- Author: Ben Faber
The calls are coming in and have been for the last several months. The trees are tired, worn out and look horrible. What's the problem? Well four years of drought, accumulated salts in the root zone and irrigation practices that aren't removing the salts from the root zone. It sets up a situation of tip burn, but much more extensive than tip burn is the water stress that results from salt accumulation. Salts compete with roots for water and they act to pull water away from the roots. It is as if less water is being applied. The water stress sets up the trees for a fungal infection called variously leaf blight, stem blight and in young trees, death. We used to call this Dothiorella blight, but since the work of Akif Eskalen at UC Riverside, it turns out it is one of many fungi that cause this problem, most of them Botryosphaerias.
The leaves show what would appear to be salt burn damage which increasingly causes leaf drop. In fact, there's often a pile of leaves under the canopy unless the wind has blown them away. The difference between this and salt burn is that there is not a regular pattern to it. It can start on the margins, or in the middle of the leaf, or wherever it darn well pleases. Whereas salt/tip burn always starts at the leaf tip and progressively moves back onto the main part of the leaf. Leaf blight (I don't like to use bigger words than that – Botryosphaeria. Try spelling it on the phone), on the other hand doesn't follow this regular pattern. It's a random pattern.
This a decomposing fungus. Wherever there is organic matter – leaves, twigs, branches, fruit, whatever is dead on the ground – there is a decomposing fungus. When the fungus finds a stressed plant, it invades the most susceptible part of the plant, usually the leaf. It starts growing through the tissue and down the leaf petiole. It then starts growing down the dead part of the plant. Most of a tree is dead. All that stuff under the bark and cambium is dead tissue, although it still carries water. In mature trees, there is a capacity to close off the decay and limit it. In young trees (younger than two or so), the capacity is lacking and the fungus can keep on growing down to the union and kill the tree.
As can be imagined, this fungus does not discriminate amongst the type of plants it feeds on. It will go to water-stressed, citrus, roses, apples, etc. It goes to every woody perennial that I am aware of. I've seen it on redwoods and eucalyptus. It especially goes after shallow-rooted species like avocado which are the most prone to water-stress. Like when a Santa Ana blows in and the irrigation schedule is slow to respond. Like when there is a heavy load of fruit. Fruit have stomata and the more environmental stress the more water they lose and pull on water from the tree.
Now imagine a tree loaded with fruit, in the later summer, with a Santa Ana and salt stress. Boom! Fruit drops and leaf blight shows up. And the damage doesn't go away, until it so severe that the leaf drops and new leaves come on in the spring.
Hopefully these rains will wash the salts from the root systems and refill the profile with high quality water. We are extremely reliant on winter rain to cover up the effects of the damage that irrigation water does to our soil and plants. And rain is the answer, as long as it's not too much.
Notice the even pattern of necrosis with tip burn
And the random pattern with leaf blight.
- Author: Ben Faber
It ain't over yet, and this last week we had a wonderful 2 day meeting with folks who have dealt with drought in many different ways. Here are presentations made by people from Israel, Australia and California. Soon the actual videos will be available, but now see the powerpoints.
http://www.droughtmgt.com/#!presentations-and-documents/niui7
The grower panels are wonderful, but are not uploaded at this point
DAY I: UNDERSTANDING IRRIGATION WATER MANAGEMENT
Session I: California Response to Drought
9:15am // Overview of California Drought Response
9:30am // El Nino Forecast for California and Possible Impacts on Irrigated Agriculture
Session II: Technology of Water Management
9:45am // Soil Water Sensing
10:15am // ETc Estimates - Weather Stations (CIMIS), surface renewal
11:00am // Salinity Measurement
11:30am // Consideration In Selecting Water Stress Indicators
12:00pm // Precision Water and Fertility Management During Deficit Irrigation
Session III: Alternative Water Supplies
1:30pm // Irrigation With Recycled and Desalinated Water
2:00pm // Effects of Irrigation With Poor Quality Water on the Soil - California Experience
2:30pm // Effects of Irrigation With Poor Quality Water on the Soil - Israeli Experience
3:00pm // The Challenge of Sustainable Irrigation with Water High in Salts: Lessons from Dates, Olives and Grapevines
Session IV: Water Management Strategies During Drought
3:45pm // Water Management Strategies during Drought - Australian Experience
4:45pm // Cultivation Under Protective Structures to Save Water
Day II: WATER MANAGEMENT FOR INDIVIDUAL CROPS & GROWER EXPERIENCES
Session V: Technology Demonstrations​
8:00am // Irrigation Scheduling - Australian Experience - IrriSAT Approach (IrriSAT Supporting Materials)
8:30am // Using the Pressure Chamber for Drought Mangagement Decisions
9:00am // Irrigation System Evaluation
9:30am // Salinity Mapping for Water Management
Session VI: Conncurrent Breakout Groups
10:30am // Citrus - Israeli Experience: Long Term Effects of Deficit Irrigation, Salinity, and Rootstocks on Orchard Productivity
10:30am // Grapes - Table and Wine Grape Irrigation Scheduling
10:30 // Deciduous Nut Crops - Irrigation and Crop Load Interactions
10:30// Almond Irrigation, the Israeli Experience
11:15am // Olives - Israeli Experience: Cultivation Under Limited Water Availability
11:15am // Grapes - Wine Grapes Irrigation - Coastal Vineyards
11:15am // Deciduous Nut Crops - Almond Irrigation - Israeli Experience
1:00pm // Avocado - Israeli Experience
1:00pm // Grapes - Wine Grapes Irrigation: San Joaqin Valley
1:00pm // Deciduous Nut Crops - California Experience
1:30pm // Deciduous Nut Crops - Pistachios Irrigation
1:45 // Subtropical Crops - California Experience
1:45 // Grapes - Irrigation, the San Joaquin Valley
2:00pm // Deciduous Nut Crops - Walnut Irrigation
2:30pm // Grower Panels
3:15pm // Concluding Remarks
- Author: Ben Faber
Drought may not be the right time to be thinking about this, or maybe it is. It concerns managing water and any time a grower uses water more effectively the crop performs better. But fog can be a significant factor in water management.
As fog passes through a tree canopy, it is absorbed by leaves and coats them. Before the tree will transpire water, the water coating must first be evaporated before the tree loses internal water. This water use is not accounted for in a water budget schedule using evapotranspiration based inputs, such as from CIMIS. For deciduous trees, this is often not of concern, because in the winter they don't have leaves and therefore are not transpiring anyway. For evergreen subtropicals like citrus and avocado, this could be an important source of water.
In many situations in the Central Valley and along the coast there can be periods where fog can represent a significant proportion of the water requirement for an orchard. These periods would be for winter tule fog in the Valley and along the coast in the spring and early summer. A recent publication by Rick Snyder at UC Davis has just been released that shows how this fog water can be incorporated into an irrigation schedule. You can see it at the UC's California Institute for Water Resources website: http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8532.pdf, http://ciwr.ucanr.edu/california_drought_expertise/droughttips/
- Author: Ben Faber
When reviewing possible problems your citrus might have, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that it is a virus. That's because viruses are a major problem around the world in citrus and the effects can be slow, chronic and debilitating or fast and deadly. Images get posted on the web, and if those symptoms look like something your tree has, then by golly you have a virus. Well, actually viruses are everywhere and in most plants, so you probably do have a virus or viruses, but not plant debilitating one. California, has had a pretty thorough nursery inspection procedure in place for many years and the likelihood of a virus causing a problem is less likely here than in many parts of the world.
In most cases viruses are difficult to eradicate in practice, so it is best to remove them before they get out in the field. The Citrus Clonal Protection Program (http://www.ccnb.info/page.php?s=2&c=3) weeds out citrus viruses before they get to wholesale nurseries and into the trade. That does not mean that we don‘t have debilitating viruses in the California industry. We do. Tristeza is in some of our orange orchards and that can lead to significant yield reductions and tree death (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r107101311.html.). Tristeza is spread by the melon aphid and is hard to control without good control of the aphid. In many older orchards there is exocortis and psorosis http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r107100100.html; http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r107100511.html). These are graft transmissible and why it is not good, in fact unlawful, to propagate trees with uncertified budwood.
In most cases in California if you are having symptoms of unhealthy in your trees it's most likely due to an irrigation problem (too much, too little, poor timing), a nutrient deficiency and possibly a fungal disease (most likely a root one such as armillaria or Phytophthora). Or in this day, it could be the start of Huanglongbing vectored by Asian Citrus Psyllid (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r107304411.html). Before jumping to the conclusion that there is a virus in your trees. Check out the most common problems for California citrus first (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/C107/m107bpleaftwigdis.html). There are enough of those anyway.
Boron toxicity