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A call from a small grower, surprised at the sudden decline of the avocado trees. It must be a disease was the grower's thought. Well driving up to the site, there were numerous trees with canopies indicating drought stress. In fact most of the trees looked like they had had the water turned off.

At a recent meeting the question came up about the fate of nitrogen fertilizer applied through the irrigation system.

Avocado is a tree that has a good ability to respond to fire damage, if it is not too extensive. However, often a tree will recover only to collapse later on in the year or years because of the damage. So a tree may appear to do well and then suddenly collapse.

The destruction after a fire can be pretty gruesome and sad. Many times, though the fire moves through the orchard so fast that, even though the canopy has turned brown, there is a good chance the trees can come back. It all depends on how much damage has been done to the trunk.

Calls are coming in about leafminer. It's there on the new growth, twisting and distorting it. In fact, it' been there most of the year. It was working new growth all winter long, because it was a warm winter. Right now, though, they are more active and more damage is being seen.