sooner than this than the nuts have not been fully exhausted. You will start to see a decrease in the population the first year you attempt this. Every year the population of plants will get smaller and smaller.  Use anything that either burns or removes the tops. Your other option is to remove the soil to a depth that captures all of the nuts. This would be a minimum of 12 inches followed by removal of the tops of any of the nuts that remain to exhaust the mother plants.

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Prune Mesquite in the Summer?

Leave a Comment / Pruning Mesquite /

Q. I have a Mesquite tree that has gone wild. I had it trimmed a year ago and thought I could skip a year but no chance. It’s rubbing against the roof again. When is the best time to have them trimmed? Can I do it during the summer like in August? Finding the right amount of water to give trees like mesquite so they don’t overgrow can be a balancing act. A. Let’s talk about its “wild growth” first. Mesquite trees, like most desert plants, are opportunists. When water is present, they grow like crazy. When water becomes limited, their growth slows down. If water really gets limited, they begin to drop their leaves. If water is even more limited for a longer period of time, then branches begin to die.             It’s fun to see a Mesquite tree grow eight or 9 feet a year but this is also a signal it’s getting a lot of water. Put this to your advantage when it’s young by giving it frequent irrigations and large amounts of water. As the tree begins to reach a size that you prefer, the watering schedule should be restricted.             When the tree reaches the size you like, then it becomes a balancing act; finding the right amount of water and applying it at the right time so that growth is not berserk but the tree still looks good.             When the tree is the right size, cut back on how often it receives water but give it a large volume when you do water. This helps develop a deep root system.             The trick is to determine when to irrigate next. Use the information I just gave you to determine that. When you see the tree begin to drop leaves or the canopy begins to thin, then give it its next watering.             As for pruning, light pruning can be done anytime. Branches that are rubbing on the roof should be removed as soon as possible. But if you are pruning significantly and opening the tree for a lot more sunlight to penetrate into the interior, then do this during the winter.

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Bottle Tree Leaf Drop

Leave a Comment / leaf drop, leaf scorch, Why is my bottle tree dying /

Q. You told someone that a bottle tree lacked water when its leaves turned brown and fell. I have a large, Australian bottle tree that was here when I bought this house 12 years ago.  Every summer it blooms and makes seedpods that eventually fall.  It also loses leaves as the person in your article described. However, it grows new leaves so it looks eventually much as it did. Bottle tree with one side of the tree leaf drop A. Bottle trees from Australia are “dry deciduous” trees. In other words, during the dry season of the Australian desert they drop their leaves. When rain returns, they grow their leaves again. If these trees get water stressed in our climate and suffer from a lack of water, they drop their leaves. They “think” they are going through a dry season so they drop their leaves to protect themselves from drought. During the summer here, if they are not receiving enough water they will also drop their leaves. They are conditioned to drop their leaves from millennia of evolution on the Australian continent. If you want them to keep their leaves through the summer, then give them more water or, possibly, water more often. It is hard to say which is the right thing to do but my guess is they should be given more water when they are watered. Plants use 500 to 800% more water during the months of July and August when compared to January in our desert climate. When bottle trees mature, they develop a swollen trunk that they use for storage of water that allows them to survive periods of drought, thus their name.

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Volunteer Squash? Get Rid of it

Leave a Comment / volunteer squash, Weeds /

Q. I had a volunteer plant in my flowerbed last summer. It looked like a squash plant, had very tiny white flowers, and grew hugely. I finally cut it down because it produced no fruit and shaded everything for several feet around. Perhaps if I left it vine I would get some fruit from it. Squash leaves can be the source of many different types of harmful insects. A. I wouldn’t waste my time with a volunteer squash/pumpkin/melon vine. When a plant is growing where it shouldn’t be, it is a weed and should be removed if you value its neighbors. Squash and all their relatives such as pumpkins and melon many times hybridize or cross pollinate among themselves. The seed they produce is a blend between the two parents. 99% of the time it will not be an improvement over the parents as far as eating quality. By letting it grow their it’s just a source of harmful insects that will infest the other plants because they are “dirty” unless they are cared for in a garden setting.

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Big Plants Use More Water than Little Plants

Leave a Comment / irrigation, plant water use /

Q. My wife believes 30 ft. pine trees do not need watering because they absorb water from the air. I ask you because the pine needles are turning brown Is she correct? A. She is not correct. As any tree or plant gets bigger its demand for water increases. They do not take water from the air. Just the opposite. They lose water to the air in a process called transpiration, the same as any other tree, needled or with broad leaves.

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Sago Palm Yellowing

Leave a Comment / growing cycad in the hot desert, sago palm /

Q. We have multiple sago palms in our yard and they have all done well for over 10 years. This year all the sago palms are turning yellow (pics below). Especially the largest one. We have not changed any of the fertilizer or care routine and the watering is the same as the previous summers. For some reason this year they seem to be really suffering. Reading online some websites say too much water, others say not enough, some say too much sun, others say not enough fertilizer or too much!  Basically I have no idea where to begin… 😐⁉️We love our sago palms and love the dark green evergreen foliage (they normally have) please help us save these beautiful plants.  A. It is  hard to begin. If they are healthy and growing in good soil they can handle a lot of sun and adversity. If the soil has been depleted (surrounded by rock mulch for instance) they can get quite yellow.  If the roots are drowning and the soil stays wet they can yellow. If they have root diseases (too much water, poor soils or depleted soil) they can yellow. I would nurse them along until October and dig them up, amend the soil, inspect the roots and check for rotting roots, correct the soil/watering problem and replant them. The yellowing created by a lack of fertilizer or the right kind of fertilizer is different from this kind of yellowing. This appears to be stress related. I think it is soil depletion which can be corrected by adding organics back to the soil. Use about a one inch layer of compost applied to the soil around them and water it in. You might also try adding wood chips, not bark, to the soil surface after the compost application.

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Meat Certification Course in Reno

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

Wolf Pack Meats Certification Program is being offered at Wolf Pack Meats through the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources (CABNR)and the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension (UNCE) Herds & Harvest program. Each certification program will guide students through the operation of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) protocols to ensure that program participants will learn the latest food safety and sanitation guidelines. Each program will be limited to 10 students due to the size of the Wolf Pack Meats facility and the Main Station Farm classroom size. A brochure is attached with all the information regarding this class.  July 7, 2016 Basics l Slaughter This Basics I certification program will be for beginners who want to learn about meat processing. This training is designed to provide insight on how to slaughter and process an animal carcass under USDA inspection, this class is hands-on. To register follow the EventBrite link. http://slaughter-july07-2016.eventbrite.com/ July 19, 2016 Basics I Processing Processing certification for Meat Cutting Basics I will provide hands-on specialized training in the accuracy of cutting, knife handling, portion control, merchandising and the utilization of all carcass products including food safety and sanitation guidelines. To register, follow Event Brite link. https://processing-july19-2016.eventbrite.com/ June 30, and July 1, 2016 Basics ll This Basics II certification program will be a two-day educational program related to the meat packing industry. Day 1 will be at the UNR Ag Experiment Station on Clean Water Way in the classroom and in the feedlot learning how packers make their money. Day two will focus on the processing of carcasses focusing on grade and yield at Wolf Pack meats processing facility in the morning. In the afternoon, the class will move to UNR Fleischman Agriculture Room 104, UNR Meat Lab, to conduct meat product color analysis, tenderness and packaging techniques. To register for the two-day event, click the Eventbrite link. https://basics2-june30andjuly1-2016.eventbrite.com/ 

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Coconut Trunk Rot in Philippines

2 Comments / Uncategorized /

Q. I had gone thru your blogs and thanks for I got idea how to connect with you. I am from the Philippines. I had a small coconut plantation but had some problems I had observed. (Please see attached photos). A. This looks like basal stem rot disease….Ganoderma…It is usually associated with poor drainage during the rainy season. Water accumulates around the trunks and the soil does not drain well. This standing water causes the palm to weaken and invasion by this disease pathogen which is either in the soil waiting for weakened trees or brought in with the seedlings. I attached a paper that discusses this problem and some corrective measures but the best is preventitive, making sure you have adequate drainage during heavy rains and soil that drains well. Click here for more information about this disease We see similar problems with fruit trees in temperate regions and it is called collar rot. Similar symptoms but different disease organisms.

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