Dakota Growing Ep. 38 - Monsters and Winter Effects

Kelsey Deckert & Tom Kalb talk about the insect monsters of 2024 & the effects of winter on your plants.

Episode Transcript

(00:24):
Welcome to Dakota Growing. I'm KelseyDeckert, the horticulture agent here in Burley
County, joined in the Real RadioAccess studio by my co host Tom Cobb
and EYSU Extension horror culturists. Howare we doing today. Everything's good.
We're in June, almost mid June. You know. These are good days.
They are good days. And thedays are still getting longer. Oh

(00:49):
it's just get some nice rains andnot too hot. Just really good.
These are good, good days.These are good days. I enjoy the
sended days being outside. Sun doesn'tset tell what almost ten after ten,
it feels like it's good. Yeah, just battling a few mosquitoes now,

(01:11):
man, But it's been pretty windyit has been, so that's you don't
get mosquitoes. I've only got abit, like a few times, and
that was just this last week inthe first mosquito bites of the season for
me. So they're not attracted toyou. Oh they are. And I
have allergies to them. So you'reallergic to them. Well everybody does.
Yeah, that's why that's why itswells. I was like, like got

(01:36):
a very prominent allergy. I thinkabout grown in a little bit. But
when I was a kid, Yeah, I had to go with the emergency
room bite. Yeah, fingers,I guess swelled up. I don't remember
it really really bad. So bugbites. I heard that before the good
old beast. Are you sensitive beaststoo? Mm hmm. Not to the

(02:00):
point of like an EpiPen, thankfully, but yeah, sensitive. Well that's
sad. Sorry about you. Idon't know those kind of worries. That's
good. I'm okay on that stuff. Yeah, it's I don't know.
So yeah, So mosquitoes avoid dawn. In dusk, that's when they like

(02:22):
to attack, and uh, becareful when the winds are calm, like
when you get like five or eventamous wind, they just can't fly.
Those mosquitoes are pretty flimsy airplanes outthere, and you know, fly very
well. And where protect your skin, long sleeves, trousers. You get

(02:45):
through that though, got to cutdown that beer. Kelsey's a friend who's
like nursing background, and I wassaying, how you know you hear about
like certain blood types, right,like they're attracted to certain blood types and
blood types that. Oh yes,ever, yes, I've heard that.

(03:06):
So I was asking her about it, and she said that if you like,
maybe eat stuff that's higher in potassium. And I was like, so
bananas, Like I eat a bananaa day, So I don't know,
she said, could be part ofit. I don't know. I just
heard. You got to be carefulabout beer because when you drink a lot

(03:27):
of alcohol, thing that's not me, that's not my veins kind of swell
up and they get closer to thesurface. It's definitely not me. When
I've had to have blood draws,it takes too many times. Yeah,
must be all that perfume you were, No, they like fruity perfume.
I probably smell like horses. Mostof the timers they never heard that attracted.

(03:52):
Might have to go back to thedrawing board and get some more information.
There you go. What's going onin our landscapes? Well, yeah,
a lot of it has to dowith the rain. That's right.
We're gonna be talking a lot ofproms. And because the rain is great,
because moisture is a limiting factor inour production in our gardens, landscapes,

(04:14):
lawns, but the rains can alsocreate scary situations, and so that
at least my theme of my talktoday is called garden monsters with my Godzilla
screen here. Jeez hoof, Ihope we don't have to change the rating

(04:39):
today. It's all clean, it'sall clean. It's a little bit just
a tribute to Godzilla there. Sohere's our first monster. It looks kind
of harmless here. It looks justlike a kind of like a little nut.
Yeah, it's got a little thingspoking out there. And this is
on a red cedar also known asjuniper, very common rub here in North

(05:00):
Dakota because it can tolerate are coldtemperatures and dry conditions. But when you
see these these galls, once theyget some rain in the spring, something
scary happens. Yes, out comesthese orange tentacles that shoot out, and

(05:21):
the orange tentacles spit out rust spores. Oh, they're not eating you.
They're not gonna engulf you. They'regonna shoot out their destructive rust spores.
And so there is a real lifestory here in Burley County. He's got
I've had this situation too. Thisguy. This guy has uh some fruit

(05:46):
trees in the backyard. It's ahawthorn here, and his neighbor had a
row at junipers. And the rolewas just covered with those galls shooting out
rust bull on his trees. Andso when he saw this, you know
what he said, I'm scared.He was quite mad. Mad, yess

(06:15):
he was, because you know it'sthe neighbor conflict thing going on. The
innocent victim, his trees being attacked. So what can you do about it?
Like, can he cut down hisneighbors juniper rolled juniper shrubs? Can't
do it, or even should he? Can he force the neighbor to spray
their shrubs? Can't do it?So just had to calm down. And

(06:38):
of course the apples crab apples alsoare weren't too happy about this situation either.
So one of the problems with thiscedar apple rust complex or cedar Hawthorne
Russ complex is the sports just don'tcome from your neighbor. They can come
from a mile away. And juniperis very common here. Can't just blame

(07:00):
the neighbor on this one, sorry. And the good rose is that damage
is rarely severe. It looks dramaticwith the orange orange pustiles we call them,
but they don't cause much harm really, so what can we do about
it? We got to prevent thedisease that's the most important thing, because
I can't prevent rain. I can'tstop the rain from coming. Rain.

(07:24):
Yeah, we don't want to stopthe rain right now. So we can
reduce the humidity in our trees becausefungi, you know, diseases, they
like humidity, they like moisture,they like wet leaves. Okay, So
if we prune our trees in thewinter, that will get us better air
movement and sunlight and less humidity inour trees so to be less infection.

(07:47):
And then we can use fungicide sprays. But one thing about fungicided sprays like
mankoz evn copper fungicide sprays are quitelimited. They can't they have very little
ability to cure a disease. Whatthey can do is prevent infection. So

(08:07):
one strategy is if this problem comes, if it's it's a problem this year,
okay, that's what we can copewith that problem. Next year,
we can still cope with it.But if this becomes a continuous problem,
our plants will get weak and sothen we can use a preventative attack.
And so the best way is towait to see when rain is expected,
and about a day or two beforethe rain is expected, we can put

(08:30):
the fund side apply to the leavesand to act as a shield against infection.
Okay, so just keep in mindfunnicides really don't work as cures their
preventive chemicals. He didn't want toplay ninja ninja. Yeah, go attack

(08:50):
that you a person. Night.Just make sure it's a new moon.
What does the moon have to do? New moon means there's no moon?
Oh it's perfectly dark, black outfit, use that kind of greasy stuff on
your face. And no, wedo not recommend stilling your neighbors. Thruss,

(09:11):
you'll round up sprazy either place.No, gotta just cope with it.
Again, damage is rarely severe.So does it looks dramatic, Just
calm down, everything's good. Okay. Another problem that's happening, just emerging
right now, is also related tothe wet leaves, and this has to
do with apple scab disease. Andit starts off as these olive green spots.
Doesn't look that dramatic right now,but later on it will cause the

(09:35):
leaves to drop and also the fruitswill get developed these scabs on them,
so this can be more severe.Okay, apple scab it does cause premature
defoliation, but our trees can tolerateit. Again, it would take like
three consecutive years of severe defoliation forthe tree to really be under stress.

(09:56):
One thing about apple scab disease isthat usually comes the disease the fungus.
It usually comes from the litter ofthe previous year. So that's why raking
get well, get the fungus outof the area. Rake every fall,
pick up all the fallen fruits andthe fallen leaves. And again, just
like with the cedar, apple russ, prune the trees to get better air

(10:18):
movement, sunlight, and we canuse preventative fungicides and as a listener,
cat dan manko zeb sulfur often used. So usually apple scaps not a big
problem out here in the West becauseit's kind of dry, but this year
we could be. We're expecting moreof it this year, so be on
the lookout for that. Again.I want to emphasize raking is a really

(10:39):
important and I was pruning too,pruning in the winter. And then your
thing I want to emphasize is themost important time to spray is in the
early spring when the leaves are justcoming out. They don't have any waxe
cuticle on them. They're very susceptibleto disease, very vulnerable to disease.
So if we have early rains inthe season, if I'm gonna spray my

(11:01):
tree one time, I'm gonna doit when the leaves are just coming out.
Okay, Now another problem that wasgoing on is it's affecting our flowers
too. And you see this isa person using overhead irrigation. Overhead irrigation
is terrible. It is not recommendedfor plants because again, wet leaves lead

(11:24):
to diseases. Now you may lookat this planting and say, wow,
those those flowers look so happy.Everything's glistening, right, But you know
what, I've worked with sunflowers forover forty years. I've learned to communicate.
Do you know, Like, doyou ever hear that doctor Doolilah who
could talk to animals, you talkto plants me and especially sunflowers. We've

(11:48):
got quite the relationship. I canunderstand them, I understand their pain,
and so for the for our viewersand for you, Kelsey, I did
I did visit with these flowers andlet me translate what they were saying at
this time as you see they werenot happy about this. Sound like a

(12:13):
toddler who got splashed with water.That's a pretty mature time like that.
Well, it is a mature voice. Just let me say that. And
the daughters in my life, Ican I can relate to that. Oh
gosh, we want to play inthe water, but you just splashed us.
So now we're gonna scream about it. So flowers and kids have something

(12:39):
in common. They don't like tobe splashed sometimes. Okay, so keep
that in mind. So you heardthose flowers. They are not happy,
So don't use overhead irrigation. Otherwisethey will scream. You may not hear
it, you may not understand it, but they do not appreciate it.
Okay, I'm gonna move on fromthat. Then I was asked to look
at this maple tree, and youcan see on the top there he's got

(13:01):
some bare branches it's like winter injury, and then some pale growth. Yeah.
Sure, get a close up ofit. Yes, please. So
how do you respond to that?That's what you scream at? This is

(13:22):
how I responded, Oh no,because that's a problem. This is on
the south. Yeah, I agree, that's why I said, Oh no,
very deeply because it's it's deep inmy core, the suffering. And
so you see this occurred on thesouthwest side of the trunk. It's a

(13:43):
maple tree. Maple trees and fruittrees, especially a thin bark, they're
very successful to suns called injury inthe winter. So what happened. It
was on a warm winter day,sunny day, and in the afternoon,
the sun was beating down on thisexposed trunk and it got so warm.
You know, in this it canbe seventy seven degrees warmer on this side

(14:07):
of the trunk than the other sideof the trunk, and so it can
so warm. The tree cells beneaththe bark broke out of their winter dormancy
and they got active. But thenthe sun went down got bitter cold,
freezing temperatures and the cells froze.And when cells froze, they burst open

(14:28):
and that creates these vertical cracks.It's very common, and this is why
we use white tree guards or weuse paper wrapping to protect our trees so
that the light color reflects the wintersun. We don't want to absorb the
sun, we want to reflect it, so the trunk stays cool. But
yeah, like why would you saythis is severe. Well, you can

(14:52):
see how the tree is trying toheal itself, but that is a very
deep, deep crack. And thenyou just showed that picture first of all
the yellowing and everything. I wouldsay, you might want to cut your
loss on this one. Right,it looks like he's got a band aid
on it too, right right therein the center of the wounds. Kind

(15:13):
of he's a small band aid forright, it looks like it's just constricting
the growth. But yeah, yousee, it's like it's it's it's rolling
along the edge. That it's asign it's healing itself, it's trying to
heal. But also whenever I seea vertical crack, I think about,
like, it's not how tall orhow how high it goes, it's how

(15:35):
wide it is how much of thering was exposed, Because just beneath the
bark are the rings where the waterand nutrients flow. And so here looks
like over half of the ring wasdamage, and so that means half of
the water and nutrients aren't flowing.And so this is a stunted tree.

(15:56):
It's going to take decades to heal. And so yeah, I told the
guy just like, just like whatyou said, I think in the long
run, I and you should justI think we should just pull it out
and just cut your losses, becauseyou know it's gonna take a long time
to heal, you know, right, decades, decade, at least over
ten years. So if you go, like, if you go fast forward

(16:18):
ten years and our tenure anniversary showafter this one, we'll go back at
this and we'll go look at thistree, and we'll see my gud it.
You know, it's still staunted,it's barely growing. But we could
have planted a new tree and inten years it'd be well on its way.
So but this person refuses to killa suffering maple, so that it's

(16:41):
you know, it's okay, it'sthere a tree. He's a caregiver.
He's a caregiver. Yeah, sometimesit's time to say goodbye. Though there's
a song like that, I won'tsay time to say goodbye, And I
would say, this is the timeto say goodbye. But moving on.
This is a palm tree. Anotherpalm tree looks just fine. But then

(17:03):
I get another close look, ohanother oo oh, no situation here.
So again you see, that's likethe same thing it's a fruit tree,
thin bark, and it has alost really looks about half almost half of
the ring is damaged again because becausethe dam goes halfway around. So this

(17:26):
tree is severely stunted. And thento make matters worse, they put some
tar on it to help seal thewound. That was good intention, but
we do not recommend using tar orwound sealings because especially tar, it can
trap moisture and lead to more rotand we don't want them. So this

(17:48):
tree got ripped up. Now we'regonna slap some tar and get more infection
and rot inside. How about that? Then you look at the bay,
man, poor this poor plum tree. It's being strangled by landscape fabric,
so strangled rotten wood at the basedamage man, So what's the impact of

(18:12):
that? You like? Again,this the the it stunts the flow of
water and nutrients this, this treestrangling to death. Will be those leaves,
man? Can do you need amicroscope to see those leaves? Just
about That's how small those leaves are. Man. That is a starving tree,
barely hanging on death to some ofthe branches. So again, what

(18:37):
are we gonna do here? Samething? I'm sorry, man, I
recommend you pull this sucker out.Man, it's too late. And you
know plum trees don't live that longanyhow, So there you're lucky to get
forty years out of plum tree.So okay, don't want the suffering monsters
and the fruit orchard. Now Igot one other situation. There's beetles coming

(18:59):
on to our huh yes, sothis is these are holes in beetles.
So what would you do under thesituation? Kelsey? What would I do?
You're being under attack? What wouldyou do? I'm very like you
like to say, I'm very minimalist. I'm very low maintenance. Just let

(19:21):
them suffer. I wouldn't yeah,me personally, I probably wouldn't go do
anything about it. If those beetleswere hungry, we all got to get
a lot. Yeah, I'm sorry. When I see plants, I want
revenge. First thing, I'm underattack, So we send you alarms,

(19:48):
warning, warning, under attack.We're under attacked. I take action.
And what are we looking for?We're looking for these bean leaf beetles.
They're active right now in our area. And some are like yellowish green,
some are oranges. All have thatdistinctive pattern. With like four dots on

(20:08):
its back and a triangle near itsneck. And those are bean leaf beetles
and they seem to be most activein the garden in the afternoon, So
like after lunch, go out thereand look at your garden, and if
you see those bean leaf beetles,you got to get action. There's another
beetles active right now, and that'sthese things that these holes you see,

(20:30):
these shot holes you see in reddishand spinach, and it's on our cucumbers
too. These they are flea beetles. So again, gotta get out there,
gotta spend time in your garden.You see these shot holds. Gotta
get out there. And flea beetleslook like this. They're black or they
have stripes on them, very tiny. They're tiny and they don't just they

(20:51):
they jump around like fleas. Sowhat are we gonna do about it?
We got to monitor our plants,okay, And if we're getting twenty five
percent to foliation, we can justifyfighting back against this attack. And luckily
there's got lots of weapons that wecan destroy these devastating insects, carbrail gots,
the old fashioned seven. Then wegot pyreethroids. Pyrethroids are They're very

(21:14):
common. They're synthetic chemicals. Themost common infect the sides today like the
garden Tech seven or the Bonite eight. And then if you're into organic spin
on set and pyreethron we'll also getthe job done. And to control beatles,
we also want to minimize the weeds. They like to hang out in
the weeds, reduce the crop debrisin the garden. And then you can

(21:37):
get floating road covers to put asa shield over your planet. It's like
a cheese cloth material that acts asa barrier to It lets to sound through
and the rain through, but itwon't let the beatles through. So some
serious organic gardeners can use floating roadcovers. But look out for these beetles
runder attack. So those are mymonster that's going on right now, landscape.

(22:03):
That's right. How about what doyou want to share with the group
today? Are you seeing monsters outthere? Oh? Yeah, we're gonna
talk more. Yeah. I didn'tclassify them as monsters, but they are.
They're monsters, I guess. Sofirst I just kinda say welcome to
summer. We're not technically in summer. Yet. But those are my own

(22:26):
personal photos. You know me,I like to ride horse. So a
couple of weeks we're gonna get outto the bad lands and go riding.
And there's my daughters and nieces lastyear and a splash pad. We actually
took the splash pad out on Sundayevening and my daughters loved it, had
a great time. So I feellike looking at this week's temperatures, yeah,

(22:51):
we're in summer, gonna get warm, summer, We're ready to grill
out and bondfive are gonna take off. Now, well you talked about that
too. Just the landscapes looked sogreat, so much green, lush color
today great every time. I'm stillkicking out lots of grass using that as

(23:15):
maulch in my garden. So thereyou go. But in order to get
to summer, we have to startback at winter. In the effects winter.
We're not talking about coming, We'retalking about what happened this winter.
So you know, we started lastweek are weekly calls and one of your

(23:37):
co partners, another specialists in thestate, reported on all the temperatures and
what winter looked like. I believein Bowman, North Dakota. Here's what
my winter looked like. Look atthat December twenty ninth, here's my pony,
barely any snow out on the hill. Moved to a month later January
Twentyeh, there's my girls outriding theirpony, leading each other. March tenth,

(24:03):
there's my oldest just enjoying winter.It was great. And then March
thirty first got a little more snow. So that's how my winter looked like.
You're talking about those you know,variation of temperatures, the very lack
of moisture. But be Kelsey,have you ever heard of a thermometer,

(24:26):
because most people don't use horses winter. Have you ever heard a thermometer?
Yeah? I measured my days onthe time I can be outside. You
use horses, ponies, pony specificallyin the slide, I understand. So
I think at the coldest tempter throughoutmuch of the states in according Arty is

(24:48):
like mid January, it really gotcool. It got like minus thirty to
minus thirty five, and so soit was an overall mile winter, but
it was also we did have anextreme there. It was an extreme time
there in mid January, so that'sa good thing. It was like,
I mean, it felt like forever. But I think it was like three

(25:10):
days. I'm perfect. We can'tcomplain compared to the feel on January fifteenth
unless it have been in the barn. Is that they were probably just standing
with their butt ends to the wind, you know. Taking Yeah, So
anyways, that's what my winter lookedlike, and those fluctuations definitely had some

(25:34):
effects. So I'm gonna start out. Look at this nice I get this
call about her Bond's eye tree,right, sad, yeah, sad,
sad. We see the browning ofthe needles, browning all the way from
the bottom to the top, andlots of spruce spruce showing the same kind

(25:55):
of not necessarily a distinct pattern,but we're seeing that there's over on the
side of those longer needles. Peoplealways say I got pine or spruce,
but they got to know the difference. Again, you can see the tips
browned out down to the bottom therewhere the where it's half brown half green.
Lots of different effects. But now, what's your prognosis? Are they

(26:18):
gonna survive? These are winter injuryAnd that's kind of a vague term really
talks about you know this, youknow this, right, at least the
season let's go back. Yeah,is this going to survive? You know,
so this gentleman here, it wasit was actually a unique case because

(26:41):
he did have some trees nearby thatwere completely fine and didn't show any browning
and stuff. So you know,it's it's really sometimes like you get the
question of why this tree not thattree, right, and it's hard to
explain sometimes to people that you know, you have the ability to talk to
sunflowers. Sunflowers are unique, treesare unique. Each tree is unique,

(27:04):
just like humans are going to be. Some people can take it, some
people can't exactly, so they're allgood take it, couldn't take it.
There was a few of them overthere. I didn't have a closer picture
of the like the full pine thereeither that I included. I should have.
But yeah, I mean those needlesthat have went completely brown, they're

(27:26):
gonna fall off. But the otherones that you you know, the big
thing is is to focus on thenew growth, and if there's new buds
and new growth, that's going tobe very very promising overall. But you're
going to lose the needles that haveturned brown. And that's unfortunate, but
that's the way it goes and sokind of going back to saying, you

(27:48):
know, it is more of avague term. We use that as as
a term to basically describe this browningthat has happened after our winter season that
we see. There could be otherfass you know, not only just environmental
and different stresses. I mean,you always want to look for, well,
is there maybe possible cankers or youshowed the picture of the landscape fabric.

(28:14):
You know, there's other things tolook for, but sometimes simply you
just see this browning and so couldhave been weak, could have been stressed
and hard enough properly, which iswhat I think a lot of the trees
in our landscapes, especially around thisarea, I feel like was a lot
of it. Or people who wehad such a late fall went in and

(28:37):
decided to fertilize late. You know, we had that snowstorm come in October,
so and then just again that fluctuationof temperatures caused trees to break dormancy
and then they were confused, youknow, it's time to put the shades
on and we're righty for summer orwhat it was confusing. So I think

(28:57):
a lot of it is just environmental. So that played a huge factor into
what we're seeing. But here's acouple more examples too. You have that
flowering crab again. You showed thatwas it a maple and a plum that
maybe had some winter injury. Youand I both went and looked at some
spring snow spring crab apples last weekas well. That could be not sure,

(29:22):
but you get weighted out on thatone. But you just see some
die back and even people who havesaid like, hey, I don't have
necessarily as full of leaves, orthe canopy is kind of thinner, just
different things. And then I alsoincluded a lawn picture, and this actually
was somebody who had some samples.I had sent off some samples to NDSU

(29:45):
just to rule out a turf grassdisease. And yeah, again winter injury
kind of killing out. I thinkmaybe in our last episode even showed a
lawn. Yeah, I showed anew lawn that that person sewed in a
type of tall fascue for hockey thirtyone that's marginally hardy, and the first

(30:07):
year is always the hardest on lawnsbecause it doesn't have a strong root system
yet, and if you don't getgood snow cover, it's uh, you
can have winter injury and this againthis like, this person just planted one
type of grass seed, so theyput all their eggs in one basket and
unfortunately he dropped the basket and everythingdied. And that's something to be said

(30:33):
too. Like the snow, thelack of snow didn't insulate even the root
systems of trees, which can playa factor as well. So yeah,
that's that's one reason why we launchunder trees use shredded bark and lunching.
That insulates the soil, keeps ita little bit warmer in the winter and
a little bit cooler in the summer. So that's insulative value of malt,

(30:57):
very valuable. Yeah, okay,so we looked at our winter. Here's
how I would describe our spring.Right, it's been Yeah, I've been
pretty wet, I think, actuallythough, like, yeah, I maybe
heard on the on the news thatwe're actually maybe the month of May was
about normal for precipitation. Again,don't quote me, but I thought I

(31:18):
maybe heard something about maybe we're justused to having drought all the time that
finally would get something normal. Itfeels rainy, yeah, right, so
now, but there's no drought nowin our area. No, keep it
that way. So the big monsterthat I want to talk about, anthrac
nos, I don't have any coolsound interrac Yeah, it's a big one.

(31:45):
So is it chicken little that thesky is falling? That's right.
All I hear is the leaves arefalling. My leaves are falling. I
have so much fallen leaves. Lookat these leaves. Look at these leaves,
particularly on ash trees. We havethis going on. So again,

(32:06):
this is gonna be a fungal disease, fungal problem. Let me hit my
next side for that close up.I guess that is a photo you sent
me and did use it. Thereyou go some credit for a photo.
So this occurs during that wet spring. Your leaves are gonna fall. You
know. Again, we don't typicallywould say let's not do any fungicides.

(32:27):
Again, you would have to havethis consecutively at least three years or more
to say let's use a fungicide tohelp prevent the spread of it. Another
thing, that's good, let's rakethose leaves in the fall. It's going
to help minimize the pressure of thatfungus for next year. If we do
have a wet spring, you know, a lot of times people think it's
very severe the amount of foliage thatthey've lost. We don't really get concerned

(32:52):
unless we start getting over that twentyfive percent thirty percent. These are deciduous
years, yes, executive years.The trees have the ability to pretty really
foliate. They can refoliate themselves.And you see those brown spots, that's
the fungus right there curling over tothe side. I see ash flower there

(33:13):
two in that photo. It's afunky looking thing that's as flower. And
like I said, it can hitother deciduous such as linden, even maple
can get inthracts. Yeah species,So this is just an ash anthracnol that's
very common. And then we eventalked, i know, last week again

(33:34):
talking about this on our statewide call, you know, applying like nitrogen fertilizer.
And I think you hit the pointvery good is people are already applying
a lawn fertilizer, so we don'tnecessarily need to go look for anything extra
around these trees. Yeah. Youknow again, like like what you said,
the tree can cope with this.This isn't its first time it's got

(33:59):
it's like a you know, it'snot the first time. It's okay,
it's not gonna die. So justmellow out, and you know, like
I say, sometimes, you know, very kind considered homeowners care so much
for their trees, but they're undermore stress than the tree is. So
just kind of calm it down.And you know, even fungicides, again,

(34:20):
fungicides are preventative, so we can'tcure the problem this year. And
also, how are you gonna spraya sixty foot tall ass tree? Impossible
tree, So don't just don't worryabout it. Everything's gonna be okay.
I want to say one other thingabout this is that one thing like when
you see a sick ass tree,in the back of our mind we think

(34:42):
about emerald ash boys. But likewith anthracnos, it's a fungus. Fungus
likes moisture, humidity. So ifyou just take a step back first,
we'll take us a few steps backand look at your big ass tree.
What do you see? You see, Well, there's lots of green up
there. Okay, the tree stillproducing lots of food. Okay, everything's

(35:05):
good. But then also one keyfranthracnose is the top of the tree will
be the healthiest. Okay, thetop of the tree because that's where it's
sunny and windy, so there's nohumidity. So the top of the tree
doesn't get the disease. It's inthe lower branches that are shaded. That's
where they get the disease. Butnow with Emerald ash boar or any type

(35:25):
of bore, it damages the vascularsystem of the tree, the veins,
and so the top of the treewill be dead for bores. But now
danthragnoles, the top of the treeis the healthiest with the anthracnos and that's
what we're seeing. So don't getpanicked about Emerald ash boar. Take a
step back, and if the topof the tree looks healthy and you see

(35:49):
those brown spots and curling leaves,just everything's going to be all right.
Relax. That's right. Another problemscale, those little monsters. I actually
think they're kind of neat though I'vebeen seeing a lot of specific conny maple
scale and so it's gonna be right. Now. This is when it's the
most noticeable when you see that eggsack. So that's what produces like those

(36:13):
white puffs or kind of conbalt looks. That's actually the egg sack that's protruding
out of the female's rear. Again, this is gonna be mainly seen on
your maples, Lindens, honey locusts, and other hardwoods. No significant damage
to the tree though you can havelike larger amounts of honeyduce. So again,
that's basically the insect poop that comesout when people talk about that SAP.

(36:38):
It's controlled by many natural enemies.And then if you do want to
look at something, you know,you could look at doing like a horticultural
oil laidfall early spring. So I'vehad a handful of these come in specifically
on Linden's is where I've been seeingthem. So yeah, and then okay,
so those white puffs, those areeggs sacks, egg sacks, okay,

(37:01):
and it's a shell covering the eggsackprotect the babies and so but the
baby's got to come out, sothat's when they're that's when they're vulnerable,
and a lot of times they're vulnerable. About this time of year, is
you see these crawlers coming out?You always said it kind of correlates with
lilac dilacs, Yeah, and soso you can look for that. Again,

(37:24):
it's usually I rarely see it causedsignificant harm too, especially a mature
tree. But if the crawl ifyou can see the crawlers, if you
get like a ten X hand lensor something, you can see the translucent
they're not obvious, but that's whenthey're very vulnerable and you can hit them
with any insect aside and knock themout. Yeah. Yep. So one

(37:49):
of the last things I'm going tocover is transplanting shock. And I know
we've covered this in previous episodes,like always, but again, just things
to know if you are planting newtrees. I just had a gentleman who's
stepped in a couple times that plantedtrees last spring and even last fall that
have been they were evergreen specific sufferingfrom shock. And so again you're gonna

(38:14):
know with newly planted trees you losewhat about ninety percent the roots and stem
or so they may not look good. That's just the way it is.
No matter how good of a jobyou do from the nursery to your front
yard, you can lose over ninetyof the feeding roots. Yes, so
that's just the way it is.It's a shock for that plant. Yeah.

(38:36):
So I always tell people like they'renot going to be great looking.
A lot of times I would belike, well, if your tree's kind
of maybe crappy're looking and stuff,and it's been planted, probably dealing with
this and stuff, maybe seem tobe struggling. The thing that we always
talk about again, for every inchof caliper that the trunk is, you
can expect a year to a yearand a half for it to come out

(38:59):
of that shock. So, againjust keeping it very simple, you could
look at a two inch trunk takenup to three years to come out of
that. Biggest thing to focus withthose newly planted trees is watering properly.
So for the first two weeks itcould be where it needs water daily.
Again, if you planted some treesthis spring, probably been doing pretty good

(39:20):
with the rain assisting us. Andthen for that first growing season, after
you get past those first two weeks, you might see it every two three
days again when needed. And sothe best way to check is get like
a metal rod, go down abouteight inches, see if that soil is
moist, if it is hold offdry. We don't want to oversaturate them.

(39:42):
I don't want to drown them.Yeah, they gotta breathe. They
gotta breathe, can't suffocate that.I spent a lot of money in that
tree. I wanted to get water, got to do an investment in it.
I've got to control myself. Ican't water overlove it. Don't overlove
it. That's the le don't drawnits tree. Good idea. Yeah,
and then so the question is alwayshow much? And so a general rule

(40:07):
that's out there, rule of thumbten gallons for every inch caliper. And
again I already talked about that checkin the soil eight inches deep if it's
moist told off, only water whenit's dry. And those watering bags great,
great thing to utilize their slow release. And the the caliper the tree

(40:30):
is the diameter, yes, thetrunk, and for small trees it's measured
at about six inches off the groundankle height. For big trees, they
measured at diameter at breast height.But for most of us we measure it
the for the smaller trees six inchesoff the ground. Calper's diameter yep.

(40:52):
Perfect. So that's all I got. I just want to put one last
thing about an upcoming workshop. I'mhosting a tree workshop coming up on June
twenty fifth at the Bismarck Career Academy. It'll be one to four thirty and
our topics. We're going to havethe Forestreet Department, the Bismarck for Street

(41:15):
Department come in and just talk aboutwhat they can do within the community.
You know, kind of the oldsaying goes, when's the best time to
plan a tree? Yesterday, twentyyears ago? Second, best time,
right, and so just talking abouttrees. They're a huge investment and so
this workshop is really targeted to knowwhat kind of resources are out there for

(41:39):
the public as you care for thosetrees as they grow. So, like
I said, we're going to havethe Bismarck Forestreet Department in there talking about
what kind of services and programs theyoffer, especially if you're a city resident.
We will have an Emerald ashboor updateby an Nbasu Extension specialist out of

(41:59):
Fargo there. I also have theNorth Dakota farest Department coming in. They're
going to give you an overview ofwhat their department is. A lot of
people don't even know that we haveforce in North Dakota, very few,
but we do have some. Andthen again, the Force Department can help
with different diagnosis of trees as well, if you got some sick ones.

(42:22):
I got the Burley County Soil ConservationTree Technician coming in talking about conservation trees.
So again, if you live outof town or have a little more
acreage that you're looking at designing ashelter belt, he's going to talk about
what to expect with a shelter belt, how to design them in problems that
you can see down the road withthem. And then finally I'm going to

(42:45):
just talk about the Burley County Extensionsand what I can offer again for assistance
and services out there for your treesas they develop. So again, that
is going to be June twenty fifth, Bismarck Career Academy one pm to four
thirty pm. There's a QR codethere if you're viewing this online to scan

(43:07):
and register. But if you aren'ttechie and you want to just get registered,
call our office at two two onesix eight sixty five and it's free.
It's free, no cost. Thereyou go, it's a good price.
There you go. Anything else thattoday, uh no, no.

(43:27):
I would just enjoy summer, enjoythe rain, and spend time in your
garden and on horses. That's myplug. I don't do horses. I'm
too big. I don't enjoy summer. I don't want to hurt those horses
from the see saddle. Yeah,your thermometers, horse thermometers. Yeah,

(43:52):
it's enjoy summer and yeah, Ijust enjoy these wonderful days. Right and
see it next show. That's allright. Thank you for joining us,
and thank you if you are listeningon the radio Access one all two point
five out there. We hope thatyou join us on future episodes. Dakota

(44:15):
Growing is a gardening show brought toyou by Dakota Media Access and NDSU Extension.
We discuss a variety of timely topicspertaining to your landscape, along with
giving you tips and advice for yourlawn, garden, and trees. If
you have questions, call seven ohone two two one six eight sixty five
or email NDSU dot Burley dot Extensionat NDSU dot com. Dakota Growing airs

(44:38):
on Radio Access one O two pointfive FM, Community Access Channel twelve or
six twelve HD, or online atfree tv dot org