Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa
Help Desk Client: My mature 40 foot redwood trees seem to be showing signs of stress from the continuing drought. While it gets just as much water from my garden irrigation as it did pre-drought, I now am noticing that various branches are showing needle die-back. Can you tell me what's wrong? Is it the drought or something else affecting the tree? And if it's something else, what is it and what should I be doing to correct it and bring back the trees to full health?
We have completed our research. The symptoms are consistent with the types of water stress we are seeing on redwoods in the central parts of the county where redwoods are not well-adapted. Under the microscope, there also appeared to be some fungus, but not the aggressive type that would cause a serious problem in your trees. More likely the fungus, in an opportunistic way, came into the needles that were already dying from the drought stress. No treatment is advised or necessary, other than good cultural care of the trees.
The best course of action is to follow the advice you received while visiting us last week: making sure that you water the trees out at the dripline and beyond during the warm, dry summer and fall months prior to the rainy season. Avoid watering near the trunk which can predispose the trees to rot. Redwood trees will compete with each other if planted closer that 7 feet apart, increasing their water needs. Water stressed trees should not be fertilized. As long as the needles are green and growing during the spring and summer, fertilizer is probably not needed.
General Information on redwood trees in the garden can be found at this University of California website http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/GARDEN/PLANTS/redwood.html.
Also, as noted above, during the drought, the MGCC Help Desk has fielded many questions and concerns about redwood trees. A previous blog responded to many of your and others' concerns, especially with advice on irrigation, at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/?blogpost=19256&blogasset=12496. Your perusal of the advice and recommendations should help you determine the necessary steps to make your redwood trees healthy again.
I hope that your trees will become healthier ithis spring after all this good rain we are having along with the possibility of supplemental irrigation over the non-rain periods. Please let us know if you have any more questions.
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (JL)
Note: The UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa
MGCC's Help Desk Response: Thank you for contacting Master Gardeners about your fava beans. And, thank you very much for sending the photo. It was very helpful.
I do not think that the fava beans was damaged by the frost. Frost damage generally appears on the tops of plants rather than the bottoms. Also, fava beans are generally hardy down to 21 degrees. Unless you are in a severe microclimate area, we have yet to see temperatures that low this winter.
Instead, I believe that the beans may have been affected by a fungal disease called Chocolate Spot (Botrytisfabae). Chocolate Spot has been found in fava beans in the northern San Joaquin Valley which is not far from us. Chocolate Spot begins with small red-brown lesions on leaves and stems which can expand and, in an aggressive form, can lead to necrosis (death) of leaves and stem tissue. The aggressive form occurs in high humidity situations, so, if this is the disease you are seeing, it could have come from the earlier rains. I noticed also from the picture that there is a lot of plant material (weeds?) around the fava bean patch which could have also raised or maintained a higher humidity level. It is also possible that this is from some other fungus, but in any case I would suggest hand weeding in the area to increase air circulation to the plants.
With the weeding, it may be possible to save the plants for this year. You have some flowers that would provide you with some beans to enjoy. However, if you are interested in a larger crop you may want to remove these plants now and replant in February or March. That is the planting time for growing fava beans as an edible (as opposed to cover) crop. In either case, once you are done with the plants, I recommend pulling them up and putting them in the commercial green bin for disposal rather than your compost pile. You should also avoid digging them into the soil, since that could cause the fungus to spread.
One other tip: You had mentioned and the photo shows that the plants had fallen over. I have found that to be a common problem with fava beans myself. I use my tomato cages in fava bean patches in my garden to help keep the plants upright.
For more information on fava beans, please see: http://sfp.ucdavis.edu/pubs/brochures/favabean/
While this link is farm-oriented, it has some good background information.
I hope this is helpful. Please let us know if you have further questions or would like more information.
Good luck with your favas!
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (ECS)
Note: The UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
/span>Help for Home Gardener from the Help Desk
of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa
For this posting we cover two activities that hopefully could be of interest to you.
Cover Crops
Planting a cover crop is highly recommended, especially for over wintering vegetable gardens. “They protect the soil, feed microbes, build soil structure, add root channels, and support beneficial insects.” That quote comes from a December 21st publication (attached) of Washington State University's Andrew McGuire where he summarizes recent studies which show that single species of cover crops out perform multi-species cover crops. It seems that contrary to the notion that having a “polyculture” (lots of different species) of seed for your cover crop, the use of monoculture (one species) of seed is actually better. Quoting from his paper:
Research thus far has consistently found that cover crop polycultures are not necessarily better than cover crop monocultures. This is now reaffirmed by a large study, done in Pennsylvania, published this year (Finney et al. 2016).”
So now you know… your cover crop can just be a single seed for the garden. Read the paper (4 pages) for more ideas on what you should be doing to get a great cover crop.
Good Gardening Videos
If you are hungry for some visual gardening in the middle of some rainy, dreary non-gardening day this winter, we recommend considering a relatively new web site, goodgardeningvideos.org. While many videos show up on YouTube and various other gardening organizations (e.g., Cooperative Extensions), the people behind GoodGardeningVideos, you'll recognize many of them, is curating gardening videos for quality and accuracy. Try it; you'll like it. Just remember we live in California, and some of the areas where the videos come from are already deep in snow… and probably won't be putting out their tomatoes in late April either. Their current interest is seed starting. We can do that. Only about 60 days till tomato seed starting time.
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (SIM)
Note: The UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
/span>
cover crop best bet is monoculture not mixture cen
Wishing You a HOrT COCO New Year
It's a slow time of the year for this blog.
The MGCC's Help Desk is closed for the holidays until January 3rd. This means I'm somewhat at a loss for timely new Help Desk problems and responses which are the source of almost all the blog posts. I gratefully thank the Master Gardeners who originally produced those MGCC Help Desk responses. All their original hard work makes my work easy. Occasionally, I do post blogs that are mine. This is one of them. However, even for this blog, most of it is from other blogs. I've gathered some hopefully interesting items for your perusal during this time of the gardening year.
While I personally don't think it's been too bad weather wise so far (maybe because I've been inside scraping popcorn ceilings), I do know that it can and probably will be much colder and wetter (hopefully) over the next several months.
So… while thinking those thoughts, how about this “meme” for the upcoming Spring?
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=22874
Wreathes of this type can be used both indoor and outdoors!
And if you are inside looking for some interesting web browsing, how about checking out the many different blogs authored by other UC venues and UC Master Gardeners?... We posted a blog on our phobia “Blog Junkie”. You might find it interesting and subscribe to some of them… Most don't post that frequently and usually not more than a 5 minute read… and can be both interesting and enhance your gardening knowledge.I find the Solano MG blog “Under the Solano Sun”… and UC Davis' “Bug Squad” especially interesting, useful, and entertaining.
Finally, despite the weather, you can always bundle up and put your boots on and maybe under an umbrella (it can get that way sometimes…) get out to the garden and get dirty… Maybe the meme below will show you how and reduce your concerns about how it might look to your neighbors?…
CHEERS
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (SIM)
Note: MGCC's Help Desk will be closed Dec 19th, 2016 through Jan 2, 2017.
However, the UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is usually available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
Advice for the Home Gardener from the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County
Client's Request (via Phone): I'm considering giving my father a Fuyu persimmon tree for Christmas. Could you please give me some guidance on what to look for and/or consider when buying a Persimmon tree for a home garden.
MGCC Help Desk Response: It was nice talking with you this morning. What a nice idea to give your father a Fuyu persimmon tree for Christmas! Persimmons are such beautiful trees.
Persimmons are great trees for our backyard orchards. They are mostly disease- and pest-free trees and give good fall color. At the nursery, you might find two different Fuyu persimmons: Fuyu and Giant Fuyu. They are quite similar, but the Giant Fuyu fruit is larger and a bit sweeter, according to the California Rare Fruit Growers. (CRFG) Despite the name, the Giant Fuyu tree won't grow quite as large as the Fuyu, possibly making this a better choice for a home garden. See more information about persimmons from the CRFG: https://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/persimmon.html. CRFG is also a great source for information on growing “rare” fruit in our gardens.
Please let us know if you have any more questions.
Happy holidays!
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (SEH)
Note: MGCC's Help Desk will be closed Dec 19th, 2016 through Jan 2, 2017. However, the UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is usually available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).