Some HWA Pics

OK, I know this is a Fraser fir IPM blog. But I work some with HWA on hemlocks and can't help but post a few things about that too.

Five years ago, I took some photos of hemlocks in the Linville area. Today I went back and visited some of those trees. Mostly the hedges looked really good. But many of the trees that I know had been treated are now gone. Others don't look much better.

Here are the pictures:

This picture was taken five years ago.

This is the same tree five years later. It is still hanging on, but doesn't look much better.

This tree is no longer there. It had been treated with Merit, but didn't seem to be doing too well five years ago when this picture was taken.

These trees are in the same yard as the previous picture. They don't look that good either, but are at least still alive. The hedge, however, looks great.

My last photo is dead hemlocks along the Parkway.

2010 Growth in Organic Demonstration.

Today I measured the terminal growth on the 183 trees I've been evaluating at the organic demonstration in Alleghany County. Thanks again to Della and all the Deals and Tuckers for all their help with this study.

A big thanks also goes to Bryan Davis who has been keeping the site going. For the 3rd NCTA farm tour on August 14, Bryan dug up three trees from this demonstration so that folks could see how the trees were doing. One was a typical "late organic." Remember that these are the trees that are being grown conventionally until the last 3 years before harvest when they will go totally organic -- that is, they are "going organic" late in the rotation with just enough time to be certified as organic. He also brought 2 trees from the organic portion -- one that was growing poorly and one that was growing well.

Those trees were strikingly different. The poor organic tree was just barely alive. The good growing organic tree was growing well, until you compared it to the typical "late organic" tree which was taller and fuller.

The numbers I collected today with the help of my daughter (in the rain no less) bare this out. I measured the terminal of the trees and also gave the trees a rating based on how well they were growing. Trees were given a rating of "1" if they were barely growing at all. A "2" rating was given to a tree that was growing better, but still had poor color and bud set. A "3" rating was given to a tree that was growing acceptably. A "4" rating was given to an exception tree both in color, bud set, needle length and fullness. Of course these ratings were completely subjective and sometimes I had trouble deciding between a "2" and a "3" or a "3" and a "4."

Here is a summary of the data. The "late organic" trees are more likely to have a rating of 3 or 4. Their terminal growth is on average 4.6 inches longer, and there is a higher percentage of trees with at least 12 inch terminals.

There are some very nice looking organic trees. There just aren't as many as in the other section. Still, all the trees are growing better than they did last year. Last year the average terminal growth for the entire study was 6.1 inches. This year it was 14.0 inches -- more than twice as much. The trees that suffered severe drought when they were planted in 2008 with a southern exposure are finally growing strong.

NCTA Meeting

Hope everyone can come to the National Christmas Tree Association annual meeting in Winston this week.

I will be speaking on Friday morning. My talk is called, "Getting Personal With Pests." We have it on-line if you'd like to look at it. It is found at: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/xmas/production-mountains/Sidebottom-Pests_2010-08-13.pdf

It's kind of a big file, so it will take awhile to pull up.

I'll also be on two of the farm tours. I'll be speaking on Saturday morning at Harry Yates' farm on elongate hemlock scale. Then in the afternoon I'll be speaking at Omni farm on scouting, pest control and our organic demonstration.

Some Scale Control Results

On June 20th I posted about a spray trial I had applied that day with 4 different materials for control of scale. Meghan Baker helped me collect samples from that study on July 27 and I looked at the results.

The following numbers are the percentage of dead scales based on observing at least 100 scales:
Check -- 53% dead
Movento + Liberate -- 69% dead
Lorsban -- 75% dead
Safari --  83% dead
Dimethoate + Asana -- 84% dead.

Remember that these were applied with a backpack mistblower which never does give as good results as with a high pressure sprayer. Hopefully with a bit more forceful coverage you would be getting closer to 95% control with the Dimethoate +Asana.

The Lorsban results were a bit disappointing. I was hoping control would be better. Safari worked well. I've seen situations when it hasn't worked as well, but there has been plenty of rainfall in that area which probably helped it get in the plant better.

I will re-evaluate control in these trees in the fall to see if any clearer differences emerge. I will also apply these same materials to other trees in September to look further at fall scale control as well as twig aphid control the following spring.

Japanese Beetles

I may not be moving about too well these days, but thankfully others are out in the trees seeing what's going on.

Jeff Owen has told me that he is seeing Japanese beetles on the terminals feeding. He's seeing this in several tree fields to a greater extent than most years.

Japanese beetles are just one of a number of terminal feeders. They tend to feed toward the top of the tree and terminal, creating irregular patches, though in this picture which I took years ago, they are feeding on older growth. Their feeding is swallow, but will result in discoloration and sap flowing.

Usually by the time you notice the feeding, they have done as much damage as they are going to do. They aren't anything to worry about. However, if you are seeing the insects in your trees, you can spot treat with any good insecticide. A backpack mistbower or backpack sprayer is sufficient. When using a backpack sprayer, I like a hollow cone nozzle for applying insecticides.

Some Interesting Pictures

I'm sitting at the extension office with my leg propped up after knee surgery. Walking in all these tree fields sure tears up your knees! It will be awhile before I can tromp around again, so I thought I would post some pictures I've been working on while laid up.

The first is a picture I took at Ewing Harmon's on June 29th. He had treated his trees for scale, and it looked like he got good control. This photo shows what folks need to look for after treatment. There aren't any nymphs on the new growth. I hope you can see in this picture that the needles on the newest growth are scale free.

Scales have moved onto 2010 growth, so if you look at fields and aren't seeing the scales on new growth, that's a good sign. Also, it's easy to see the fuzz from the male scales back in the canopy now. If there aren't many of those, that shows good control as well.

I had commented in my June 30 post about the spread of scale at Dale Cornett's field in Watauga County. I made a colorized scheme to show the increase in scale at Dale's which I have photographed below.

I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, the most heavily infested trees in 2010 are scattered everywhere, they aren't just concentrated where the most heavily infested trees were in 2008 which was on the far end of the field.

Something else that was interesting was that two years ago, Dale had some trees with heavy incidence of pine needle scale, not just elongate hemlock scale. We didn't find any of those this year. That's good, because we don't need any other major scale problems.

To date, Dale has only used Di-Syston for pest control in these trees.

The annual Watauga County Christmas Tree Grower's Association meeting will be July 29. I hope to go out before that meeting and look at scale control in the plots that I treated before that meeting, and will report at the meeting and in this blog what I find..

The last schematic I will post today depicts IPM in Christmas trees. I created this for the National Christmas Tree Meeting in Winston Salem in August. This Christmas Tree IPM Pyramid shows the importance of a good IPM foundation to ultimately be successful with pest control.

And this is what so many tree growers in North Carolina do. They work hard to get good fertility and ground cover management, then scout to determine what pests they do have. Through this process, their pesticide controls have been more successful. In fact, I haven't heard of anyone that is too upset that Thionex will be taken off the market. They don't need such a strong material. They can get excellent control with safer products.

Anyway, hope everyone enjoys these schematics. Feel free to use them however you can.

Doug's Color Wheel

Doug Hundley was telling me the other day that he was explaining to a newer grower all the different times of year you could control the different Fraser fir pests. It's amazing how much our knowledge of pest control has changed even over the past few years. When treating for one pest, you can target others that you have as well, either by your choice of pesticides or how thoroughly you spray.

He told me that he took the white paper plate he and the grower were beating pests on, and he drew different color circles to represent the times of year you could control different pests. I thought it was a great idea. So I put together this color wheel. I haven't talked to Doug or others yet to see if my circles correspond to theirs, so let's talk about it. Email me your comments. I can change it however folks see fit.