- Author: Ben Faber
Old crop, new crop. What's up there in the trees? Are they big enough to sell? Is there a good set for next year? These are questions every avocado grower has every year, and often all year long. What is up there in the trees is confounded by what is called the "Avocado Illusion".
In a Science Magazine Letters to the Editor in Dec 1990, Paul Sandorff commented on a book written by Maurice Hershenson called The Moon Illusion. In the book Hershenson described the illusion of why the moon seemed so much larger when it was on the horizon than when it rose to its zenith on the same night. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/250/4988/1646.1
Sandorff said that this illusion applied to avocados since it was so hard to gauge the size of avocados when they were in the tops of the tree canopy. It is the surrounding environment that puts a context to size according to this theory of illusion.
Hershenson added to this observation in the March 1991 Science letters section with the comment that the leaves surrounding the fruit changes our depth perception and so changes our idea of the fruit size.
A further addendum to the avocado illusion theory is that since the fruit are the same color as the leaves (they are both dark green and the fruit unlike most other fruit continues to photosynthesize), it is hard to actually make out the fruit. You can be looking right at the fruit and not see it, confusing it with a leaf.
This illusion makes for difficult fruit estimation. To compensate for this illusion, I will eye the canopy in quadrants, counting the number of fruit, then arbitrarily doubling that total number. It usually gives a pretty close number to the real number of fruit that are in the tree.
Photo:
Can you count the number of fruit in this canopy?
- Author: Ben Faber
'Pixie' mandarin is a very vigorous, upright tree. Although the fruit is small, hence its name, it can produce fruit on the ends of long branches which deform the canopy structure, making it hard to pick. The sweet, seedless fruit is worth picking, though. The rootstock standards for this small industry are ‘Citrumelo' and ‘C-35' citrange. The industry is looking for alternatives to these choices, especially those that reduce the vigor of the trees.
There is no one ideal rootstock at this point and growers have the option of a wide range of choices. The search includes those that are resistant to Citrus Tristeza Virus (CTV), Phytophthora, calcareous soils and ideally one that is resistant to the bacteria that causes Huanglongbing.
In many California coastal growing areas, land is expensive, water scarce and costly and prone to calcareous soils that are derived from marine sediments which can bring on iron chlorosis. Growers are also looking for smaller trees that will give early economic returns, are easier to prune and pick, and may be more compatible with the economics driven by Huanglongbing.
‘Citrumelo' citrange yields a large tree with good quality and quantity of fruit. It is tolerant of CTV (Citrus tristeza virus) and Phytophthora spp, but is susceptible to iron chlorosis in high pH soils. ‘C-35' citrange is a smaller tree than Citrumelo, also has resistance to Phytophthora spp and CTV, and is more tolerant of high pH soils.
The USDA had a breeding program in California which was taken over by the University of California. Out of this breeding project, the university selected three rootstocks for release in 2009 because of their horticultural characteristics, such as dwarfing, although not as much as ‘Flying Dragon' trifoliate, resistance to CTV and tolerance of calcareous soils. These three rootstocks also show good tolerance to Phytophthora parasitica and nematodes.
Pixie growers have been looking for a more compact tree, easier to handle and not need so much pruning. They funded a long-term project to see how these newer selections of rootstock performed in their area which has a hot summer/cool winter. A 2014 planting of ‘Pixie' has been evaluating the size reducing effects of the relatively new rootstocks ‘Bitters' citrange, ‘Carpenter' citrange and ‘Furr' citrange. After two years, ‘Pixie' on ‘Citrumelo' is the largest tree. Of the new rootstocks, ‘Furr' is the largest and ‘Bitters' the smallest. The trial was replicated at two sites with two different pH soils. At one site with the highest soil pH, ‘Bitters' showed iron chlorosis.
Photo: long whip growth on 'Pixie'
- Author: Ben Faber
A recent grower survey in Santa Barbara County asked a whole bunch of questions. One of which was had they had an evaluation of irrigation distribution uniformity. This is a free service that can significantly improve on-farm water use and most importantly improve plant health. Avocados that don't get the right amount of water at the right time are extremely susceptible to root rot. Proper irrigation is the first line of defense against root rot, good farming that results in good economic returns to the grower.
So, with a free DU available to growers, how many do you think took advantage of the service? Barely 50%!!!!!!!! This just does not make sense. In a land of little water and frequent examples of what can happen with no water ………………..and high priced water, what is going on?
The local Resource Conservation District has done many system evaluations, and most results find that improvements can be made in distribution uniformity. This is true in relatively new irrigation installations. It does not take long for problems to occur in even well designed and installed systems.
During the summer of 2007, the Casitas Municipal Water District (CMWD) contracted with the Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC) of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, to conduct field evaluations of drip/micro systems. A team of two students conducted 35 field evaluations.
Distribution Uniformity (DU) – DU is a measure of the uniformity of water application to trees throughout an orchard, with DU = 1.0 being perfect. The measured orchard DUs in the Santa Barbara/Ventura area had an average DU of 0.66, while the California state average for drip/micro is 0.85.
In general, there were substantial opportunities to improve the distribution uniformity (DU) of the water to trees throughout an orchard. An improved DU will minimize over-irrigation in some areas, and reduce under-irrigation in others. Key recommendations that were provided included:
Install a pressure regulator at the head of every hose
With a regular microsprinkler, doubling the pressure causes about 40 percent more water to come out of the nozzle. Pressure regulators are added to have similar pressures throughout the orchard and thus reduce the risk of over-irrigating portions of the field. On many farms, the difference between the highest pressures was double or even triple the lowest pressures (40-70% more water). By adding the correct high-quality, pre-set pressure regulators with the correct flow rate rating, the farmer can get similar pressures to every nozzle and prevent over-irrigation.
For a pressure regulator (PR) to work, more pressure must enter the PR than what the PR is rated for. For example, to use a 25 psi PR, you need at least 27 psi into the PR. All a PR does is reduce pressure; it cannot add pressure.
Another problem on hillsides is that some pipes have as much as 100 psi before the PR. A PR can effectively reduce the pressure down to 50%. What is recommended in these fields is to reduce the pressure in the pipe by adding an in-line valve halfway down the hill and throttling it down to a reasonable pressure.
Completely replace all microsprinkers with pressure compensating microsprinklers
Pressure compensating microsprinklers have an internal flexible diaphragm that reduces a pathway as the pressure increases. These allow similar amounts of water to get the trees even if the hoses do not have the same pressures. Whenever the pressure is doubled, 10 percent more water will come out of these emitters, compared to 40 percent more water with a regular microsprinkler. Having pressure compensating emitters can drastically improve the DU in virtually every avocado orchard because most irrigation systems were not properly designed for microsprinkler systems, or because the farmer has altered the original design by adding different-sized nozzles.
Reduce plugging problems
Major plugging problems are found in all orchards that did not have good filtration, even those that get district water. There were also some “within-system” causes of plugging. Almost all plugging is from simple dirt or rust, as opposed to bacteria or algae. Recommendations are as follows:
- Always have a filter at the head of the system. The required mesh size depends on the microsprinkler flow rate, but 120 mesh is a starting point.
- Remove hose screen washers that are found at the head of hoses, and replace them with regular washers (after installing a filter at the head of the system). The hose screen washers often plug up and cause the hoses to have unequal inlet pressures.
- Be sure to thoroughly flush hoses after any hose breaks.
- Double check the type of fertilizer that is being injected, especially any “organic fertilizers”. Some of these can plug emitters. In any case, inject the fertilizers upstream of the filters. If the filter plugs up, it is better to have discovered the problem early.
- Clean the filters frequently. Install pressure gauges upstream and downstream. When the pressure differential (as compared to a clean screen) increases by 3-5 psi, it's time to clean the screen.
In some orchards, there is a big plugging problem caused by insects crawling into emitters after the water is shut off. Many of the new microsprinkler designs utilize a self-closing mechanism to prevent insects from coming into the nozzle.
We have gotten a reprieve with the rains and refilled reservoirs, but it is ever more important to make sure our irrigation systems are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Call your local Resource Conservation District and get information about a system evaluation. Contact numbers can be found at: http://www.carcd.org/rcd_directory0.aspx
- Author: Ben Faber
This is a reminder of the complexity of huanglongbing and the bacterial infection it causes. This abstract is from the HLB Conference in Florida last fall.
4.a.5 Symptom variations and molecular markers that illustrate the HLB complexity
Yongping Duan, Marco Pitino, and Cheryl Armstrong
USHRL-ARS-USDA, Fort Pierce, FL 34945, USA
Huanglongbing (HLB) is a devastating bacterial disease of citrus worldwide due to its intracellular and systemic infection. Various HLB symptoms are observed on different species/varieties of citrus plants: from yellow shoots to blotchy mottle on the leaves, from vein yellowing/vein corky to mosaic/green islands similar to zinc deficiency on the leaves, from whitish discoloration to stunted green leaves, etc. These variations of symptoms, which result from a combination of biotic and abiotic stresses, are not only present on individual plants from a variety but also exist on individual branches of an infected plant. Our results indicated that the adaptation of the bacterial populations, such as the dynamics of ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' (Las), plays an important role in the induction of various symptoms and that Las mutations as well as the number and recombination events of Las prophages/phages affect this phenomenon. In addition, the selection of the host plants (resistance/tolerance) for the bacterial populations is also critical for symptom expression during disease progression. Based on severity, we divided HLB symptoms into four grades. It is worth noting that the grades of HLB symptom severity show a positive correlation with our newly identified biomarkers from host plants, and that gene expression profiling of different grades of infected leaves rationalized the differentiation based on the dynamics of these biomarkers. Because of these findings, we propose new approaches that allow for rapid selection of variant citrus plants, including bud sports with greater HLB resistance/tolerance.
Non-Technical Summary: Various symptoms of citrus huanglongbing display in different species/varieties of infected citrus plants. These variations of symptoms are not only present on individual plants from a variety, but also exist on individual branches of an infected plant. We have identified some molecular markers from the citrus plants and Las pathogen that illustrate the HLB complexity. Therefore, we propose new approaches that allow for rapid selection of variant citrus plants, including bud sports with greater HLB resistance/tolerance.
http://www.icc2016.com/images/icc2016/downloads/Abstract_Book_ICC_2016.pdf
- Author: Joey Mayorquin, Mohamed Nouri, Florent Trouillas, Greg Douhan and Akif Eskalen
Recently, an outbreak of shoot and twig dieback disease of citrus has been occurring in the main citrus growing regions of the Central Valley of California (Fig 1). The causal agents of this disease were identified as species of Colletotrichum, which are well-known pathogens of citrus and other crops causing anthracnose diseases. At this time, it is unclear how wide-spread the disease is in California citrus orchards, but surveys are being conducted to evaluate the spread of this disease in orchards.
The disease was first noticed in 2012 by several growers and nurserymen in various orchards in the Central Valley. Symptoms included leaf chlorosis, crown thinning, gumming on twigs and shoot dieback, and in severe cases, branch dieback of trees (Fig.2). The most characteristic symptoms of this disease are the gum pockets which appear on young shoots either alone or in clusters and the dieback of twigs and shoots (Fig.3). These symptoms were primarily reported from clementine, mandarin, and navel orange varieties. In order to determine the main cause of this disease, field surveys were conducted in several orchards throughout the Central Valley. Isolations from symptomatic plant samples frequently yielded Colletotrichum species.
Field observations indicate that symptoms initially appear during the early summer months and continue to express until the early fall. Trees showing dieback and gumming symptoms characteristic of this disease are usually sporadic within an orchard and generally only a few twigs or shoots are affected within a tree. Morphological and molecular phylogenetic studies allowed the identification of two distinct species of Colletotrichum (Colletotrichum karstii and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides) associated with twig and shoot dieback. Interestingly, these Colletotrichum species were also isolated from cankers in larger branches. Although C. gloeosporioides is known to cause anthracnose on citrus, a post-harvest disease causing fruit decay, it has not been reported to cause shoot dieback of citrus. C. karstii however has not been reported previously from citrus in California and our laboratory is currently conducting field and green house studies to determine the pathogenicity of this species in citrus.
At present, it is unclear how widespread this disease is in California orchards or how many citrus varieties are susceptible to this disease. Pest control advisors are advised to remain alert and monitor citrus trees for the presence of the disease in the Central Valley (particularly clementine, mandarin, and navel varieties) during the early summer months. Continuing research lead by Dr. Akif Eskalen (UC Riverside) in collaboration with Dr. Florent Trouillas (Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center), Dr. Greg Douhan (UCCE Farm Advisor Tulare County), and Craig Kallsen (UCCE Farm Advisor in Kern County) is focused on further understanding the biology of the fungal pathogens as well as factors influencing disease expression in order to develop management strategies against this emerging disease.
Shoot dieback symptoms on Clementine
Branch dieback symptoms on Clementine
Gumming symptoms on Clementine
(photos: A. Eskalen)