Q. I have a small lemon tree, about 3 ft. high and 5 years old, growing on my patio in a whiskey barrel.  It currently has two lemons growing on it due to the fact that a critter ate all the others.  It has produced since the second year (up to 8 lemons) if the critter does not eat them.  However, the leaves on my little tree are very sparse.  Is this common or am I doing something wrong. I read your blog all the time. A. Thanks for reading my blog and you will see this posting in it soon. When we grow things in containers or pots we have to be worried a bit about the soil “going bad” over time. So if you are not adding compost or trying to renew the soil in some way it will start to get depleted or it will lose its “vitality”.             I assume you are adding some sort of fertilizer to the soil to help the tree but the addition of just a fertilizer will not be enough. Organic matter will be needed as well. It is probably best once every year or, at the most two, that you remove some of the soil from the container and add composted soil.             It is okay if you damage some roots in the process. They will grow back. But my guess is that the soil is starting to become exhausted. If you could replace that soil with composted soil or a soil mix with a good compost in it I think you will see some improvement over time.             Pick a spot in the container, take a garden trowel and dig two or three holes about halfway down and replace this soil. When you pick a compost, pick a good one. It will not be cheap. My guess a good one will run you about $20 or so for a couple cubic feet of compost.             Kelloggs makes some lesser expensive composts that may be okay. Fox Farms makes good compost but it is expensive. Look for Happy Frog or others that are similar when you do this. Replace more soil the next year in the same way.             When containers are used for vegetables or things like strawberries we normally replace the soil after a couple of plantings. Disease and insect problems accumulate and build after a few plantings. It will help if you can cover the soil in the container with a couple of inches of organic mulch that decomposes as well.  I hope this helps.

Readers pine tree Q. Attached are two photos of a pine tree in my front yard.  On closer examination you will see two open wounds in the upper area of the pine tree.  Unbeknownst to me, these wounds appear to have been in existence for some time judging by the amount of pine sap around them.             Staff at a local nursery thought the wounds might be related to little insects called borers.  However, rather than slather the wounds with tree dressing or tar, they suggested that I contact someone who was more knowledgeable than they such as the County Extension Service.  I saw your column in the paper and thought perhaps you might be able to help me.             I did purchase Tree & Shrub Protect & Feed concentrate from the nursery as they recommended sprinkling this powder on the ground extending out to the tree line. Our pine tree is probably 20-25 feet tall and hope it isn’t too late to apply some remedial/medical measures to help save it. A. Borer damage to pines in the landscaped area of the valley is rare but worth checking out. I would pull any loose bark away from the damaged area first. If it is loose, I would want to see what is under it.             If you the bark pulls away from the tree easily then the area under it is dead. Remove all of the loose bark and see how extensive the dead area, if any, might be. If it extends to a very large area around the circumference of the tree you would most likely see dead branches in the tree which it sounds like you don’t have.             If there is just sap bubbling to the surface that usually indicates some damage to the wood and it exudes sap as part of the healing process. Leave it alone and let it heal just like we would any open wound we might get. Pines do appreciate an occasional deep watering unless you are doing that now.             You can tell by looking at the canopy and how dense the canopy is. If the canopy is sparse and you can see through it easily then it is probably not getting enough water to stimulate enough good growth to keep it dense. These large trees require a lot of water, even pines. I hope this helps.

Mid Pride peach with yellowing leaves Q. Could you tell what is the problem with my mid pride peach tree? I sent you pictures. A. You have a great selection in a mid-pride peach. Honestly, I don’t see a whole lot wrong with it. The leaves are yellowish but this is not due to iron. This is actually some sunburn and discoloration to the leaves.             The difference between iron and bleaching by intense sunlight is in the coloration of the leaf. When a leaf is discolored due to high light intensities or sunburn they tend to bronze in there yellowing. This bronzing is over the entire leaf.             Yellowing due to a lack of available iron in the beginning stages of the leaf’s growth causes the yellowing to occur between the veins of the leaf, leaving the veins a darker green color. The term for this is in interveinal (between the veins) chlorosis (yellowing). Closeup of the leaves on this Mid Pride peach             As the lack of iron intensifies, the yellowing between the veins becomes more pronounced. As the iron problem worsens more, the leaf begins to scorch around the edges (it is unhealthy and cannot handle stress as well) and the interveinal chlorosis progressively gets worse. At some time, and in some species, the entire leaf may become totally yellow with scorching on the leaf margins and the veins only with a hint of green in them.           The best type of iron chelate for us is also the most expensive one. But a little bit can go a long way. The only place I have seen this for sale in retail packages in small homeowner quantities (one pound) has been at Plant World Nursery in Las Vegas.

Q. Could you tell what is the problem with my eastern red bud tree? I sent you pictures. Leaf damage to Eastern redbud growing in southern Nevada. Eastern redbud is an understory tree in the eastern US and does not handle harsh environments well A. The redbud problem is pretty common with this tree and our soils and climate. Western Redbud is more tolerant than the Eastern Redbud of our conditions and would be a preferred tree for the Western United States.             Western redbud may not be easy to find in the nurseries but it is worth a look. Another tree that might be even a better selection for you would be the Mexican redbud which looks very similar and would give you a similar impact to the Eastern redbud.             The problem you are seeing on the leaves, scorching and discoloration, will always be a problem in this climate and soils with that tree. Eastern redbud is an understory tree in the eastern part of the United States which means it does not handle full sun very well even in the cooler parts of this country. Think of the problems it will have in our desert climate, high light intensity and alkaline soils.             I usually encourage people to try something new but this is a small tree that you would have to babysit for many years to come even if you’ve found the right spot for it. I would encourage you to look for the Mexican Redbud if this is going into a desert or rock type landscape. See what a Mexican redbud looks like

 The tree on the right is ash and on the left is mulberry. The mulberry has the ability to come back after severe pruning due to some “hidden buds” or what can call undifferentiated tissue that can regenerate new growth while the ash does not and will frequently severely die back. Q. We have two fantex ash trees that are 15 years old. They are spreading out too far. How far can we cut them back without killing them? A. The problem with ash is that it does not have much ability to come back from cut limbs if you cut back too far and into larger wood. You should begin to structure the tree fairly early and stay on top of it but if you let it go too long and then cut it back you may have some problems.             You can cut it back to side branches that are growing in a desirable direction but you cannot prune it back by what we call heading cuts (stubbing it back) and hoping these dead end cuts will resprout. You can cut back into second or maybe three year old wood (there are still side buds remaining that can grow) but if you cut into a limb with no buds present, it will probably die back to a major limb.  Thinning  cut, removal of an entire limb, on a peach tree.             So cut a branch to a crotch going in the direction you want the limbs coming from that crotch to grow. If a limb is a problem, remove the entire limb back to its source. Do not leave any stubs (dead end cuts).             I hope this makes sense. I will put on my blog a picture of a thinning cut made removing a larger limb. 

Salt damage to guava from saline or salty water in the overhead irrigation (water applied to the leaves) Q. I’d like to soften the water in our house, or at least get some of the minerals out of the pipes. Culligan-type water softeners are supposed to release a lot of salt into the ground, which I think is harmful for the plants.  You can separate your softened water from your water for the plants but I’ve heard that is not cheap.  There are other so-called softeners which use calcium or potassium chloride or something else besides salt in the Culligan-type units but it’s more expensive.  What should I do? A. I am not going to talk about the pros and cons of water softened with sodium chloride versus potassium chloride for personal use. This is not my area of expertise but I can speak the subject of watering plants with softened water and your irrigation system.             Normally, softened water starts after the water from the street has been tapped for your irrigation system. If this is done, it should not be a problem for you. It most likely would be a problem if you have tapped an irrigation system from a hose bib coming from the walls of your house. Many houses have their water softener conditioning water going to every water outlet in the entire inside of the house. Salt applied to the ground from saline water applied through drip emitters             This will mean that softened water is delivered to both hot and cold faucets as well as the hose bibs you use for hoses outside the house. So if you have a water softener and you have some sort of irrigation system attached to a hose bib, then you are most likely watering outside plants with softened or saline water.             Whenever you use a hose attached to a faucet coming from the walls of your house, then it will be carrying softened water. If you are watering houseplants from an inside faucet and you have softened water, then you are most likely watering them with softened water. Salt damage to rose leaves from soil salts, not applied to the leaves through overhead irrigation but salt in the soil             Is softened water bad? Yes, it can be. If you are using inexpensive water softening salts then this is most likely sodium chloride or common table salt. Sodium is very toxic to plants and can destroy the structure of soils. Chlorides are essential to plants but in high amounts it can also be toxic.             What to do? As you mentioned, potassium chloride is an alternative water softening salt to regular water softening salt but it is more expensive. In fact, it can be double the price or more. Potassium is a mineral contained in fertilizers and used by plants in fairly high quantities. So potassium chloride would be a better alternative for plants than common water softening salt. Pitting of the sidewalk from water runoff from the lawn of water containing salts             When I installed my irrigation system, I put hose bibs in the landscape that were fed by the pressurized main line of the irrigation system. This way when I watered with a hose I was not using softened water. I avoided using water from hose bibs coming from the house.             When I watered houseplants, I use distilled or RO water instead of water from the faucets. I mixed a very small amount of houseplant fertilizer in the water so that it had some good minerals in it. This avoided the use of softened water on houseplants which can be very toxic to most of them.

Q. I have a large fig tree that gives me small green figs and that is all I get. I think not enough water as you said. I also saw the picture of cuttings to grow another tree?  Can I do that or should I buy a second tree? What about pruning? Is this a good time?  A. I would buy another tree. They are not that expensive and you can get a different type of fig than the one you have now. Variety is the spice of life!             But first you have to figure out what fig you have. Figs are all green when young and turn either yellow, off white, purple, purplish brown or nearly black. The white or yellow types have a more delicate flavor while the darker ones are usually more robust in their flavor. One dark one that has been given some nice reviews from homeowners in the valley is Blackjack and it is a smaller tree.             Just make sure when you prune a fig tree, if you want two crops from it, that you leave some growth present that is last years. If you cut the tree back and take off all the growth from 2012 you will only have one crop, the main crop. If you leave some of this growth from last year you will have two crops of figs.             You can prune as soon as the leaves drop. Figs can handle any amount of pruning you want to give them. I will be giving some pruning classes out at the orchard when I am back in Las Vegas on December 22 beginning at 9 am.

Q. Several weeks ago I noticed whiteflies on my dwarf orange tree. I went to Lowes where they recommended the following product: Bayer Advanced Tree & Shrub Protect and Feed. Upon reading the instructions it states: Do not use on plants grown for food but does not mention trees or shrubs. Can you please tell if this product is safe to use and if not what would you recommend?  Picture can be found at Bayer link to this insecticide and the label   A. I cannot tell you if it is safe to use on edible crops or not. I went back and looked at the product label online. Some formulations of the product the manufacturer claims you can use on SOME edible crops including fruit trees.             The manufacturer also claims 12 month control of some insect pests using this product. Some formulations say you can spread the granules under the tree. The tree in turn takes up this product through its roots where it spreads through the plant where this poison then gives 12 month control to pests listed on the label.             This means that the product has spread through the entire plant systemically to provide enough of this product inside the tree to control these insects for 12 months. This also means the poison should ALSO be in other plant parts as well, such as fruit.             These products undergo extensive testing for so-called “safety” issues that must be done before receiving a label approved by EPA. So our EPA is saying that this product has met its tolerances of “safety” (the feds do not like you to use the word “safe” in instances like this because they do not guarantee any pesticide is “safe”) and have approved this label. The product is supposed to be at such low levels in the plant that the government considers it safe to eat.             Now, in my opinion, I would NEVER eat fruit from a fruit tree that has been treated with a systemic insecticide, period. Particularly when the manufacturer has claimed 12 month control of insects after its application! It does not make any sense to me to eat fruit from this tree in the same year it was treated with this type of pesticide. I hope this helps.

Q. I have a couple of vines of grapes. Should I cut them back so the stem is about 1 ft. high? I’ve been doing that and have not gotten many grapes from my Thompson plant and none from my seedless Flame. These plants are about 5 years old. This picture was taken in the spring of 2012, about the second week of March. You can see a grape spur in the upper right quadrant of the picture, reddish brown, that has two leaves coming from buds . It was cut back from a much longer stem, which grew in 2011, following the directions in this posting. Since this grape can be spur pruned, I cut this longer stem back so that only two buds remains on the spur. Those buds gave rise to the leaves you see. Also coming from these buds will be growth that will form the grape clusters or bunches. Follow this spur back to its base and you will see it connected to a short stem, brown in color, older than the spur. This was the previous year’s spur. At the base is even older wood which has a characteristic greyish color.   A. If you continue to cut off all of last year’s (2011) vine growth, you will never have grapes. Bunches of grapes produced in 2012 come from buds on growth that was produced in 2011, the previous year. The only thing you have to do now is decide how much of the growth produced in 2012 you will leave remaining after you have finished pruning. By the way, I usually delay the final pruning of grapes until at least mid-February to avoid loss of fruit from late freezes.  Another spur which has been cut intentionally too long. If there is damage from winter cold and the end of the spur dies, there is enough of the spur left for it to recover. The oldest growth at the bottom is grey. The spur on top is reddish brown. In between is a former spur which is brown. The spur has three buds. Bottom bud is pointy on the bottom right of the spur. The next bud up is on the left side where a side shoot has been cut back. The third bud is on the top right where another side shoot was cut back. After cold weather has passed at the mid to end of February you would cut the spur 1/4 inch above the second bud. After you get some experience, cut it back 1/4 inch above the bottom bud leaving only one bud.             Let me walk you through the steps for pruning table grapes. You can prune wine grapes this way but wine grapes should be pruned slightly different.  With wine grapes we want to be more careful to “balance” the load of fruit with the growth of the vine to get better quality grapes.             I like to prune grapes in either one step in mid-February or a two-step process with an initial pruning of the grapes at leaf fall and a final pruning on the February date. Some people are itching to cut those grapes early and this will give them something to do. Otherwise just delay the pruning.             There are two things to know before you begin. First, the wood where the fruit is produced is on last year’s growth which is a different color from older, nonproductive wood. It is usually more reddish. I will post pictures on my blog next week so you and others can see what I am talking about.             Secondly, most grapes are pruned so that the amount of last year’s wood, the reddish colored wood, is only an inch or two long. But there are two table grapes that are NOT pruned like this. These are Thompson seedless and Black Monukka. These are pruned so that the remaining reddish, last year’s wood is about 12 to 18 inches long.             When you leave just a very short length of reddish wood remaining after pruning then this is called spur pruning and this short stub of red wood is called a spur. When you leave a long piece of this reddish wood, then this is called a cane and you are cane pruning.  This is the tangle of new growth you must either remove or cut back to spurs. The new growth in the right places and spaced the right distance apart will be cut back to spurs, one or two buds in length.             Pruning your grapes early can possibly result in no fruit production this next year in our climate. If there are some very low temperatures and strong, cold dry winds blowing across your vines after you prune it is possible to freeze back the spurs or canes and lose your crop or severely reduce it. If you delay pruning until February, you reduce that risk.             Here is how to prune. Find the end of a stem or branch of a grape vine. Follow it until you see a place where there is a definite change in color from red to grey and the wood looks older. There is a clear separation between these two colors. This is where the 2012 growth began (red) and growth in 2011 (grey and older) ended.             On the outside of the reddish stem you will see buds on either side. The last years red growth (on buds close to the separation of colors) is where the fruit will be produced for most grapes.             For those grapes that require spur pruning, you can cut the reddish stem back leaving only two buds remaining. Prune ¼ inch beyond the second bud from the grey wood with a straight cut.  Another picture of one year old wood that will be cut back to either a spur or a cane. Canes are just long spurs. Grapes like Thompson Seedless have buds at the base of the new growth that will not produce grapes, just

They have been called Monster plants, Frankenseeds or Frankenplants. Scientists have inserted “antifreeze” protein genes from flounder into tomatoes to protect the fruit from frost damage, chicken genes have been inserted into potatoes to increase disease resistance, firefly genes have been injected into corn plants. These are plants created in laboratories that never could have been developed by the traditional means of plant breeding. Bizarre examples of genetically modified organisms Plants that have been genetically engineered to resist herbicides and insects, resist freezing temperatures, produce pharmaceutical drugs and to convert nitrogen directly from the soil and developed by large multinational companies at tremendous cost are now being grown in the hopes of much larger profits. Biotechnologies of this type have evolved so quickly that the scientific community has split in the controversy and the rapid advancement of this science has left the general public and many scientists behind in ignorance and Universities scrambling for position. The last two articles discussed how the disease crown gall was used, in the very early days of genetic engineering, to insert genetic information into plants. This ultimately led to technologies like the “gene gun” and how genes, like the one that produces the toxin from Bacillus thuriengensis (Bt), could be inserted so that crops could be protected from insects. These two articles made it sound like biotechnology may lead to a scientifically founded Garden of Eden. To be fair, in Part III, a few of the arguments against this technology follows. Genetic engineering is an imperfect science and not enough is known about what will happen in the long run. Many times researchers who insert genes, creating new organisms, operate with a scatter-gun approach, not knowing where the gene will end up over time or what effects it will have in the long run. Science knows very little about what a gene might trigger or interrupt depending on where it is inserted into the new host plant or animal. Though often thought of as being precise by laypeople, inserting genes is a rather crude technology, lacking precision and predictability. The “new” gene can end up somewhere or doing something unexpected. For example, when genes for the color red were placed into petunias, this gene not only changed the color of the flower petals but also, unexpectedly, decreased the plant’s fertility and changed the growth of its roots and leaves. Salmon, which were genetically engineered to produce a growth hormone, not only grew bigger than expected and too fast but also turned green. These were unpredictable, scientifically termed pleiotropic, effects. How do we know that a genetically engineered food plant will not produce new toxins and allergenic substances? How will the nutritional value of genetically modified foods change or will it? What will be the effects on the environment that comes in contact with these plants and on the wildlife in the food chain? Remember DDT? Examples of unexpected results from biotechnology: ·       An attempt to make potato plants resistant to sap-sucking insects has made them more vulnerable to other kinds of insect pests. ·       Crops such as maize and cotton have already been made resistant to chewing insects by adding a gene for Bt. But adding the Bt gene has led to speculation that there will be an increased attack by insects such as leafhoppers and aphids due to an unexpected drop in chemicals that deter their feeding. ·       The stems of a genetically altered, herbicide-resistant soybean were found uncharacteristically to crack open in hot climates. All these questions are important questions yet they remain unanswered until the biologically altered plant leaves the test tube and enters the real world. The argument is that biotechnology fostered by corporations tends to ignore caution in favor of profits. Genetically engineered organisms will disrupt our environment. Traditional plant breeding was limited to plants or animals that were compatible biologically which in turn limited the diversity of possible offspring. Breeding through gene-splicing techniques will create life forms that have never before existed, theoretically in billions of different possible combinations which can result in billions of different possible outcomes, some predictable and others not. As these new life forms escape or are introduced into the environment and enter different habitats they may do so with no environmental checks and balances. We can look at past scenarios where biological organisms were released into new habitats with no checks and balances to see what will happen. While many have adapted without severe problems, a small percentage of them have not. These include the Kudzu vine, gypsy moth, saltcedar, Dutch Elm disease, Chestnut blight, starlings and the Mediterranean fruit fly to name a few. Whenever a genetically engineered organism is released it must be remembered that it may cause a disruption to a complex environment with pre-existing relationships that have developed over long periods of evolutionary history. This has been characterized sometimes as a type of environmental “pollution”. But because this pollution is a “living pollution” these organisms will be more unpredictable than nonbiological pollutants. Genetically engineered products reproduce. When genetically engineered crops are grown for a specific purpose, they cannot be easily isolated both from spreading into the wild and from cross-pollinating with wild relatives. It has already been shown that cross-pollination with “normal plants” can take place almost a mile away from the genetically engineered plantings. Three mile buffers are now being recommended in some countries. If we accept the concept that the environments and habitats have their own corrective mechanisms that allow them to “heal”, then radical changes to these environments from genetically modified organisms will require stronger corrective measures if it can be healed at all. Ordinary pests could become “Super-pests”. Much of the current effort in profit-centered, agricultural biotechnology is centered on the creation of herbicide-tolerant, pest-resistant and virus-resistant plants. The idea is to sell farmers patented seeds in the hope of increasing a company’s share of both the seed and pesticide markets. The chemical companies hope to convince farmers that the new pest-tolerant crops will