Q. We have three Japanese Blueberry in our yard; two in the backyard and one in the front. All three have dead branches yet there are scattered green leaves above them. There are far more green leaves at the bottom of the three plants. Is it possible this is due to a lack of water? A. Japanese blueberry is not a good choice for a desert climate and soils but will handle it if planted in the right location, good soil prep and regular watering. If planted in a hot microclimate with alot of reflected heat and light it gets sunburn easily and dieback. https://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2015/07/more-problems-growing-japanese.html Japanese blueberry is from Far Asia and not many deserts there so it is not really a desert plant.It grows better in a Mediterranean climate like you find in coastal CA. It grows better in a Mediterranean climate like you find in coastal CA. When grown there it is much easier to manage. What To Do So if the soil is covered in rock, if the water amount is not increased as the plant gets bigger then chances are good there will be problems.  Not sure what the reason is for dead branches but most likely related to soil management (not covering the soil in woodchips and not amending the soil so its more like soils in the Far East) or water or both. Borers It is possible to be a borer problem but I would need more information. Remove dead branches. Improve the soil and apply water to a larger area under the plant.

Q. The bottom layer of palm fronds turned an orange – yellow color almost overnight. Is this from too much water or not enough water? Color change if the fronds of this Canary Island palm signals the owner to remove them. A. Neither, the cause of it turning orange or yellow is natural. These orange and yellow colors are natural, masked by the strong green color that the chlorophyll provides. We see the same color changes in leaves in the fall color of trees.             The bottom layer of fronds die a natural death. As these lower fronds approach death due to old age and shade, some of the minerals in the leaves are absorbed back into the palm, first turning the lower fronds orange or yellow and eventually brown. Sometimes these color changes occur quickly and other times more slowly.             The nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium move out of the frond first followed by magnesium, chlorine, zinc and molybdenum. Lesser mobile nutrients are left behind which include sulfur, iron, boron, and copper. These would be the dominant minerals remaining if these palm fronds were used to make compost. This color change is your signal to cut and remove palm fronds.

Q. I watched your pruning videos on YouTube and learned a lot! Is it possible to reduce the size of a standard sized apple tree to a dwarf size this way? A. Probably not. Standard sized apple trees may grow to 35 or 40 feet in height. You might be able to keep a standard sized tree under 20 feet tall (maybe 15 feet if you’re really aggressive) through pruning but I don’t think you will get it to eight feet tall which is what I aim for in pruning semi dwarf trees for backyards. I call the size of these fruit trees “ladder less”. The standard sized apple tree is just too vigorous for pruning to short heights. Standard Sized Apple Tree Is Big             Standard sized apple trees normally grow 30 to 40 feet tall. Buying these trees on semi dwarfing rootstocks will keep them smaller than this but it depends on which semi dwarfing rootstock the tree has been grafted onto. I have found that the M111 semi-dwarfing apple rootstock is probably the best semi-dwarfing apple rootstock for backyards in our climate.             Using this semi-dwarfing rootstock, I have been able to keep Pink Lady and Mutsu apples, for instance, pruned at eight feet through appropriate pruning methods. Apple trees grafted onto M111 rootstock will normally get to 80% of its mature height if left unpruned.             Nurseries sell fruit trees with a tag that calls the tree a “semi dwarf” because most people don’t know the different kinds of semi dwarfing rootstocks. In our area an apple that is labeled as semi dwarf is most likely grafted on to M111 rootstock.  There are online stores for fruit trees, such as Grow Organic and Bay Laurel, that specify the rootstock used and the most common semi-dwarfing rootstock available on apples for backyards in the Western US is M111.

Q.. I am writing you to find out how often should I be watering my trees and shrubs. The weather got hot so quickly that I’m really not sure when to water. I have a California Pepper Tree, 2 palm trees (a canary date and a Mediterranean fan ) and 5 Japanese boxwood shrubs.  Any help you can give me is appreciated . A. There are two questions that need answering: how many minutes to water each time and secondly how often. https://wateruseitwisely.com/100-ways-to-conserve/landscape-watering-guide/plant/ The number of gallons of water given to a plant depends on its size; small trees are watered 18 inches deep, medium-size trees 24 inches deep and large trees 36 inches deep. Establishing the Number of Minutes The number of minutes depends on the soil you have and how big the tree is. Small trees are watered 18 inches deep. Medium-size trees are watered 24 inches deep. Large trees are watered 36 inches deep. Always apply the water to wet the soil at least half of the area under the tree’s canopy. Small trees are less than 20 feet tall. Medium-size trees are 20 to 35 feet tall. Large trees are above 35 feet tall. Your soil and how big the tree is so I can tell you the number of minutes. You have to figure that out for yourself. To do that I use a 3/8 inch diameter rebar 4 feet long. If the water didn’t go deep enough, water more minutes until you get there. A 4 foot length of three-eighths inch rebar I use for measuring how deep water penetrates in the soil after an irrigation. Right after I irrigate I push this rebar into the soil in three locations, where the soil is wet, as deep as I can. The rebar pushes in easily if the soil is wet. When the water doesn’t go any deeper and the soil isn’t wet anymore it’s hard to push. Watering How Many Times A Week Each time I water I use the number of minutes it takes to get the water to that depth. That doesn’t change. What changes is how many times I water each week. This is for non-desert plants.For desert plants water less often but give them the same amount of water as I mentioned above. Winter months every 10 days or more Starting February 1 every seven days About mid April twice a week About June 1 three times a week In the wintertime I water to that depth about every 10 days or longer. About February 1 I start watering once a week. Around the middle of April I water twice a week. Around 1 June I start watering three times a week. If it gets really hot I might water four times a week. A 3 to 4 inch layer of woodchips or rock helps keep the soil wet. I only use rock with trees that come from the Southwest deserts. All the rest of the trees I use woodchips. By the way, none of the plants you mentioned in your question are desert plants.

Summer watering restrictions begin May 1   Summer is almost here and it’s time to turn up the heat on saving water! Beginning May 1, seasonal watering restrictions allow watering up to six days a week and prohibit landscape irrigation on Sundays, as well as between the hours of 11 a.m. and 7 p.m., when water can be lost to intense heat and high winds. Water your landscape in the early morning hours before sunrise to reduce evaporation. While watering is permitted up to six days a week through Aug. 31, just because you CAN doesn’t mean you need to. Adjust watering gradually as temperatures increase; plants on drip need water less often than sprinklers on grass. Find more watering tips.

I am sure you are all aware of the closures of large packers due to COVID-19 outbreaks, and the ripple effects this is having throughout the industry.  The loss of processing capacity is causing a backlog of animals, for pork producers in particular.  Here in Iowa and in other Midwest states, producers are looking at having to euthanize market-weight animals due to lack of processing.  Our small plants here are booked out for months, and farmers are selling off hogs at next-to-nothing to anyone willing to drive up and buy one.  Iowa Pork Producers and Iowa Dept. of Ag are doing everything we can to find outlets, including processing for food banks, but it’s just nowhere near enough. Those of you in other areas of the country: who has room to buy and process hogs??  Every one of these hogs that we can find shackle space for is one less that has to be wasted, and can instead go to keeping our communities fed.  If your facility-alone or together with your near neighbors- have the ability to take on some of these hogs, you will be able to purchase them for next-to-nothing, and I believe that Pork Producers will even help to arrange transportation.  If you are interested, please reach out to Drew Mogler, Public Policy Director for Iowa Pork Producers, at (515) 225-7675, or [email protected].  My thanks to all of you for considering this- Dr. Polking Bureau Chief Meat and Poultry Inspection Bureau Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship

April 24, 2020 The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced $9.5 million awarded to 11 collaborative, multi-state projects to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. specialty crops. The funding is made possible through the Specialty Crop Multi-State Program (SCMP), reauthorized by the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (Farm Bill). SCMP strengthens food safety; seeks new ways to address plant pests, disease and other crop-specific issues; and increases marketing opportunities for specialty crops—fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and dried fruits to horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture. Funds are awarded competitively to state departments of agriculture and entities in nonparticipating states within any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Projects funded through SCMP involve at least two partners located in different states.  Examples of this year’s projects include: The Arizona Department of Agriculture’s collaboration with University of Arizona and University of California Cooperative Extension to advance commercial mushroom production by increasing the use of local agricultural/industrial wastes as production substrates and increasing nutritional value of resulting mushrooms grown on modified substrates and environmental conditions. The California Department of Food and Agriculture’s collaboration with the University of California, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, USDA Agricultural Research Service, University of Minnesota and the Organic Center to evaluate the food safety impacts of sheep grazing cover crops, compared to tilled termination of cover crops and winter fallow, before spinach and cucumber. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ collaboration with the University of Florida, the Pennsylvania State University, and the USDA-ARS to study disease resistance and diversity to improve lettuce cultivars against bacterial leaf spot (BLS) through breeding, genetics, and study of the BLS-lettuce interaction. A full list of grant recipients and their project descriptions is available on the SCMP Awarded Grants page of the Agricultural Marketing Service website.  To learn more about AMS grant funding to enhance and strengthen agricultural systems, visit Agricultural Marketing Service: Grants. For more information, please contact Martin Rosier at [email protected]

I follow a thread for small scale meat processors (NMPAN) where some of them received their SBA Loan for their employees when they applied. This is what one of them is doing with it and how they responded to the pandemic. I was one of the few out there who successfully applied for a SBA Payroll Protection Plan loan.  I received a check this week, and the first thing I did was announce to my staff that I am paying a $3/hr. hazard pay supplement over the next 8 weeks.   The second thing I did was to call the 2 employees who were on leave -they were isolating at home because they felt they had risk conditions and couldn’t risk going out – and told them they would receive a regular paycheck over those eight weeks.  So I am torn – I need to incentivize people to keep working, since we are under incredible demand for our services.  I have changed my processing services to eliminate the unproductive fussy stuff, and allow me to increase throughput by 20-25%, and try and meet demand.  Even with that, I am now scheduling in August.   But I do not want to put people at risk, so we are wearing masks, sanitizing doorknobs and contact surfaces like crazy, and constantly reminding employees to go straight home, don’t hang out!   I will likely process in the range of 1,000 beef and 3,000 hogs this year.  That is like nothing, compared to the big meat plants that are being forced to shut down.  But in the weeks and months ahead, as shortages increase, we are going to find that this truly is an essential service.  People generally come together during hard times.  But food shortages will drive us apart, so I am doing what I can.   I am also hoping to set a good example of how community-based agriculture can work, so in the years ahead, perhaps we will re-think neo-liberal capitalism, and create a system that treats people well.  Tyson and Cargill and JBS and the rest are literally killing people in their plants by their work practices.  I don’t want to take this analogy too far, but I feel a little bit like those doctors and nurses who keep going into the emergency rooms knowing they are risking excessive exposure, but they can’t leave the patients.   I am fielding e-mails and calls all day long from producers trying hard to get processing services anywhere they can.  I hate telling them they have to wait 4 months.  I don’t think that there is a right answer to this question – we each have to answer it for ourselves.  I have told every one of my employees that I will hold their job if they self-quarantine. Joe Cloud of T&E Meats Buy Local Whenever Possible