Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to Dakota Growing. I'm Kelsey Deckert, your horticulture agent
here in Burley County. Joined with me by my co
host Tom Cobb in the Radio Access studio. How's it going.
It's been a little while.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Everything's good.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Everything's good. Do you feel like we're in summer?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I mean, calendar wise, we're not yet, right.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Because it's the longest day of the year. Is the
beginning of summer. Junemorro a priest in the day's gonna
start getting shorter already, press interns coming already. Oh, my lord,
danks for depressing me. It's early summer. Yep, because the
frost there's no worry about frost, and crabb apples are
(01:10):
done blooming. There's no tulips anymore. So spring's over. There
you go, That's what I say. What do you say?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I feel like when school's over, you feel like you
really have kicked off summer. So that's over. I feel
like we're in summer. May very temperatures recently haven't felt
like we're in summer, But I say, June here in.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Summer, summer, days of long and uh, enjoyable. Yeah, these
are the good days.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Last night was wonderful weather wise. I don't know if
you were outside.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
But so long ago, I can't remember. Oh, yeah I was.
I went to the office. That's what I did.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's what you did.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, I'm very very hard working, you know actually because
I'm still working on my seeds project a little bit.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So people still getting in the gardens. Yeah, so how
about you? You still planting or never began?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Uh? I began. I'm gonna just uh. I've done a
lot of round up spring or should I say glife
estate spray, not the true round up. But I'm preparing
for a magnificent garden. I wonder if someday that you're
(02:32):
gonna come on a tour to your house, to my house,
and I'm just gonna be it's gonna be a glorious
garden in Bismarck.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Can't wait once I get that road construction donnel.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Oh, I know a way around that.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
You too, That's what I've been doing de tour.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, what are they doing there? Do you know that?
And I think they're building a gas station there that's
the room I heard what Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Oh, I thought maybe just widening the road with like
the county run in that old shop.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, that's it's kind of a dangerous intersection. But we're
kind of Yeah, it is the quoted growing here. How's
your garden drawn?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
You know what. I actually haven't looked at it now
in a couple of weeks, but I did plant it
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, my flower beds look great. I did some container gardens,
so I got some nice I actually got some glads
coming up already. Pretty excite about those nice Yeah. Yeah,
I got some petunias planted. I got some col flower
and bee ball madded this year. Planted a few trees
(03:49):
recently too. So looks good. Makes me happy when I
come in my yard and the lawn is mode, and.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, that is a good filling lawns mode. Kind of
just everything's tidy. Yeah, I tell you, my philosophy said,
if just we like it because we like to dominate nature,
we like to have our impact on We don't appreciate
the beauty of a prairie. Now they say like, wow,
(04:20):
bear moia along man, But.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I don't appreciate the ticks. So I'll keep short.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, you know, it's as we just ramble here. Uh,
it's been a it's been a it's been a good
spring and summer so far. I mean, we had we
had a roller coaster. We had really warm early in spring,
then it got cold. Snap. We're going to talk about today,
all right, Okay, a little bit sounds good and uh
(04:52):
but no, no late frost really and and we've been
getting decent rains so everything's green. And like you mentioned,
mowing the lawn, we're all after mow the lawn.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And our ute monitor looks a lot better.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It does. It does. Actually, I'm gonna show that just
so we're kind of we're talking about each other's talks
a little bit. So should we get started.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Okay, here we go. We're gonna talk about Maples. That's
that's one. I'm seeing a lot of problems with Maples
now in Bismarck, and I just want to talk a
little bit about one one, just alert people about the
how we need to take care of Maples. So my
title is Maples are for Boston, not for Bismarck. Because
(05:43):
today when you think about let's see, when you think
about the beauty of Maples, it's that fall.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Color, right, That's what everybody wants.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That's what that's new England that's not that's on. This
picture was not from U Bismarck, trust me. And same
with this one. The beautiful orange scarlet color and the
red maples. But there is a maple that really caught
fire unintended. Just I'm Autumn Blaze Freeman maple and this
(06:19):
really got going about twenty years ago. And Autumn Blaze.
A Freeman maple is a cross between a silver maple
and a red maple. It's a hybrid, and so a
Freeman maple has the best of both. It has the
beautiful red color of a red maple, but also the
fast growth of a silver maple. And that's what that's
(06:39):
whe everybody wants. Everyone wants a big, fast grown tree
and with great fall color. And so that's what Autumn
Blaze is all about. So it's probably the historical last
twenty years, it's been by far the most popular maple
in the Midwest and including you see a Lottom and Bismarck.
And so here's again, but the Freeman is the Autumn
(07:02):
blaze Freeman maples from Ohio. It's not from North Dakota.
Here's a North Dakota Freeman maple. So it's a little
bit on the yellow side. You know, it's not really
made for a prairie soil. And I took this picture.
I took this picture yesterday actually in Bismarck, on a
with a little tree. See how small leaves there, And
(07:25):
you see that this is an iron deficiency iron because
it's a yellow leaf with green veins. And we're talking
about how we've got the wrong soils from maples here, right,
So you know, it's good to dream about that beautiful
red maple, but you got to plant the right tree
in the right spot.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Be realistic.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeap. A few weeks ago a lot of people were
noticing this in their maples. It's just some yellow leaves
on the ground. We're not exactly sure what caused this,
but it was likely some some type of environmental stress.
It could have been that cold snap that we had.
But still it's just a people see that and they
all freak out a little bit, like their tree is
(08:08):
gonna die. But actually it's usually about five percent of
the lees drop and trees not has no U stress
from that. You know, that's no big deal. And the
old saying is like a tree can take it. At
least it could drop out one fourth of its LEAs,
especially in the springtime, and he'll come back just fine,
(08:29):
so don't worry about it. Here's a close up one
of leeds and.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
It's got something, yeah, bumpies.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
We'll talk about that to another problem with maples, but
not a real problem. There's a little there's a little
bug inside there living in like an apartment. Okay, So
here's here's a picture, like I had this from somebody,
and this is in Fargo area, Semulus, folks, And one
(08:57):
of the trees is doing well and one of the
freemen is not. And so it's hard to say, like
why is one good and wise one not good? Any ideas?
What would you do if somebody send you this picture?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Or I would say, trees are just like people. We're
all uniquely made. We can be the same.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Short and summer green and summer.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yo.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
That's right, they're genetically the same.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
So then I said, okay, that that helps. It's a
good picture from the from the let me see the situation.
Get up close, right, got to get up close. And
so she got up close, as I said, got to
see the true So you see that you had some
deer running on that yellow tree. So that's a problem
maples have a thin bark, and and what we've just
(09:50):
reminded me of us. Then I started noticing some other
maples and here we are the state capitol here, and
you noticed the dying back on the maple there, but
you see the chill left. Those are Linden trees. You
can tell by the pyramid shape. Lindens. They're dark green, healthy,
doing great. Linden's are tough trees. I really have a
(10:14):
greater appreciation for Linden's in an urban environment than I've
ever had, especially when I start looking at at the
maples around and it's again, these are maples that are
dying back right at the state capital there. This reminded
me of It's been a long term prom in North Dakota.
And see this in twenty twelve, the foresters in the
(10:39):
Fargo area, they said, everybody's playing Freeland maples, but we're
having a lot of dying back on them, especially in
the winter. So what's going on? And should we pick
a different variety? There was a variety out of Minnesota,
Siena Glen that's hardier or it's I don't know, I
don't know if it's from Minnesota, but it's definitely hardier,
a little bit harder, and so it's should we just
(11:00):
forget about the bottom blaze and go with the Santa Glen.
But what they found in this study of the trees
in Fargo, so many, like a third of them were
having winter injury. They said, the biggest problem wasn't the
variety of freeman maple. The biggest problem was the way
the people treated their freeman aple. And specifically they found
(11:22):
damage at the base of the trees, and they said,
people who didn't molt their framing maples, they're the ones
who definitely have a higher instance of winter injury because
the trees are under stress. First of all, you see
they're at the base, you know, damage from lawnmowers when
you when you damage that. You know, the ring of
(11:44):
a tree is where the outer ring just beneath the
bark is where a lot of the water and nutrients flow.
And if you scrape that bark, you expose that outer
ring and cause it to dry. So this is about
one third of that ring is shut down. So that
that reduces the roots ability to get nutrients. Because the
(12:06):
leaves pump make the nutrients, they gotta pump it down
to the roots. Well, if there's if you've got the
system shut down there at the base, the roots aren't
getting the nutrients that they need, and so this was
a big problem with wheat lawnmowers and weed whackers. That's
one of the biggest problems with maples is they just
can't take that any type of damage to their trunk.
The every thing you see in this particular picture is
(12:28):
you see that vertical crack that's that's on the southwest
side of a tree. That's winter injury. Maples have a
thin barking and they're very sensitive to winter injury, and
that's why we need to we need to protect them.
That's where we wrap up trees in winter. To what
(12:49):
happens is on a sunny day in the winter, like
in March, Let's say it gets like thirty or forty
and the sun beats down on that bark on the
southwest side in the afternoon, and the temperature warms up
there just beneath the bark, and then the cells break
out of their winter slumber and they get active. But
then the sun goes down at night, it gets freezing again,
(13:12):
and those activated cells freeze up and water freezes, it expands.
It like ice or like a soda in the freezer,
it bursts open and that causes these vertical cracks because
the plant cells explode open. So maple's you gotta. It's
(13:32):
very important to put those white tree guards and wrap
your tree over winter. So it's the way you take
care of maples that make a huge difference and the
one reason why they suffer. In Bismarck. There's another gash
of a maple. I took a picture yesterday of this.
Just that maple is really suffering. So how do you?
(13:54):
How do you malta a tree? The old rule of
three three three, it's the mult has to be at
least three feet in diameter, three feet wide, three inches stick,
and you should have no mulch three inches near the trunk. Okay,
the malt does a lot of great things for trees.
(14:16):
You know, it conserves moisture, it helps choke out weeds,
it insulates the soil from extreme temperatures. But the other
things that keeps those darn lawnmowers on weed whackers away.
So you gotta. If you have a maple, you gotta,
any tree, you gotta protect it with some shredded bark mulching.
The last thing I want to talk about, or second
(14:38):
or last thing is soil pH, the potential for hydrogen
the pH. Okay, soil pH. This is important for us
in Bismark. This is why the maples thrive in Boston,
but they don't drive in Bismarck. It's our soil pH.
Soil pH is measured on scale zero fourteen. The low
(15:00):
it's more acidic. Seven is neutral, and fourteen is highly alkaline. Okay.
The higher it is, the more lkaline it is. And
here's it has to do with the availability of nutrients.
So you see like near the seven area, you see
green is good. That's when that nutrient is available in
(15:22):
the soil. And so this is the perfect is a
little bit below seven is best a slightly acid because
that's where the nitrogen, the phosphorus and the potassium are
readily available to the roots. They can just pump that
up so easily. And iron is okay available too. Okay.
The problem we have in North Dakota is we don't
(15:44):
have slightly acid soil. We have in the red box
slightly l kaline soil. And so then it's still okay,
our soil is still fertile. We can still get the nitrogen,
phosphus and potassium. It's still green there, but you see
how the iron becomes more limiting, and maples are very
sensitive to that. If we went out to Boston, they
(16:07):
would have a medium acid soil, they'd have like a
pH of five or six, and the iron is plentiful there,
but it's not here. And so if you really want
to plant a maple, and especially if you want one
of these Freeman maples or a red maple or sugar maple,
(16:27):
I really encourage you to find out what your soil
pH is. It can vary, it can vary your inner
state a little bit. And so how do you take
a soil test? It's important. So like in your yard,
Let's say this my front yard, is that brown area there?
I want to get a representation of the overall soil
(16:48):
in the yard. So I'm not just gonna take a
sample from one area of the yard. I'm gonna go randomly,
but a clean five gallon bucket. I'm gonna get a shovel,
and I'm we take samples go about four to six
inches deep, and I'm just gonna wander around like you're
making a w and take like five six samples and
(17:10):
mix that all up and then put like a one
or two cops and nail it out. Now, where do
I get my soil test done? The NSU Showl Test
lab has closed now, okay, so it can't send it
to far Ago anymore. The Enrich Minnesota is still available
and that does a good job, but universities generally take
(17:31):
two to three weeks sometimes longer for the results. So
a lot of us are going with what the farmers do,
and that's go with a vice ag V I S
and they'll do a soil test for you. It's going
to cost you about about thirty dollars for the soil
tesk and but you'll get your results quickly and it'll
(17:54):
be accurate. And I'll have some recommendations for you. And
if you if you have any concerns about what is
this soil test report mean? That's what you can contact
your local county extension agent and or in contact me
and I'll be happy to go over it with you
and tell you what you should be doing. Okay, So
swell tests important. So now let's say we talked about
(18:16):
about that one to fourteen scale, and he said seven,
So like most of us are around seven to two
seven three, and that's okay, But some of us we
get up to seven five or even seven eight or
even eight. If we have a pH of seven eight
(18:39):
or higher, I strongly recommend not to grow a maple
because we can't change that pH. It's mother nature is
going to fight the whole whole way. So what we
do to lower pH is we add sulfur to the soil.
But that it doesn't last long. Okay, you have to
regularly apply the sulfur. Aples if you're peach is seventh,
(19:03):
even if it's if it's seven five or higher, and
definitely seven eight or higher, we just can't. We just
can't lower it satisfactory with anything, even battery acid, you
name it. We just can't get the job done. So
then forget about maples, or forget about Freeman maples, red maples,
sugar maples. That said you know there are there is.
(19:28):
I go, there's a couple of maples that we can
grow here. Okay, one's a one I didn't bother is
showing it's a box elder tree. That's a maple. But
it's a weed, So forget about that. I want to
plant a woody weed in my yard and with those
box old bugs everywhere. But this is a tittarian maple.
(19:48):
This is called hot wings. And to me, this is
this is like the first sign of fall coming. You
see those red seed pods and this, this can tolerate
alkaline soil. So this, this can grow well here in North Dakota,
especially with the peach seven five or lower beautiful seed pods.
(20:09):
That's one of my favorite trees, a small, low growing tree. Okay, okay,
So that's one last thame with maple. We talked about
little red bumps and it's a silver maple again, silver maple.
Silver maples have that yellow wing problem. They suffer in
our alkaline soils. People like silver maples because they grow fast,
(20:33):
but they're not the strongest wood. And if you have
a high pH again, if it's seven five or higher,
I really would strongly encourage you to reconsider that selection
of a silver maple. The silver maples do get these
red dots on them and those are those are maple
bladder gall mites. So what happen is in the spring
(20:55):
is a little mite bit into that leaf and that
that bite caused a hormone reaction and that's swelling. So
that swelling actually serves as a shell of protection over
that mite. So there's a mite living in each one
of those red dots. But it's harmless because what's the
(21:16):
purpose of a leaf. The purpose of a leaf is
to produce the green core fill the food for the tree.
And you see these leaves are loaded with green corphyl
So these leaves are still very functional, doing a great job.
So don't worry about that. But as far as Maples,
just think twice about getting a maple tree and get
(21:38):
a soel pH done. If you do get a maple tree,
please put some maulter on it, care for it, love it.
Otherwise it's gonna suffer a life of misery. There you go.
That's my stock. You got anything you want to say
about Maples? Yeah, I depriss you enough.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I was gonna ask you about the box elder which
you rentioned it.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
There's I mean, it's not the worst. Yes, it's one
of the worst trees because of those box other bugs,
and it's weak wooded and it's kind of all over
the place shape. But you know the to terry maple, Ganela,
maple armor maple. Yeah they're okay, they're okay, but realize
(22:25):
you know we have a different swell than the people
in Boston. Yeah, there you go. So, uh, I think
twice about that. Okay, I want I think talking about
to talk more today.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Well I did in the topic you have, Okay, plenty
of calls coming in on this one.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Okay, here we go. So here's one. Like you mentioned
the drought status that we have, and here's one of
the latest maps, and you can see we're white. That
means we have no drought in uh in early County,
but it's still it's bad in the west. But h
but one, that's great, that's great. We don't have drought here.
(23:06):
That's great, and hopefully the rains will come to the southwest.
But one drawback about this. When it's wet in the spring,
we get more cedar, apple rust and cedar. These red
cedars are something that's called junipers. They have these like
a wooden gulls on them, and when it rains, the
gulls shoot out these orange tentacles and then the tentacles
(23:29):
shoot out rust spores and apples and hawthorns, crab apples.
They get these rust spores from that. So this looks
very severe in this This really concerns a lot of people.
But actually when this is the same tree is still
see it's really green still. So there's a lot of
(23:49):
this tree looks it looks scary to us, but the
tree can cope with it. And so I would say,
and I saw once you once you got it, there's
nothing you can do about it. You know, the damage
has been done. You can't spray it to there's no
cure for it.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Well like that, you use the word complex.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Okay, it is a little compliciod. It's got two different
type of plants involved. Right, So here's a hawthorn and
also gets the cedar rust disease. So here's the deal
with the cedar rust complex. One thing. Tunipers are or
red cedars. They're so common because they can tolerate drought
(24:34):
and they're tough evergreens. They're everywhere in North Dakota, and
the spores can come from a mile or more away.
So they're gonna it just can't stop it, you know,
like it just it's just gonna be a problem, especially
when we have a wet spring. The damage does look dramatic,
but it doesn't kill. I've never seen an apple or
a crabapple die from it. And we rarely use funny
(24:58):
sites in a home landscape for this have to and
if we do, what an apple orchard is if they're
juniperson nearby. But you gotta spray before the infection occurs.
So even before the flowers come out, you gotta start spraying.
And one thing we can do is pune the trees
in winter so you have better air movement in sunlight
because this is a fungus and fungus likes humidity in
(25:21):
the canopy. So anything we can do to open up
the canopy will have the rust of a harder time
getting going in our apple trees. So that's what I got.
That's just a disease that says it's coming on. Now.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I feel like it's a Romeo Juliet love story there, right,
you have to kill off one of them to get
to get rid of it totally. Like you said, it
comes from like a mile away.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
So where are you gonna find the juliette?
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, you know, think about it.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
They got Yeah, they gotta be together. They gotta be together,
for there's no there's no cedar apple russ without a
cedar and apple. They gotta be together. But on my
chrome and Juliet it's not fatal.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Well, right, I just meant you have to get rid
of the other host in order to solve it, right,
because it's a mile away.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
You are more Yeah, so you just just live with it. Right, Well,
there are disease resistant crab apple trees. The apples, the
ones that resist rust taste terrible. So there really isn't
a good choice there.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Pass that one by.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah. So yeah, just be on the lookout for it.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
It's out there, plenty, plenty, plenty. Okay, let's rewind a
little bit. Let's talk about the month of May. How
about that? To start off, See, lilac's still blooming.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah they are, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
There are a few out there, a lot of them,
i'd say, are past that point. But what do you
when you thought of the first couple of weeks in May,
what do you think of? Do you remember it or
were you just busy pack and see?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
It was, uh, that's when we had our cold snap sunny.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
The first two weeks sunny. In the eighties and the nineties,
my kids were bagging.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
To where mid April it is nineties, I know.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, but even May we had some record high.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I know everybody wanted a plant. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
They were very an issue the first Sunday.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Oh yeah, to plant my two combers man and you know,
just everybody's going nuts on that and just be careful,
be care They.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Were eager more than eager's.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And this was dry all it warmed up faster.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah. Then May fifteenth was kind of our turning fall.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Hey there you go.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, the record rainfall came continued for several days. I'll
be honest, I was over it after a few days.
It just rains, rains, rains. Gravel roads are terrible. Can't
be out seem its dirt drively dirt driveling. Try like
(28:08):
fifty miles of dirt every day and that's just one way. Wow, okay,
and then we had the big scare. It's like, yeah,
you know the sixteenth people were paddicked. The frost was coming.
But Bismarck actually we did make another record that day,
but we only got to forty three as a low.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
That's the coldest forty three. How that's not cold.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, so we didn't have to worry about the frostiness around.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, no rhubarb because I got frosted.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
No, it was all good. People took precautions, but it
was all good. So with that rain came our friend.
Just like last year, ant Racknos, tell you what the
last couple of weeks, like chicken little instead, the sky
was falling, right those chicken little read those the leaves
(28:59):
were falling and masses all over. So ash tree leaves
get pictures like this showing just piles people showing their yards.
If you see on that right photo, you know, sparse
just covers the ground and people were in panic. The
other thing that they were in panic about is because
(29:20):
the leaves are falling, and last year with emerald ashboard
being discovered, that's where their mind went too right away,
So how do we tell Anthracnos. Well, first couple signs
is that yes, those leaflets will fall. You can see
some brown leaf margins even curled a little bit in
(29:41):
this photo that you see you can also see little
brown dots on the leaf's surface. So earlier this spring
there was like some feeding from ashplant bugs and basically
that was fungal spores just kind of landed on it
at the perfect time going on there. So this is
kind of the ale tale of Anthracnos. So what to do? Nothing,
(30:06):
just relax on the panicking. Yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Is a relief, right, it will relief.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Oh will relief? Yeah, exactly, yeah, what a relief.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
No need for spongecides. If it has a very excessively
thin crown, you could consider fertilizing. You'd have to have
this several years of consecutive major defoliation to start and
stress the tree to even consider that. So I know
we talked about it last week on our weekly call,
But do you want to tell people more of like
(30:42):
what we would see with emerald ashboard versus anthracnose.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
The other thing about anthract Nos again, anthract nose is
a fungus. It likes shade and humidity all that rate.
I'm looking at an ash tree from a distance, I'm
gonna see for Anthracnos, you'll see the it will be
thin where on the lower branches where it's shady and
(31:07):
in the inside of the tree. But on the top
of the tree it'll look beautiful. It'll have a beautiful
crown of green leaves on top where it gets lots
of sun and air movement. So that's Anthracnos. Emerald ash
boar is opposite Emerald ashboar. It destroys the veins of
(31:29):
the tree and so the top of the tree can't
get water, so the top of the tree will dive back.
So at the top of the trees dying. Now I'm
worried about bores, but with the anthracnos the top of
the tree looks the healthiest. So you just got to
take a step back and look at the whole tree.
And also just you know, emerald ash boor has not
(31:52):
been detected in Bismarck Mandan, and so don't overly panic
about that. Yeah, so that's the big thing, right right, right, Yeah,
don't worry about anthracnols. Don't worry. Tree is gonna be fine.
Trees have had entractnles. Like you said, it was your
friend last year. It was, it has it gets it often,
(32:15):
and trees survived this because, like I say, they can refoliate.
It's not a it's not a killer, no.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Not at all. So the next thing, I've been seeing
quite a bit already in the landscape and even within
like some of the site visits, I've done a scale.
I see pine needles scale every year. So this is
you see this on a spruce tree here, but our viewers,
if you look nice and closely, those those needles are
(32:44):
covered with they look like little white spots all over them.
So you get the spots and the needles. Needles can
start turning yellow and fall off. What happens here is
the eggs are laid in the fall and they overwinter
beneath their dead mother, the scale, and then they start
to hatch mid to late May. Those crawlers are active
(33:08):
at that time and they go and they feed on
the new needles where they form their shell. So as
far as what to do with this, it's best to
have a systemic and a crawler spray. So I listed
some different options there for your crawler stage. That timing
is really hard. I know you're the one who's always
said it kind of loosely correlates when our lilacs are blooming. Correct, yep,
(33:32):
So we're probably getting a little bit past that point.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Just for the crawlers. Yeah, you got it. There a
little tiny translucent things and you gotta gotta get up.
Maybe I get a hand lens or you're reading glasses
and look carefully for as crawlers. If you see them,
then you can consider spring, right, But if they're not there,
(33:56):
well yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yeah, and then you can always use a systemic. And
that's going to be applied at the base of your tree.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And like a soell drench you're talking about. Yep, that
takes I'll take about a couple of weeks for it
to get in the system. Yep. I have to be
a little bit careful as a precaution with spruce trees.
They can kind of lose their bluishness if you with
some of these oil sprays and make sure, like you said,
(34:26):
like a horticultural oil, not a dormant oil, because the
tree is not dormant anymore. And yeah, again I don't
usually see that much severe damage on them sometimes, you know, yeah,
some cases sometimes, but I rarely see it dying from
(34:48):
a scale, right, But yep, it's those little white dots
cause a lot of concern.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
The other one that I've seen is the pine tortoise scale.
So like just the example, a gentleman did come in
and he showed me some pictures of his pine trees,
and yes, they were very off colored, very pale, thin,
and then you could see that sooty mold which just
(35:17):
looks like black on the branches and stuff. So then
going to the site and looking at it, oh man,
I could just see the clusters of the pine tortoise
scale all over on his branches. So again it's interesting
like of course you don't know what you don't know,
and for clients out there, this is really hard to say, yes,
this is an insect, you know, because they're just brown
(35:39):
and they're in clusters and you got to get close
up to see them. So this one lives through the
winter as like fertilized females on branches, so you see
them at those basically the branch the connections and stuff.
They'll grow and then they start to lay their eggs
in the spring, and so tiny crawlers on this one
(36:00):
appear in late June to early July, and then they
began feeding on the needles. So treatment is very similar. Again,
horticultural oils can be applied in the late fall and
early spring, and then you can also use that systemic
in the spring too to combat this one.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
So right, one thing with scale sometimes the noise is
they you know, when they suck, they drip out, so
it gets like sticky and you feel that's one of
the ways that people sense it first is there all
that stickiness nearby from there from their honey, and that
leads to that mold that sooty mold, that blackish mold developing.
(36:41):
So yeah, they're kind of a tricky to control.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, I remember it was like a couple of years ago.
I had talked with you too on some I believe
they were pine trees, but the guy had described it
as looking like they were torched and they were so
full of the sooty mold on them and had scale
all all over. So that was kind of a extreme race.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, and there's a cottony, cottony scale, cottoney maple scale.
I didn't even talk about that. But another problem, not
a lot of maple proms, but that's another type of scale.
It's a little tricky. But the same treatment that you
talked about though you got it somehow, like a systemic
approach can help. And then but the crawlers, they're vulnerable
(37:26):
stage and that's where you can blast them, knock them down.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
All right. The next thing I talk about the elm
seed pods. It's all over. Uh, So what's interesting. I
will just say I have a contact over in man
Dan that prior to calls coming into the office and stuff,
he had reached out one day and he goes, man,
have you been noticing the elm trees, and I said, no,
(37:55):
I'm I guess I haven't been paying much attention. And
so he's like, there's all like they're browning, they look
like they're dying and stuff and everything. He goes, I'm
going to go take a couple pictures and send a
mere way and everything. So upon closer inspection, again, you
can look up in that canopy and see like those
brown areas, but they are just loaded with seed pods
(38:19):
this year not really a rhyme or reason that we
talked about.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I don't right, environmental conditions for production, and like Siberian
elms especially really loaded.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah, and so what to know is like these seeds
can they could stay on till like July. Elms are
going to be a spring producer of their seeds, so
that's why we see all the seeds and then they
are going to drop off. So the crowns this year
could look a little thin, but overall, you don't need
to worry. It's not nothing you can do about it.
(38:58):
It's not the trees signal it's dying or in stress
because it's doing all the seed production or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
So right, yeah, but you know the tree is waste
spending a lot of energy on the seeds. So as
you say, the leaf leaves maybe a little bit sparser
this year, but I think trees go through this process
like every seven years or so they have an explosion,
(39:27):
and uh, there's there's there's ties with how this helps
wildlife too. It's part of the balance of nature. But yeah,
it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
It's concerning would you as a homeowner, like when the
seeds drop, would you go raake those up? Worrying about
volunteers coming up?
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Then well, if I got nothing else to do, right.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
I'm just saying elm trees are very good at or repopulated.
I wouldn't do it like trucks.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
But yeah, I mean, like, I mean, you know how
many seeds we're talking about. You're not going to get
them I want, But if you want to, I mean,
it wouldn't hurt to do it. Okay, you know, you
know doesn't know the most of them aren't going to terminate,
especially if it's out a lawn. You know, the lawn
(40:25):
is going to compete with those seed pods. So yeah,
it's up to you. I wouldn't bother, I think.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Right, Yeah, Okay, last thing I want to talk about
with the rains, the mushrooms in the lawn, been getting
any of these.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
No, no, okay, I haven't seen any. Okay on trees.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, I got a couple that came in within the
last couple of weeks here too. Just people saying they
got high populations of the mushrooms and the lawn and everything.
So just to know, like as far as treatment and stuff,
they are often seen after those periods of wet weather.
They're decomposing organic matter in the lawn. Whether that's old roots, right,
(41:11):
you know, it could be a lot of different things
that they're deum posing.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Lumber buried number.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
That is, yep, any of that. There's no fun just
side to go out there and worry about spraying them
or anything like that. We just simply say, raak them
out of the lawn. Just reak them out. If they
bother you that bad.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
You can't stop it. Would that's na want to decompose.
So you just got to wait till they decompose. Yeah,
so it's going to be a long wait, yeah, like
ten years. So that's just the way it is. So
don't worry about it. That's right, that's the old kill them,
(41:51):
just leave them alone.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
We're not foraging for mushrooms.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, it's right. Never eat a mushroom unless you're a
hundred percent sure what it is, and don't bother call me.
I will never identify a mushroom, all right. No mushroom
is worth your life.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
No, not at all. No, those are my hot topics
for today. So those were my speeds. Yeah, my speed
topics from easy mushrooms.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah, yellow maples. How come nobody calls us with good information, like, Wow,
that's how beautiful my zucchini looks this year, So.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
It'd be good, that'd be a good call, hug. But
then you'd be like, all right, what do you call me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Why are you bothering me for this? I got so
many problems to deal with in the community. Yeah, yeah,
but you know these are we can talk about anything really, uh,
detrimental catastrophe. No, so we got I'm seeing some elm seeds. Okay,
don't worry, be happy. Okay, I see what else I
(42:59):
got and diragonost. Don't worry, be happy. Tree is gonna
be finet, you know. Enjoy the weather, beautiful weather. He
got some rain. It's gonna it's a great year. So far,
it's not winter. Great things happening right now.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
I agree. Got any less words of what I think
we talked about, well, I will say I got herbicide
injury that came in on a potato Friday when I
was gone. I know we've talked about that in past.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah, to be careful about you know.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Uh yep, this this situation was planted in a corral
that they had had cattle in three years. They worked
up the corral and then planted potatoes in there and
they all had signs of herbicide injury going on. She
(43:57):
told me her past tomatoes had had that in a
different spots. While we found the answer on that came
from some composts from the city landfill. So just been
a little bit of a struggle for that lady specifically.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
That's a big stroke because like those those chemicals, like
like potatoes, like if that came from a from manure,
you know the manure, the manure is produced by the
cow eating contaminant you know, straw or hay that was
sprayed by a very persistent herbicide, and those herbicides can
(44:35):
persist for years, for a few years, so that's a problem.
So that's a that's a warning about using that compost
from the Bismarck, the Burley County dump is uh, it
can be contaminated with persistent pesticide because the grass clippings
that are dumped off there for composting, they're not screened
(44:56):
for herbicide and people people use very per system herbicide
now and so that's a that's a that's a big problem.
So yeah, but you know, as far as what I
would say, like the lawns are healthy, they're growing, they're
grain keep mowing on a regular basis. Mold tall now,
the taller the better. Tall turf will keep the soil
(45:18):
cooler because it'll shade the So keep it your more
at the I would say, the highest height you can tolerate.
We generally recommend fertilizing lawns around Memorial Days or just
a little bit past that. If he didn't, if he
didn't fertilize, you could probably do that as long as
the rains keep coming. What else going on, Keep dead
(45:41):
heading your flowers and stuff after they're done blooming. Spend
some time in your garden, you know, just like that's
the best thing you can do if you have a garden,
spend time in it. So that you can watch your
plants and get the bugs before they take over, or
so you know, spend spend some moments in your garden,
(46:03):
enjoy it. Well, well we have it, that's right. I
guess that's about all the west of I have. Yes,
not much, but that's what I got. I don't know
if you've got any last words.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
No, I would just say to anybody out there listening.
Of course, you can listen to us on all major
platforms for podcasting podcast Growing the Code of Growing. You
can find us on the coodemediaaccess dot org as well
free tv dot com.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Dot org dot org.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah I think so, yeah, oh, free tv dot org. Okay,
I gotta get that right.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Right, I can remember that one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Okay. Well, with that, I would just say thank you
for joining us on today's the Coda Growing episode. We
will be going regular now with our Growing season, and
we hope to have you on future your episodes and
that you're joining us. Dakota Growing is a gardening show
brought to you by Dakota Media Access and NDSU Extension.
(47:10):
We discuss a variety of timely topics pertaining to your landscape,
along with giving you tips and advice. For your lawn,
garden and trees. If you have questions, call seven oh
one two two one six eight sixty five or email
NDSU dot Burley dot Extension at NDSU dot com. Dakota
Growing airs on radio Access one oh two point five FM,
(47:32):
Community Access Channel twelve or six twelve HD, or online
at FreeTV dot org
Welcome to Dakota Growing. I'm Kelsey Deckert, your horticulture agent
here in Burley County. Joined with me by my co
host Tom Cobb in the Radio Access studio. How's it going.
It's been a little while.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Everything's good.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Everything's good. Do you feel like we're in summer?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I mean, calendar wise, we're not yet, right.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Because it's the longest day of the year. Is the
beginning of summer. Junemorro a priest in the day's gonna
start getting shorter already, press interns coming already. Oh, my lord,
danks for depressing me. It's early summer. Yep, because the
frost there's no worry about frost, and crabb apples are
(01:10):
done blooming. There's no tulips anymore. So spring's over. There
you go, That's what I say. What do you say?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I feel like when school's over, you feel like you
really have kicked off summer. So that's over. I feel
like we're in summer. May very temperatures recently haven't felt
like we're in summer, But I say, June here in.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Summer, summer, days of long and uh, enjoyable. Yeah, these
are the good days.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Last night was wonderful weather wise. I don't know if
you were outside.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
But so long ago, I can't remember. Oh, yeah I was.
I went to the office. That's what I did.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's what you did.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, I'm very very hard working, you know actually because
I'm still working on my seeds project a little bit.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So people still getting in the gardens. Yeah, so how
about you? You still planting or never began?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Uh? I began. I'm gonna just uh. I've done a
lot of round up spring or should I say glife
estate spray, not the true round up. But I'm preparing
for a magnificent garden. I wonder if someday that you're
(02:32):
gonna come on a tour to your house, to my house,
and I'm just gonna be it's gonna be a glorious
garden in Bismarck.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Can't wait once I get that road construction donnel.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Oh, I know a way around that.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
You too, That's what I've been doing de tour.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, what are they doing there? Do you know that?
And I think they're building a gas station there that's
the room I heard what Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Oh, I thought maybe just widening the road with like
the county run in that old shop.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, that's it's kind of a dangerous intersection. But we're
kind of Yeah, it is the quoted growing here. How's
your garden drawn?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
You know what. I actually haven't looked at it now
in a couple of weeks, but I did plant it
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, my flower beds look great. I did some container gardens,
so I got some nice I actually got some glads
coming up already. Pretty excite about those nice Yeah. Yeah,
I got some petunias planted. I got some col flower
and bee ball madded this year. Planted a few trees
(03:49):
recently too. So looks good. Makes me happy when I
come in my yard and the lawn is mode, and.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, that is a good filling lawns mode. Kind of
just everything's tidy. Yeah, I tell you, my philosophy said,
if just we like it because we like to dominate nature,
we like to have our impact on We don't appreciate
the beauty of a prairie. Now they say like, wow,
(04:20):
bear moia along man, But.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I don't appreciate the ticks. So I'll keep short.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, you know, it's as we just ramble here. Uh,
it's been a it's been a it's been a good
spring and summer so far. I mean, we had we
had a roller coaster. We had really warm early in spring,
then it got cold. Snap. We're going to talk about today,
all right, Okay, a little bit sounds good and uh
(04:52):
but no, no late frost really and and we've been
getting decent rains so everything's green. And like you mentioned,
mowing the lawn, we're all after mow the lawn.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And our ute monitor looks a lot better.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It does. It does. Actually, I'm gonna show that just
so we're kind of we're talking about each other's talks
a little bit. So should we get started.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Okay, here we go. We're gonna talk about Maples. That's
that's one. I'm seeing a lot of problems with Maples
now in Bismarck, and I just want to talk a
little bit about one one, just alert people about the
how we need to take care of Maples. So my
title is Maples are for Boston, not for Bismarck. Because
(05:43):
today when you think about let's see, when you think
about the beauty of Maples, it's that fall.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Color, right, That's what everybody wants.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That's what that's new England that's not that's on. This
picture was not from U Bismarck, trust me. And same
with this one. The beautiful orange scarlet color and the
red maples. But there is a maple that really caught
fire unintended. Just I'm Autumn Blaze Freeman maple and this
(06:19):
really got going about twenty years ago. And Autumn Blaze.
A Freeman maple is a cross between a silver maple
and a red maple. It's a hybrid, and so a
Freeman maple has the best of both. It has the
beautiful red color of a red maple, but also the
fast growth of a silver maple. And that's what that's
(06:39):
whe everybody wants. Everyone wants a big, fast grown tree
and with great fall color. And so that's what Autumn
Blaze is all about. So it's probably the historical last
twenty years, it's been by far the most popular maple
in the Midwest and including you see a Lottom and Bismarck.
And so here's again, but the Freeman is the Autumn
(07:02):
blaze Freeman maples from Ohio. It's not from North Dakota.
Here's a North Dakota Freeman maple. So it's a little
bit on the yellow side. You know, it's not really
made for a prairie soil. And I took this picture.
I took this picture yesterday actually in Bismarck, on a
with a little tree. See how small leaves there, And
(07:25):
you see that this is an iron deficiency iron because
it's a yellow leaf with green veins. And we're talking
about how we've got the wrong soils from maples here, right,
So you know, it's good to dream about that beautiful
red maple, but you got to plant the right tree
in the right spot.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Be realistic.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeap. A few weeks ago a lot of people were
noticing this in their maples. It's just some yellow leaves
on the ground. We're not exactly sure what caused this,
but it was likely some some type of environmental stress.
It could have been that cold snap that we had.
But still it's just a people see that and they
all freak out a little bit, like their tree is
(08:08):
gonna die. But actually it's usually about five percent of
the lees drop and trees not has no U stress
from that. You know, that's no big deal. And the
old saying is like a tree can take it. At
least it could drop out one fourth of its LEAs,
especially in the springtime, and he'll come back just fine,
(08:29):
so don't worry about it. Here's a close up one
of leeds and.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
It's got something, yeah, bumpies.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
We'll talk about that to another problem with maples, but
not a real problem. There's a little there's a little
bug inside there living in like an apartment. Okay, So
here's here's a picture, like I had this from somebody,
and this is in Fargo area, Semulus, folks, And one
(08:57):
of the trees is doing well and one of the
freemen is not. And so it's hard to say, like
why is one good and wise one not good? Any ideas?
What would you do if somebody send you this picture?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Or I would say, trees are just like people. We're
all uniquely made. We can be the same.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Short and summer green and summer.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yo.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
That's right, they're genetically the same.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
So then I said, okay, that that helps. It's a
good picture from the from the let me see the situation.
Get up close, right, got to get up close. And
so she got up close, as I said, got to
see the true So you see that you had some
deer running on that yellow tree. So that's a problem
maples have a thin bark, and and what we've just
(09:50):
reminded me of us. Then I started noticing some other
maples and here we are the state capitol here, and
you noticed the dying back on the maple there, but
you see the chill left. Those are Linden trees. You
can tell by the pyramid shape. Lindens. They're dark green, healthy,
doing great. Linden's are tough trees. I really have a
(10:14):
greater appreciation for Linden's in an urban environment than I've
ever had, especially when I start looking at at the
maples around and it's again, these are maples that are
dying back right at the state capital there. This reminded
me of It's been a long term prom in North Dakota.
And see this in twenty twelve, the foresters in the
(10:39):
Fargo area, they said, everybody's playing Freeland maples, but we're
having a lot of dying back on them, especially in
the winter. So what's going on? And should we pick
a different variety? There was a variety out of Minnesota,
Siena Glen that's hardier or it's I don't know, I
don't know if it's from Minnesota, but it's definitely hardier,
a little bit harder, and so it's should we just
(11:00):
forget about the bottom blaze and go with the Santa Glen.
But what they found in this study of the trees
in Fargo, so many, like a third of them were
having winter injury. They said, the biggest problem wasn't the
variety of freeman maple. The biggest problem was the way
the people treated their freeman aple. And specifically they found
(11:22):
damage at the base of the trees, and they said,
people who didn't molt their framing maples, they're the ones
who definitely have a higher instance of winter injury because
the trees are under stress. First of all, you see
they're at the base, you know, damage from lawnmowers when
you when you damage that. You know, the ring of
(11:44):
a tree is where the outer ring just beneath the
bark is where a lot of the water and nutrients flow.
And if you scrape that bark, you expose that outer
ring and cause it to dry. So this is about
one third of that ring is shut down. So that
that reduces the roots ability to get nutrients. Because the
(12:06):
leaves pump make the nutrients, they gotta pump it down
to the roots. Well, if there's if you've got the
system shut down there at the base, the roots aren't
getting the nutrients that they need, and so this was
a big problem with wheat lawnmowers and weed whackers. That's
one of the biggest problems with maples is they just
can't take that any type of damage to their trunk.
The every thing you see in this particular picture is
(12:28):
you see that vertical crack that's that's on the southwest
side of a tree. That's winter injury. Maples have a
thin barking and they're very sensitive to winter injury, and
that's why we need to we need to protect them.
That's where we wrap up trees in winter. To what
(12:49):
happens is on a sunny day in the winter, like
in March, Let's say it gets like thirty or forty
and the sun beats down on that bark on the
southwest side in the afternoon, and the temperature warms up
there just beneath the bark, and then the cells break
out of their winter slumber and they get active. But
then the sun goes down at night, it gets freezing again,
(13:12):
and those activated cells freeze up and water freezes, it expands.
It like ice or like a soda in the freezer,
it bursts open and that causes these vertical cracks because
the plant cells explode open. So maple's you gotta. It's
(13:32):
very important to put those white tree guards and wrap
your tree over winter. So it's the way you take
care of maples that make a huge difference and the
one reason why they suffer. In Bismarck. There's another gash
of a maple. I took a picture yesterday of this.
Just that maple is really suffering. So how do you?
(13:54):
How do you malta a tree? The old rule of
three three three, it's the mult has to be at
least three feet in diameter, three feet wide, three inches stick,
and you should have no mulch three inches near the trunk. Okay,
the malt does a lot of great things for trees.
(14:16):
You know, it conserves moisture, it helps choke out weeds,
it insulates the soil from extreme temperatures. But the other
things that keeps those darn lawnmowers on weed whackers away.
So you gotta. If you have a maple, you gotta,
any tree, you gotta protect it with some shredded bark mulching.
The last thing I want to talk about, or second
(14:38):
or last thing is soil pH, the potential for hydrogen
the pH. Okay, soil pH. This is important for us
in Bismark. This is why the maples thrive in Boston,
but they don't drive in Bismarck. It's our soil pH.
Soil pH is measured on scale zero fourteen. The low
(15:00):
it's more acidic. Seven is neutral, and fourteen is highly alkaline. Okay.
The higher it is, the more lkaline it is. And
here's it has to do with the availability of nutrients.
So you see like near the seven area, you see
green is good. That's when that nutrient is available in
(15:22):
the soil. And so this is the perfect is a
little bit below seven is best a slightly acid because
that's where the nitrogen, the phosphorus and the potassium are
readily available to the roots. They can just pump that
up so easily. And iron is okay available too. Okay.
The problem we have in North Dakota is we don't
(15:44):
have slightly acid soil. We have in the red box
slightly l kaline soil. And so then it's still okay,
our soil is still fertile. We can still get the nitrogen,
phosphus and potassium. It's still green there, but you see
how the iron becomes more limiting, and maples are very
sensitive to that. If we went out to Boston, they
(16:07):
would have a medium acid soil, they'd have like a
pH of five or six, and the iron is plentiful there,
but it's not here. And so if you really want
to plant a maple, and especially if you want one
of these Freeman maples or a red maple or sugar maple,
(16:27):
I really encourage you to find out what your soil
pH is. It can vary, it can vary your inner
state a little bit. And so how do you take
a soil test? It's important. So like in your yard,
Let's say this my front yard, is that brown area there?
I want to get a representation of the overall soil
(16:48):
in the yard. So I'm not just gonna take a
sample from one area of the yard. I'm gonna go randomly,
but a clean five gallon bucket. I'm gonna get a shovel,
and I'm we take samples go about four to six
inches deep, and I'm just gonna wander around like you're
making a w and take like five six samples and
(17:10):
mix that all up and then put like a one
or two cops and nail it out. Now, where do
I get my soil test done? The NSU Showl Test
lab has closed now, okay, so it can't send it
to far Ago anymore. The Enrich Minnesota is still available
and that does a good job, but universities generally take
(17:31):
two to three weeks sometimes longer for the results. So
a lot of us are going with what the farmers do,
and that's go with a vice ag V I S
and they'll do a soil test for you. It's going
to cost you about about thirty dollars for the soil
tesk and but you'll get your results quickly and it'll
(17:54):
be accurate. And I'll have some recommendations for you. And
if you if you have any concerns about what is
this soil test report mean? That's what you can contact
your local county extension agent and or in contact me
and I'll be happy to go over it with you
and tell you what you should be doing. Okay, So
swell tests important. So now let's say we talked about
(18:16):
about that one to fourteen scale, and he said seven,
So like most of us are around seven to two
seven three, and that's okay, But some of us we
get up to seven five or even seven eight or
even eight. If we have a pH of seven eight
(18:39):
or higher, I strongly recommend not to grow a maple
because we can't change that pH. It's mother nature is
going to fight the whole whole way. So what we
do to lower pH is we add sulfur to the soil.
But that it doesn't last long. Okay, you have to
regularly apply the sulfur. Aples if you're peach is seventh,
(19:03):
even if it's if it's seven five or higher, and
definitely seven eight or higher, we just can't. We just
can't lower it satisfactory with anything, even battery acid, you
name it. We just can't get the job done. So
then forget about maples, or forget about Freeman maples, red maples,
sugar maples. That said you know there are there is.
(19:28):
I go, there's a couple of maples that we can
grow here. Okay, one's a one I didn't bother is
showing it's a box elder tree. That's a maple. But
it's a weed, So forget about that. I want to
plant a woody weed in my yard and with those
box old bugs everywhere. But this is a tittarian maple.
(19:48):
This is called hot wings. And to me, this is
this is like the first sign of fall coming. You
see those red seed pods and this, this can tolerate
alkaline soil. So this, this can grow well here in North Dakota,
especially with the peach seven five or lower beautiful seed pods.
(20:09):
That's one of my favorite trees, a small, low growing tree. Okay, okay,
So that's one last thame with maple. We talked about
little red bumps and it's a silver maple again, silver maple.
Silver maples have that yellow wing problem. They suffer in
our alkaline soils. People like silver maples because they grow fast,
(20:33):
but they're not the strongest wood. And if you have
a high pH again, if it's seven five or higher,
I really would strongly encourage you to reconsider that selection
of a silver maple. The silver maples do get these
red dots on them and those are those are maple
bladder gall mites. So what happen is in the spring
(20:55):
is a little mite bit into that leaf and that
that bite caused a hormone reaction and that's swelling. So
that swelling actually serves as a shell of protection over
that mite. So there's a mite living in each one
of those red dots. But it's harmless because what's the
(21:16):
purpose of a leaf. The purpose of a leaf is
to produce the green core fill the food for the tree.
And you see these leaves are loaded with green corphyl
So these leaves are still very functional, doing a great job.
So don't worry about that. But as far as Maples,
just think twice about getting a maple tree and get
(21:38):
a soel pH done. If you do get a maple tree,
please put some maulter on it, care for it, love it.
Otherwise it's gonna suffer a life of misery. There you go.
That's my stock. You got anything you want to say
about Maples? Yeah, I depriss you enough.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I was gonna ask you about the box elder which
you rentioned it.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
There's I mean, it's not the worst. Yes, it's one
of the worst trees because of those box other bugs,
and it's weak wooded and it's kind of all over
the place shape. But you know the to terry maple, Ganela,
maple armor maple. Yeah they're okay, they're okay, but realize
(22:25):
you know we have a different swell than the people
in Boston. Yeah, there you go. So, uh, I think
twice about that. Okay, I want I think talking about
to talk more today.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Well I did in the topic you have, Okay, plenty
of calls coming in on this one.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Okay, here we go. So here's one. Like you mentioned
the drought status that we have, and here's one of
the latest maps, and you can see we're white. That
means we have no drought in uh in early County,
but it's still it's bad in the west. But h
but one, that's great, that's great. We don't have drought here.
(23:06):
That's great, and hopefully the rains will come to the southwest.
But one drawback about this. When it's wet in the spring,
we get more cedar, apple rust and cedar. These red
cedars are something that's called junipers. They have these like
a wooden gulls on them, and when it rains, the
gulls shoot out these orange tentacles and then the tentacles
(23:29):
shoot out rust spores and apples and hawthorns, crab apples.
They get these rust spores from that. So this looks
very severe in this This really concerns a lot of people.
But actually when this is the same tree is still
see it's really green still. So there's a lot of
(23:49):
this tree looks it looks scary to us, but the
tree can cope with it. And so I would say,
and I saw once you once you got it, there's
nothing you can do about it. You know, the damage
has been done. You can't spray it to there's no
cure for it.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Well like that, you use the word complex.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Okay, it is a little compliciod. It's got two different
type of plants involved. Right, So here's a hawthorn and
also gets the cedar rust disease. So here's the deal
with the cedar rust complex. One thing. Tunipers are or
red cedars. They're so common because they can tolerate drought
(24:34):
and they're tough evergreens. They're everywhere in North Dakota, and
the spores can come from a mile or more away.
So they're gonna it just can't stop it, you know,
like it just it's just gonna be a problem, especially
when we have a wet spring. The damage does look dramatic,
but it doesn't kill. I've never seen an apple or
a crabapple die from it. And we rarely use funny
(24:58):
sites in a home landscape for this have to and
if we do, what an apple orchard is if they're
juniperson nearby. But you gotta spray before the infection occurs.
So even before the flowers come out, you gotta start spraying.
And one thing we can do is pune the trees
in winter so you have better air movement in sunlight
because this is a fungus and fungus likes humidity in
(25:21):
the canopy. So anything we can do to open up
the canopy will have the rust of a harder time
getting going in our apple trees. So that's what I got.
That's just a disease that says it's coming on. Now.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I feel like it's a Romeo Juliet love story there, right,
you have to kill off one of them to get
to get rid of it totally. Like you said, it
comes from like a mile away.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
So where are you gonna find the juliette?
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, you know, think about it.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
They got Yeah, they gotta be together. They gotta be together,
for there's no there's no cedar apple russ without a
cedar and apple. They gotta be together. But on my
chrome and Juliet it's not fatal.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Well, right, I just meant you have to get rid
of the other host in order to solve it, right,
because it's a mile away.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
You are more Yeah, so you just just live with it. Right, Well,
there are disease resistant crab apple trees. The apples, the
ones that resist rust taste terrible. So there really isn't
a good choice there.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Pass that one by.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah. So yeah, just be on the lookout for it.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
It's out there, plenty, plenty, plenty. Okay, let's rewind a
little bit. Let's talk about the month of May. How
about that? To start off, See, lilac's still blooming.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah they are, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
There are a few out there, a lot of them,
i'd say, are past that point. But what do you
when you thought of the first couple of weeks in May,
what do you think of? Do you remember it or
were you just busy pack and see?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
It was, uh, that's when we had our cold snap sunny.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
The first two weeks sunny. In the eighties and the nineties,
my kids were bagging.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
To where mid April it is nineties, I know.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, but even May we had some record high.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I know everybody wanted a plant. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
They were very an issue the first Sunday.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Oh yeah, to plant my two combers man and you know,
just everybody's going nuts on that and just be careful,
be care They.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Were eager more than eager's.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And this was dry all it warmed up faster.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah. Then May fifteenth was kind of our turning fall.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Hey there you go.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, the record rainfall came continued for several days. I'll
be honest, I was over it after a few days.
It just rains, rains, rains. Gravel roads are terrible. Can't
be out seem its dirt drively dirt driveling. Try like
(28:08):
fifty miles of dirt every day and that's just one way. Wow, okay,
and then we had the big scare. It's like, yeah,
you know the sixteenth people were paddicked. The frost was coming.
But Bismarck actually we did make another record that day,
but we only got to forty three as a low.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
That's the coldest forty three. How that's not cold.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, so we didn't have to worry about the frostiness around.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, no rhubarb because I got frosted.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
No, it was all good. People took precautions, but it
was all good. So with that rain came our friend.
Just like last year, ant Racknos, tell you what the
last couple of weeks, like chicken little instead, the sky
was falling, right those chicken little read those the leaves
(28:59):
were falling and masses all over. So ash tree leaves
get pictures like this showing just piles people showing their yards.
If you see on that right photo, you know, sparse
just covers the ground and people were in panic. The
other thing that they were in panic about is because
(29:20):
the leaves are falling, and last year with emerald ashboard
being discovered, that's where their mind went too right away,
So how do we tell Anthracnos. Well, first couple signs
is that yes, those leaflets will fall. You can see
some brown leaf margins even curled a little bit in
(29:41):
this photo that you see you can also see little
brown dots on the leaf's surface. So earlier this spring
there was like some feeding from ashplant bugs and basically
that was fungal spores just kind of landed on it
at the perfect time going on there. So this is
kind of the ale tale of Anthracnos. So what to do? Nothing,
(30:06):
just relax on the panicking. Yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Is a relief, right, it will relief.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Oh will relief? Yeah, exactly, yeah, what a relief.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
No need for spongecides. If it has a very excessively
thin crown, you could consider fertilizing. You'd have to have
this several years of consecutive major defoliation to start and
stress the tree to even consider that. So I know
we talked about it last week on our weekly call,
But do you want to tell people more of like
(30:42):
what we would see with emerald ashboard versus anthracnose.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
The other thing about anthract Nos again, anthract nose is
a fungus. It likes shade and humidity all that rate.
I'm looking at an ash tree from a distance, I'm
gonna see for Anthracnos, you'll see the it will be
thin where on the lower branches where it's shady and
(31:07):
in the inside of the tree. But on the top
of the tree it'll look beautiful. It'll have a beautiful
crown of green leaves on top where it gets lots
of sun and air movement. So that's Anthracnos. Emerald ash
boar is opposite Emerald ashboar. It destroys the veins of
(31:29):
the tree and so the top of the tree can't
get water, so the top of the tree will dive back.
So at the top of the trees dying. Now I'm
worried about bores, but with the anthracnos the top of
the tree looks the healthiest. So you just got to
take a step back and look at the whole tree.
And also just you know, emerald ash boor has not
(31:52):
been detected in Bismarck Mandan, and so don't overly panic
about that. Yeah, so that's the big thing, right right, right, Yeah,
don't worry about anthracnols. Don't worry. Tree is gonna be fine.
Trees have had entractnles. Like you said, it was your
friend last year. It was, it has it gets it often,
(32:15):
and trees survived this because, like I say, they can refoliate.
It's not a it's not a killer, no.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Not at all. So the next thing, I've been seeing
quite a bit already in the landscape and even within
like some of the site visits, I've done a scale.
I see pine needles scale every year. So this is
you see this on a spruce tree here, but our viewers,
if you look nice and closely, those those needles are
(32:44):
covered with they look like little white spots all over them.
So you get the spots and the needles. Needles can
start turning yellow and fall off. What happens here is
the eggs are laid in the fall and they overwinter
beneath their dead mother, the scale, and then they start
to hatch mid to late May. Those crawlers are active
(33:08):
at that time and they go and they feed on
the new needles where they form their shell. So as
far as what to do with this, it's best to
have a systemic and a crawler spray. So I listed
some different options there for your crawler stage. That timing
is really hard. I know you're the one who's always
said it kind of loosely correlates when our lilacs are blooming. Correct, yep,
(33:32):
So we're probably getting a little bit past that point.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Just for the crawlers. Yeah, you got it. There a
little tiny translucent things and you gotta gotta get up.
Maybe I get a hand lens or you're reading glasses
and look carefully for as crawlers. If you see them,
then you can consider spring, right, But if they're not there,
(33:56):
well yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yeah, and then you can always use a systemic. And
that's going to be applied at the base of your tree.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And like a soell drench you're talking about. Yep, that
takes I'll take about a couple of weeks for it
to get in the system. Yep. I have to be
a little bit careful as a precaution with spruce trees.
They can kind of lose their bluishness if you with
some of these oil sprays and make sure, like you said,
(34:26):
like a horticultural oil, not a dormant oil, because the
tree is not dormant anymore. And yeah, again I don't
usually see that much severe damage on them sometimes, you know, yeah,
some cases sometimes, but I rarely see it dying from
(34:48):
a scale, right, But yep, it's those little white dots
cause a lot of concern.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
The other one that I've seen is the pine tortoise scale.
So like just the example, a gentleman did come in
and he showed me some pictures of his pine trees,
and yes, they were very off colored, very pale, thin,
and then you could see that sooty mold which just
(35:17):
looks like black on the branches and stuff. So then
going to the site and looking at it, oh man,
I could just see the clusters of the pine tortoise
scale all over on his branches. So again it's interesting
like of course you don't know what you don't know,
and for clients out there, this is really hard to say, yes,
this is an insect, you know, because they're just brown
(35:39):
and they're in clusters and you got to get close
up to see them. So this one lives through the
winter as like fertilized females on branches, so you see
them at those basically the branch the connections and stuff.
They'll grow and then they start to lay their eggs
in the spring, and so tiny crawlers on this one
(36:00):
appear in late June to early July, and then they
began feeding on the needles. So treatment is very similar. Again,
horticultural oils can be applied in the late fall and
early spring, and then you can also use that systemic
in the spring too to combat this one.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
So right, one thing with scale sometimes the noise is
they you know, when they suck, they drip out, so
it gets like sticky and you feel that's one of
the ways that people sense it first is there all
that stickiness nearby from there from their honey, and that
leads to that mold that sooty mold, that blackish mold developing.
(36:41):
So yeah, they're kind of a tricky to control.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, I remember it was like a couple of years ago.
I had talked with you too on some I believe
they were pine trees, but the guy had described it
as looking like they were torched and they were so
full of the sooty mold on them and had scale
all all over. So that was kind of a extreme race.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, and there's a cottony, cottony scale, cottoney maple scale.
I didn't even talk about that. But another problem, not
a lot of maple proms, but that's another type of scale.
It's a little tricky. But the same treatment that you
talked about though you got it somehow, like a systemic
approach can help. And then but the crawlers, they're vulnerable
(37:26):
stage and that's where you can blast them, knock them down.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
All right. The next thing I talk about the elm
seed pods. It's all over. Uh, So what's interesting. I
will just say I have a contact over in man
Dan that prior to calls coming into the office and stuff,
he had reached out one day and he goes, man,
have you been noticing the elm trees, and I said, no,
(37:55):
I'm I guess I haven't been paying much attention. And
so he's like, there's all like they're browning, they look
like they're dying and stuff and everything. He goes, I'm
going to go take a couple pictures and send a
mere way and everything. So upon closer inspection, again, you
can look up in that canopy and see like those
brown areas, but they are just loaded with seed pods
(38:19):
this year not really a rhyme or reason that we
talked about.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I don't right, environmental conditions for production, and like Siberian
elms especially really loaded.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah, and so what to know is like these seeds
can they could stay on till like July. Elms are
going to be a spring producer of their seeds, so
that's why we see all the seeds and then they
are going to drop off. So the crowns this year
could look a little thin, but overall, you don't need
to worry. It's not nothing you can do about it.
(38:58):
It's not the trees signal it's dying or in stress
because it's doing all the seed production or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
So right, yeah, but you know the tree is waste
spending a lot of energy on the seeds. So as
you say, the leaf leaves maybe a little bit sparser
this year, but I think trees go through this process
like every seven years or so they have an explosion,
(39:27):
and uh, there's there's there's ties with how this helps
wildlife too. It's part of the balance of nature. But yeah,
it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
It's concerning would you as a homeowner, like when the
seeds drop, would you go raake those up? Worrying about
volunteers coming up?
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Then well, if I got nothing else to do, right.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
I'm just saying elm trees are very good at or repopulated.
I wouldn't do it like trucks.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
But yeah, I mean, like, I mean, you know how
many seeds we're talking about. You're not going to get
them I want, But if you want to, I mean,
it wouldn't hurt to do it. Okay, you know, you
know doesn't know the most of them aren't going to terminate,
especially if it's out a lawn. You know, the lawn
(40:25):
is going to compete with those seed pods. So yeah,
it's up to you. I wouldn't bother, I think.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Right, Yeah, Okay, last thing I want to talk about
with the rains, the mushrooms in the lawn, been getting
any of these.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
No, no, okay, I haven't seen any. Okay on trees.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, I got a couple that came in within the
last couple of weeks here too. Just people saying they
got high populations of the mushrooms and the lawn and everything.
So just to know, like as far as treatment and stuff,
they are often seen after those periods of wet weather.
They're decomposing organic matter in the lawn. Whether that's old roots, right,
(41:11):
you know, it could be a lot of different things
that they're deum posing.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Lumber buried number.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
That is, yep, any of that. There's no fun just
side to go out there and worry about spraying them
or anything like that. We just simply say, raak them
out of the lawn. Just reak them out. If they
bother you that bad.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
You can't stop it. Would that's na want to decompose.
So you just got to wait till they decompose. Yeah,
so it's going to be a long wait, yeah, like
ten years. So that's just the way it is. So
don't worry about it. That's right, that's the old kill them,
(41:51):
just leave them alone.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
We're not foraging for mushrooms.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, it's right. Never eat a mushroom unless you're a
hundred percent sure what it is, and don't bother call me.
I will never identify a mushroom, all right. No mushroom
is worth your life.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
No, not at all. No, those are my hot topics
for today. So those were my speeds. Yeah, my speed
topics from easy mushrooms.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah, yellow maples. How come nobody calls us with good information, like, Wow,
that's how beautiful my zucchini looks this year, So.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
It'd be good, that'd be a good call, hug. But
then you'd be like, all right, what do you call me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Why are you bothering me for this? I got so
many problems to deal with in the community. Yeah, yeah,
but you know these are we can talk about anything really, uh,
detrimental catastrophe. No, so we got I'm seeing some elm seeds. Okay,
don't worry, be happy. Okay, I see what else I
(42:59):
got and diragonost. Don't worry, be happy. Tree is gonna
be finet, you know. Enjoy the weather, beautiful weather. He
got some rain. It's gonna it's a great year. So far,
it's not winter. Great things happening right now.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
I agree. Got any less words of what I think
we talked about, well, I will say I got herbicide
injury that came in on a potato Friday when I
was gone. I know we've talked about that in past.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah, to be careful about you know.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Uh yep, this this situation was planted in a corral
that they had had cattle in three years. They worked
up the corral and then planted potatoes in there and
they all had signs of herbicide injury going on. She
(43:57):
told me her past tomatoes had had that in a
different spots. While we found the answer on that came
from some composts from the city landfill. So just been
a little bit of a struggle for that lady specifically.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
That's a big stroke because like those those chemicals, like
like potatoes, like if that came from a from manure,
you know the manure, the manure is produced by the
cow eating contaminant you know, straw or hay that was
sprayed by a very persistent herbicide, and those herbicides can
(44:35):
persist for years, for a few years, so that's a problem.
So that's a that's a warning about using that compost
from the Bismarck, the Burley County dump is uh, it
can be contaminated with persistent pesticide because the grass clippings
that are dumped off there for composting, they're not screened
(44:56):
for herbicide and people people use very per system herbicide
now and so that's a that's a that's a big problem.
So yeah, but you know, as far as what I
would say, like the lawns are healthy, they're growing, they're
grain keep mowing on a regular basis. Mold tall now,
the taller the better. Tall turf will keep the soil
(45:18):
cooler because it'll shade the So keep it your more
at the I would say, the highest height you can tolerate.
We generally recommend fertilizing lawns around Memorial Days or just
a little bit past that. If he didn't, if he
didn't fertilize, you could probably do that as long as
the rains keep coming. What else going on, Keep dead
(45:41):
heading your flowers and stuff after they're done blooming. Spend
some time in your garden, you know, just like that's
the best thing you can do if you have a garden,
spend time in it. So that you can watch your
plants and get the bugs before they take over, or
so you know, spend spend some moments in your garden,
(46:03):
enjoy it. Well, well we have it, that's right. I
guess that's about all the west of I have. Yes,
not much, but that's what I got. I don't know
if you've got any last words.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
No, I would just say to anybody out there listening.
Of course, you can listen to us on all major
platforms for podcasting podcast Growing the Code of Growing. You
can find us on the coodemediaaccess dot org as well
free tv dot com.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Dot org dot org.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah I think so, yeah, oh, free tv dot org. Okay,
I gotta get that right.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Right, I can remember that one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Okay. Well, with that, I would just say thank you
for joining us on today's the Coda Growing episode. We
will be going regular now with our Growing season, and
we hope to have you on future your episodes and
that you're joining us. Dakota Growing is a gardening show
brought to you by Dakota Media Access and NDSU Extension.
(47:10):
We discuss a variety of timely topics pertaining to your landscape,
along with giving you tips and advice. For your lawn,
garden and trees. If you have questions, call seven oh
one two two one six eight sixty five or email
NDSU dot Burley dot Extension at NDSU dot com. Dakota
Growing airs on radio Access one oh two point five FM,
(47:32):
Community Access Channel twelve or six twelve HD, or online
at FreeTV dot org
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