Show Questions - August 4, 2011

1. Jeff, your sample is something that a viewer sent in tonight which is an image of their Asiatic lilies with a wide stem and they produced essentially a crown of flowers and they want to know what's going on.

a. This is fasciation - a fancy term for the abnormality of the stems where they flatten and fuse together.  It's caused by a virus and an insect may inject it. And I have seen it especially in rural areas in thistles a lot, and it's kind of fun to see because obviously you get to kill it afterwards.

2. We have a Rising City viewer who has aphids on the pansies in their planters. They used Sevin, but it’s not working.
a. Sevin is a stomach chemical, and aphids are feeding through a tube inserted down into the vascular system of the plant. A good idea would be BioNEEM® or one of the pyrethroid works well, or even insecticidal soap perhaps. Pansies can be just a little sensitive, so don't get it too strong. There is a broad choice of products.

3. And the other question was whether you could expect the aphids to travel about to the other plants. Perhaps to daisies?
a. No. They pretty much will stay in a colony right there. If you see the winged forms, maybe it’s possible, but generally they don't move a lot.

4. How do we control violets now that we are getting towards fall?
a. It is still really hot and we typically don't recommend spraying the products that are effective on the violets until it cools off in the time frame of the first half of September. So, hold off and then use something with triclopyr as the active ingredient on that perennial and one shot probably won't do it. Just keep at it.

5. This viewer has brown patches in the lawn. They don't know whether it is grubs or a fungus. And if it’s a fungus, how do they treat it?
a. Currently, we’re seeing two possible diseases in turf that can show brown patch. You have to get down on your knees and take a look at the turf blades. With the brown patch, you have a dark brown margin and tan lesion a quarter way or halfway across. Typically, we don't recommend any treatment in a home lawn; wait it out, it's going to disappear. Then you're going to reseed this fall with some more resistant varieties that are able to handle the disease a lot better.
If you are seeing patches that are more circular and the turf has really just declined all the way down and looks like it is completely dead, most likely it is a summer patch and that is a soil-born fungus attacking the root system. You should be able to pull the turf out, similar to what Fred sees with white grubs, and take a close look at the roots and they are dark brown to black in coloration. That is the fungus. We recommend resistant varieties and overseed the area this fall. To do a fungicide application, you will need a commercial application with two applications – typically one in April and the second in May.
The other thing to keep in mind, with the season that we had, with some of those grass species, is that the root systems are shallow because it was so wet. Then we have the hot dry period. We are seeing that decline in the turf; it is not able to absorb the water because it doesn't have the root system there. You want to look at all the factors that could be going on in the turf and it might just be environmental at this point in time.
We have billbugs and grubs and if there is billbug damage, they are gone and it’s too late to do anything, but it’s a manifestation of that feeding. And it is really too early to be a seeing a lot of white grub damage. In the next week or two we may start seeing it. Unless there is a very, very heavy infestation, and we’re talking 30 or 40 per square foot, then perhaps we would see some of that damage. But it’s just a little early to see the kind of damage that the viewer described, so I think that you were right on with a disease or environmental problem.

6. This is a Gurnsey, Wyoming viewer who has an 8 foot leader of a dwarf apple tree that is leaning over the sidewalk, and the question is whether he can use a tow strap, wrap it around the tree, stake it, tighten it, and ratchet it back to straighten it. The whole tree, or at least the leader part, seems to be leaning that way.
a. I would say that if it's leaning because of environmental causes, we had some saturating rains that may have loosened the roots in the soil and made it move that way, you could perhaps re-soak the area and try to pull it back. Otherwise, if you pull it back, you are ripping more roots, so if you pull it back, you will have to leave it staked for some time. If the plant is growing in that direction, look at the base of the tree and see if it's moved or shifted in the ground. If it is growing that way, you are not going to be able to straighten it much, and you may have to do some directional pruning. Look at the top of the tree and buds facing the direction you want to go and remove some of the smaller branches of the tips to encourage it to grow that way. Also, look to see if something is modifying the light in that area and causing it to grow that way, such as if you have another tree in the area that's blocking the light or forcing it to grow toward a sunnier area.

7. Fred, I think we're going to do a picture for you next if I am not mistaken. This is actually a question that came in and we had a couple of pictures like this. This is from northwest Iowa – a little mud mound appears. Their daughter watches Backyard Farmer and wants to know the answer to the question.

a. I wish Dennis was here because I am not totally sure. If this were near a pond or a wet area, I would say it's a crawdad or a crayfish, but this looks like it's on the side of a patio. So that would be my first call, if it was in a pond. And mole crickets have a digging thing, and they will dig and leave a mound similar to that. So if they were digging in that pile of loose dirt, they wouldn't build a nest in a wet area to raise their young. And so again, it's a tough one, but mole cricket or crayfish, or it might be a cicada nymph if you are seeing the shell on the tree and if it was underneath that patio or the rocks. So it might have been one of the cicada nymphs coming out.

8. Lowell, a viewer in Columbus that had a locust cut down, 50 or 60 years old, got the stump out, but has locusts sprouts coming up all over everywhere. The question is how to eliminate the sprouts and how long is it going to take before they no longer have this happening?
a. They're going to get a lot of sprouts, depending on how long the roots extend out into the lawn, and you can continuously have sprouts coming up. In the spring and the fall use something like Triclopyr that's good on woody species, that's safe to use in the turf as well; something with triclopyr as the active ingredient and just keep at it. Also just continually mow on a regular basis to keep the tops mowed off. When we get to the cooler time of the year, you may want to back off that and have a little bit of foliage so that you can make a herbicide application and it is absorbed well by the sprouts.

9. Amy, from Alma, Nebraska: they have tomato plants that are curling in all over the plants and are very green, very tall, flowering, and there's no fruit. And they think it's one of the better Better Boys.
a. If the leaves are curling up and you haven't had a 2,4-D application in the area of the tomatoes, I’d probably lean toward a viral infection, most likely tomato spotted wilt. It's leafhopper-transmitted and you might want to see if you have leaf hoppers in the garden area. It’s also seed-transmitted and it is possible that it came in with other plants or woodchips at that point in time. So remove that plant out of the garden so it doesn't infest the other tomatoes. And if it is your only tomato, you will have to bum some off a neighbor or another garden. And a farmers' market will have some great tomatoes.
If it was the leaf hopper, it would be wise to put the plant in a plastic bag and not just take it to the compost. Leafhopper adults are good flyers and they can migrate back into the garden.

10. Jeff, this is fun. This is an Iowa viewer with Concolor Firs, lots of them, and this year one of the trees has purple 3 to 4 inch long things at the top of the tree that they have never seen before, like fangs.
a. It has cones. That is very cool. That is exciting. Take pictures and enjoy. I think the ones on campus have done that once or twice. And the Norways will do it, too, and are very pretty, too. I take pictures every year when they start to put cones on.

11. Fred, a stink bug question. This is an Iowa viewer also. Stink bugs are on the summer squash and the corn. Do they lay a 1 inch long line of red eggs? And how do you treat it without losing the squash and corn?
a. I think what they're seeing are squash bugs. That is how they land and they lay their eggs in the confluence of two veins and ring shaped and burnt colored eggs. They would look like a stink bug and if you handle them, they would smell bad because they have a protective chemistry. The way to treat those would be to use one of the pyrethroids, like bifenthrin. If you only have a few, just crush them. The adults move around a lot, so they are probably moving to the corn. They are gray and ½ inch long, and you can easily confuse those with a stinkbug.

12. Lowell, your turn for a picture. This is a viewer who took this image after the yard was mowed and wonders what in the world this white stuff is that's around a martin house. What is it and can you control it? She thinks it's part of an ornamental grass.

a. That is what this is. In one of the pictures you can see the fountain grass in the background. It is an ornamental grass and it’s benefit is the seed head, but it does produce viable seeds. The seeds will blow off and plants will germinate. It tends to have a very coarse stem, and when you mow it, the mower blade just doesn't do a good job of cutting it. So to minimize it, you really need to make sure your mower blades are nice and sharp because we saw in some of the desirable grass in the background that the blades were kind of marred on the top, so they probably have a dull mower blade there. And in terms of chemical control, there's been some work done in Indiana that actually shows you can use Drive – a couple of applications in the spring will be effective on the grass.

13. A Stanton viewer has mulberry trees and there was a fungicide applied (Headline) on a corn field nearby, and the question really is can they harvest the mulberries although we had a little discussion about whether there actually are any berries there this late in the season.
a. I really recommend you don't eat that type of fruit. And most of that type of fungicide products require a long preharvest interval time. By the time you get past that window, the mulberries or the wild fruits like plums are done. A lot of corn and soybean fields are being sprayed with commercial fungicides, so you want to really be careful what is being sprayed in the ditches next to the fields before you go out and harvest. If it is your own field and you know what's been sprayed, or nothing has been sprayed, you are good to go. If there is any doubt there is a product applied, avoid using that fruit from those trees.

14. Jeff, a Lincoln viewer says the cucumbers are turning white and they are tasting bitter. Neighbors are saying the same thing.
a. A couple of things. We had the high heat and sometimes you will see different layers stratifying in the fruit. Or they may be waiting too long to harvest. That would be one thing. With my own cucumbers, the fruit are staying underneath the leaves and I haven't had that problem at home. You might want to consider and going out and kind of drenching things real quick in the afternoon and don't necessarily leave the sprinkler on for a long time, but cool stuff off when it's 105 degrees, and that may be a strategy to cool the plants down without getting things wet overnight.

15. Fred, an Omaha viewer has Japanese beetles on the roses. How can they kill them or should they this time of year?
a. Probably, because they are probably doing a lot of damage. We are almost at the end of Japanese beetle adult season and one of the Bayer Advanced products or the pyrethroids will work. But for every one that you kill, 50 others come to the funeral and so you have to stay on them. Just sneak up on them and they will fly, and tap them into a container of soapy water off the roses or geraniums, and they will just fall in.

16. We have had a viewer ask when we're going to be at the State Fair.
a. The panel will be there on Wednesday from 1:30 to 3:00 in the afternoon – an extra half hour this year to ask questions, and we're bringing samples and will answer questions. We encourage the viewers to bring samples, too. We love when they bring samples and questions.

17. Lowell, this is a Lincoln viewer with bindweed growing all over their groundcovers. They want to kill the bindweed without killing the groundcover.
a. And that is going to be really tough, because I am assuming the groundcover is some kind of shrub or ornamental or broadleaf. To get rid of the bindweed, because it's a perennial with deep roots, we do need to use herbicide, and we’ve talked often about the glove method of brushing herbicides on those bindweed plants. To selectively take them out, that is pretty much what their option is. A triclopyr and glyphosate combination would do well on the bindweed. Or you can sometimes just comb it out. Tease it out of the shrubs and pile it all up on the mulch to the side, apply the herbicide, and the herbicide will translocate and still get down to the roots.

18. Amy, a Bellevue viewer has Catalpa trees that are turning brown and the leaves are falling off.
a. Most likely it's scorch. With these really extreme temperatures that we had, the plants just aren't translocating enough water. Especially if they turn brown starting on the outside edge of the leaf and working in, it’s most likely scorch. Also, along the street the heat from the street and sidewalk really contribute to the scorch issue. The trees should be fine and should re-leaf just fine next year. It just looks kind of terrible right now.

19. Here’s a photo from a viewer that found this in his landscape and was wondering what this is on this plant.

a. Those are just spores on ferns and I think we see pre and post relief there. They do kind of look like little bugs or something, but are nothing to be afraid of. They’re just kind of unusual. Interestingly enough, that is one of the ways you identify ferns, by the pattern of the spores on the underside of the leaf.

20. These two images are from a viewer in Omaha. They found dozens of the first one on the grass after a storm under the river birch. The bare branches were above that particular one.

a. Those are called yellow-necked caterpillars. They are general feeders. They feed on lots of the things in the landscape: maple, willow, river birch and all those kinds of trees. What is interesting is they're defoliators and my guess is they're long gone now, the adults drop off and they're leaving, so the little things they saw on the leaves were the skins. They come together into an aggregate and almost simultaneously cast their skins and go back up into the tree. So those are the yellow necked caterpillars and my guess is, by this time they are long gone but next year you can treat with BT, Sevin, or any other product. They don't cause a lot of injury and rarely require treatment. They are from a moth which is kind of brown and the back sticks out at an angle, almost triangular in shape. It is actually a pretty moth. Everyone has probably seen them along the lights and didn't know what they were.

21. Here’s a question from a viewer who has foxtail in the garden and windmill grass. He wants to know if they can kill the foxtail now or is spring a better time to treat and if so, with what?
a. Spring is probably the best time to treat the foxtail that typically comes up about mid spring. If they use the same pre-emergent herbicide that is good for use in vegetable crops or in turf and turf situations, it's are also good on foxtail. The windmill grass is more difficult.
Using something like a relatively heavy dose of glyphosate is probably necessary to keep at it and probably stick with it to take care of the windmill grass.

22. I know we talked about this before. This is from a viewer with a crabapple. It had grown well since it was planted but this year completely defoliated: parasite? disease?

a. Taking a quick look, it doesn't look like any of the major diseases that we run into. Just looking at it, there is a big nest thing in it and I think that may be a tent caterpillar right in the crotch of the branches from earlier in the year. There is probably some webbing associated with that.
As you look at the rest of the tree here, you see all these little clumps and that is where the caterpillars have gone out and they have chewed the leaves down.
The other possibility would be some sort of a leaf crumpler and I can't tell from that picture.The good news is that they're gone. Next year, there is a possibility because they lay their eggs right on the same trees, it is important to go out and get those little webs when they are really small before we have all that defoliation, with something like BT or any of the other insecticide products or pick them out if there are just a few of them.

23. This question is from our most loyal follower from the garden state of New Jersey, a question about his Marconi peppers that are very thin walled this year.
a. I guess what we're thinking is in that sandy New Jersey soil, even though you've modified the soil and added compost and that sort of thing; it may be a water issue. They may need to maintain a damper soil and use even moisture to help maintain those plants.
I would be looking at afternoon wilt in the leaves of the plant with the wilting lessening in the evening. If this is an ongoing issue in the future, compost will really help. They could also look at some of the gels to help maintain moisture within the plant. Mulching might also help.

24. We have a viewer who has purple coneflowers. It looks like the heads are dirty and like something is chewing on the heads.
a. That sounds like sunflower moth. They'll get into sunflowers and dig around in there and there's a lot of granular frass, manure, and plant debris, so that's how they look---dirty. Look and see if they're still there because they might be gone. You can treat those with something like BT or Sevin or carboryl and you can treat when they are small and that would work well. We actually had another question from a viewer who says something is eating the heads of the sunflowers. That is most likely a sunflower moth.

25. This is a viewer who says the neighbors sprayed with a fungicide and he has a corn question. They sprayed 50 acres of corn with a fungicide. He is wondering whether this will poison the plants in his yard.
a. If there is any question about whether that fungicide has drifted into any of your edible plants, it's best to just play it safe and just not eat those plants. That's the standard advice we give folks on that. But if it drifted into your landscape plants and your turf, an application shouldn't really damage that and it is just the edibles that we would be concerned about.

26. A viewer from St. Paul has a question regarding pole beans that have many runners and lots of blooms, but no beans.
a. I have had a big harvest of beans but it seems like we have gone through a lull with the heat. If they have had some harvest and are going through this kind of high heat lull, I think this is pretty normal. Mine are back to flowering and producing the beans but I went ten days without much.
Using mulch and adding moisture isn't a bad idea, also being patient. There is a chance the beans will start getting spider mites, so they should check for spider mites on the leaves. They can do damage in a week or two and will move to other landscape plants or garden vegetables.
If you find them, put them in a plastic bag rather than throwing them on top of the compost pile. The mites can go from a few to overwhelming the plants and within ten days or less.

27. This question is from a Lincoln viewer with a linden tree that is four years old. The leaves are falling off, they look lacy, chewed up, brown, and dry.
a. Some may be the remnants of the leaf miner from earlier in the season and the dead tissue is just blowing out. There are lots of things that affect lindens. It could be one of the canker worms, but the key is to look, and if there is nothing there, it makes no sense to spray. If it is a caterpillar or beetle, you can use some product. But this late in the season, my guess is those are probably gone and it is more important to make a note of it and pay attention next spring in early May and June and be ready to treat when the time comes.

28. We talked about trumpet vine in the turf last week and how to control it.
a. Because it's a woody perennial, you need something with a growth regulator active ingredient in it. Because it's been so hot and probably will be hot for a little while, let's hold off for a couple of weeks at least to try to control it and do it then this fall.

29. We have a viewer with tomatoes with little tiny black spot on them. What is it?
a. It is bacterial speck and there isn't much you can do for it. Don't overwater and the fruit will still mature and you can peel the skin off and still eat the tomatoes.

Lightning Round

Jeff

1. We have a viewer who sent in an image of something he called a stink weed and looks like this but had a lot more leaflets. What is it and how do you control it?
a. Looks like its Alianthus, Tree of Heaven. It is a prolific producer and is something you don't want to get started in the yard. It is very attractive in leaf when it is young and even as a tree it can be attractive but it's something you don't want to get started in your yard. Just pull it.
2. Is it time to cut and/or move iris and peonies yet?
a. It’s a little early. I would wait until things cool off.
3. Can this 50 year old cotoneaster hedge be cut to the ground and rejuvenated?
a. That is a gamble.
4. The hibiscus are not blooming yet.
a. Mine are. They are covered in flowers, maybe because of mulch and water treatment
Amy

1. We have a viewer that has black spots on tomatoes, on the underside, while the fruit is green.
a. It's most likely blossom end rot. Calcium and water have been linked with it. They should remove the fruit and then should be able to get some healthy fruit.
2. What are the giant crop circles in the lawn?
a. I think they’re fairy rings and look at the thatch. If you have thatch, you should aerate this fall.
3. What are the rots and spots on tomatoes grown in those topsy turvy things and that go all the way through the tomato.
a. I would be curious if the tomato fruit is getting too hot and a secondary fungal pathogen is coming in and rotting out the fruit. Check the water and then the temperature.
4. A viewer has coneflowers with stubby green buds and leaves.
a. It's aster yellows; it needs to be rogued out.

Lowell

1. How long will Tordon stay in the ground used as a stump remover thing?
a. The length of the residual really depends on how much was applied in the area. Depending on what you want to put back in that area, it could be from a year to about three years. A biosassay is good to test it first.
2. The viewer has thistles that blew into the acreage. How do you control and when?
a. Most of the thistles are biennual and applications in the fall are best or early spring. The only perennial thistle is Canada thistle.
3. Is it time to aerate in preparation for fall seeding?
a. We are getting close. With the heat we have, I would still hold off on starting to seed until the end of August.
4. Is it time to control poke weed?
a. If it is in full bloom, with this heat, I would wait a little bit, simply because we want to use the growth regulator herbicide on that. They could do it if we get a few cool days.

Fred

1. A viewer has butterfly bushes with a yellowing foliage and the leaves turning brown.
a. Spider mites. I’d syringe them or use a mitecide.
2. Is there a homeowner formulation for carpenter ants?
a. Sure, lots of them. Go to any of the nurseries and ask for a carpenter ant material.
3. We have a viewer that has a big old pin oak showing a little mound of saw dust at the base of the tree.
a. It almost certainly has carpenter ants. We talked about that before. Sevin, the pyrethyroids, and a host of other products available over the counter for them to use.
4. Is there any insecticide tilled into the ground to control next season's squash bugs?
a. No, because the squash bugs over winter outside the garden and fly in so it wouldn't be helpful.
5. There are cherry trees in Lenox, Iowa and in Papillion, Nebraska that are losing sap.
a. I would worry about borers. The time to treat is the end of July with another treatment in middle August. Bifentrin or Eight.