Topics in Subtropics

The first email has come in. Every winter when it rains, we get calls about these weird gelatinous blobs in orchards and garden beds. They can look like vomit, be yellow, green, red, or blue colors and they can actually move.

The avocado is an amazing fruit. It grows on a tree and comes to maturity, reaches certain oil content and a stage at which it will ripen, but it does not ripen on the tree. It needs to be removed from the tree before it will soften.

The roof rat (Rattus rattus), sometimes called the black rat, is a common vertebrate pest in citrus, avocado and other yummy tree orchards. It builds leaf and twig nests in fruit trees or nearby trees, or it can nest in debris piles or thick mulch on the ground.

When it starts to rain, things start happening. Growers come in with some interesting specimens. Wet, high leaf mulch environments create a special world that brings out some interesting creatures like slime molds and land planaria.

Using organic herbicides in production fields and non-crop areas. The forecasts call for rainy winter and that means a lot of weeds.