Advice for the Home Gardener from the
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program
of Contra Costa County

Gardener's Request:  We just moved into a 30-year-old house in the East Bay hills, and we expect to stay here a long time. We have numerous oaks and Bay trees on the property. We've heard from neighbors that we should get those trees reviewed by a trained arborist familiar with Sudden Oak Death (SOD), e.g. identification, disposal, and potential danger to other trees in your neighborhood. Can you please recommend sources?

MGCC Help Desk Response:  Thank you for contacting the UC Master Gardener Program Help Desk with your questions about your oak tree and how to identify sudden oak death (SOD).  The links below include information on identification, disposal, and potential danger to other trees in your neighborhood.

Accurate disease diagnosis can be difficult because the symptoms caused by SOD (Phytophthora ramorum) are very similar to those caused by other fungi, insects, or adverse environmental conditions. The only way to confirm a P. ramorum infection is to take a sample and analyze the affected plant tissue in a certified laboratory. Several of the links include guidance on laboratories.

External symptoms of SOD canker development can include the bleeding of a thick, sticky sap. It oozes out of the bark, not from a crack or hole, typically smells like the inside of a wine barrel and is a deep burgundy but can vary in color from nearly black to an amber-orange. This brochure, A Homeowner's Guide to Sudden Oak Death, has a good image of the sap on a coast live oak:
http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Homeowners-Guide-to-Sudden-Oak-Death.pdf

California bay trees are the primary carrier of SOD fungus. You should see symptoms of infection on the leaves if they are infected. SOD shows as leaf spots and usually brown tips surrounded by a yellow halo: https://nature.berkeley.edu/garbelotto/downloads/sod_diagnostic_report_final.pdf

The recommendation is to remove bays within 30' of susceptible oaks. http://nature.berkeley.edu/garbelottowp/?p=1063. 

Here are some local contacts with local links for more information and possible tests of your trees:

The SOD Blitz Project informs and educates the community about Sudden Oak Death, gets locals involved in detecting the disease, and produce detailed local maps of disease distribution. The map can then be used to identify those areas where the infestation may be mild enough to justify proactive management:
http://nature.berkeley.edu/garbelottowp/?page_id=148.

California Oak Mortality Task Force for information and how to find arborists they have trained to identify and sample for SOD infection:http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/ 

Contra Costa County
Department of Agriculture
2380 Bisso Lane
Concord, CA 94520
Phone: 925-608-6600

And, finally, here is the link to the UC Pest Note with even more detailed information about SOD:
http://ipm.ignore.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74151.html

Best of luck to you!

Regards, 
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (SLH)
Note: apologies... an earlier posted version required a minor editorial change for clarity.

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Notes: Contra Costa MG's Help Desk is available almost year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays (e.g., last 2 weeks December), we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 2380 Bisso Lane, Concord, CA 94520. We can also be reached via telephone:  (925) 608-6683, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at  http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/. MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Biog.

Advice from the Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program
for Contra Costa County

When to Remove Garden Monterey Pines

Client's Request:I live in El Sobrante near the San Pablo Reservoir. On August 8th PG&E had a tree crew come to prune trees away from the power lines. They did a rather drastic prune on our very large Monterey pine tree (which to this point has been very healthy with no signs of beetles or any other issues). The tree was large when we moved in ~30 years ago and was topped some time before that. It has been pruned by PG&E tree crews a number of times over the years but never to this extent.

About 2 weeks ago we started noticing a few small bits of what we think is dried pitch on the ground at the base of the tree. I didn't think too much of this as I assumed that it was falling from the cuts up high and I have not seen any sign of bugs. However, as you can see from the pictures taken on Sept 20th, there is quite a bit and now (starting about a week ago) some oozing of white/reddish pitch from the large roots. It does not look like there is anything coming from the trunk as high as I can see. The fresh cuts were dripping pitch, but it looks clear.

Is this in response to the prune or is there a problem that I cannot see? Your thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
MGCC Help Desk Response:  Thank you for contacting the UC Masters Gardener Program Help Desk with your question about the pitch oozing from the roots of your Monterey pine. And thank you very much for the photos. They are very helpful.

  

  

From the photos, I believe that the pitch you are seeing is the result of a bark beetle, most likely the red turpentine beetle, and not from the direct pruning cuts.

Bark beetles in general cause their damage when adults bore into the inner bark of trees where they lay their eggs. After the eggs hatch, the resulting larvae mine galleries that branch out from the egg-laying gallery. These larval mines are very narrow at first but increase in diameter as the larvae grow. All of this boring activity can start a flow of tree sap from pitch tubes. That flow may be accompanied by a sawdust-like frass. The sap and frass are the materials that you are seeing on the top of your roots.

Red turpentine beetles in particular are quite common in landscape Monterey pines. The pinkish to white pitch tubes on the lower trunk of standing trees are also characteristic of red turpentine beetles.

Healthy pines can generally tolerate a minor attack from a few beetles. Trees most likely to show signs of damage are those that are stressed by injuries or that may be declining due to old age. That means that you may be seeing signs of damage now due to a combination of the extensive pruning (or any other damage that may have occurred) and its age. Monterey pines generally live to only 45 to 50 years in inland climates. 

Unfortunately, except for general cultural practices that improve tree vigor, little can be done to control most bark beetles once trees have been attacked. Because the beetles are under the bark, insecticides are rarely successful. You may want to monitor the tree for small entrance holes in the bark and increasing damage overall. If the main trunk is extensively attacked by bark beetles, the entire tree may have to be removed.

For more information on bark beetles, see http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7421.html

Please let us know if you have further questions or would like additional information.

Good luck with your tree!

HOrTCOCO Editor's add-on comments…Living in the same house and garden for the last 50 plus years, bought on a VA guaranteed loan, and coming new with bare dirt (mostly rock known as Martinez Massive Sandstone) and a tree (Fruitless Mulberry and an already dying lightly seeded front lawn and all the rest bare dirt and about 1/3 of it bare slopes (supposedly covered with erosion control plants), I soon planted on the slopes over 100 Monterey Pine seedlings at about 10 cents each irrigated with their own dripper. They grew fairly well but starting around 20 plus years the drippers each were at least half gone from squirrels and other problems including a few bark beetles. The neighborhood kids liked the jungle effect. By year 30 the bark beetles were having a steady impact every year, notably probably weakened from several drougths which basically set them up for bark beetle attacks. Meanwhile it should be noticed that many home owners in the subdivision had also planted Monterey Pines (inexpensive, but found to be too large, not being properly maintained or watered, etc.) and most were suffering the same problems mainly because of the beetles and not maintaining proper irrigation. One time during the later years I wasn't out in my garden much during the winter months because of weather was home and the largest Monterey (50ft) turned from green to brown in 30 days. My adjacent neighbor was not appreciative of the brown (large) Monterey adjacent to the fence and his house and managed to get the Fire District to send me a warning letter over the possible situation. Within the next 30 days I hired an “arborist” (and his family) who proceeded to cut and remove the 23 Monterey Pines remaining (ranging in size from 12” to 30” trunk diameter). One of the larger Pines completely broke off about head high during the “removal”, luckily the “arborists” weren't on site… I'm still thinking about that. I'm still here and I'm still looking at the back hill and the one lonely pine that survives, but that turns out to be a Japanese Black Pine a neighbor gave me when I also planted all the Montereys.

Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (ECS)

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Notes: Contra Costa MG's Help Desk is available almost year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays (e.g., last 2 weeks December), we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 2380 Bisso Lane, Concord, CA 94520. We can also be reached via telephone:  (925) 608-6683, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at  http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/. MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Biog.

 

Help for the Home Gardener from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County

Identifying a Mayten Garden Tree
 
Client's Request:  Hello Master Gardeners, could you identify this tree for me?  I moved from the Midwest (Minnesota) a couple of years ago and am learning the names of the trees and plants in the Bay Area that I am not familiar with.  I live in a townhouse development in Walnut Creek and we have several trees of the variety pictured below in our complex.  Thank you.

  
  

Help Desk Response:  Thank you for contacting the UC Master Gardener Help Desk asking about the identification of a tree planted in your development. Your photographs were helpful. 

The tree is aMayten tree (Maytenus boaria) ). It is native to Chile which also has a Mediterranean climates similar to ours here in California.

This website has information about the tree and could be helpful in identifying other trees in California. https://selectree.calpoly.edu/tree-detail/maytenus-boaria

Good luck in learning about the plants in this area. 

Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (smt)

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Notes: Contra Costa MG's Help Desk is available almost year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays (e.g., last 2 weeks December), we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 2380 Bisso Lane, Concord, CA 94520. We can also be reached via telephone:  (925) 608-6683, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at  http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/. MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ignore.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Biog.

Advice from the Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County

Client's Request:  I purchased a Yellow Rainbow Beefsteak Tomato Plant at your annual sale in Walnut Creek this year. The plant has grown quite big and has about four tomatoes on the plant. They have stayed about the same size for about two weeks now and are not turning yellow — they are green. I have used organic tomato fertilizer, but it has not helped. Any suggestions?

MGCC Help Desk Response:   Thank you for contacting our UC Master Gardener Program Help Desk about the slow production rate of your Yellow Rainbow Beefsteak Tomato plant. First off, thanks for supporting our Program by purchasing tomato plants at our annual plant sale; it's a primary source of the income that funds our Help Desk and other public outreach programs.

It's hard to know why your tomato has been so slow to produce ripe tomatoes. However, Yellow Rainbow Beefsteak tomatoes are one of the slower tomatoes to start producing—some websites call them “fall producers”. The typical time for the plants to start producing is about 90 days from the time the seedlings go into the ground, so it does seem that your plant is a bit late. One possibility is that the soil where it is planted had excessive nitrogen fertilizer. When there is excess nitrogen, tomato plants often produce abundant foliage but set very few tomatoes. Next year, you might want to do a soil test before you plant your tomatoes. You can purchase an inexpensive home soils test kit at a nursery or big box store. The kit typically allows you to test levels of three principal nutrients—nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (N, P, K). N is used by plants to produce green foliage; P helps with fruit production and K helps with roots and the overall well-being of the plant. Then use fertilizers only as needed to address any nutrient deficits.

You indicated that you used an organic tomato fertilizer. That likely included some amount of all three nutrients (and possibly other micro-nutrients such as calcium). If the plant was already growing well, it probably didn't need more nitrogen. Applying a fertilizer that added only phosphorous might have done the job. Also, you didn't say when you applied the fertilizer, but we are guessing you might have added it to help spur fruit production. If you applied it before the four tomatoes set, the fact that you now have those tomatoes on the plant may be a sign that the fertilizer application did help. As for the slow growth of the size of the tomatoes and their being slow to ripen, I think you just need to be patient. If is not uncommon for heirloom tomatoes to take several weeks to mature. I waited about six weeks after fruit set for tomatoes on one of my plants this year to finally grow to an appropriate size and ripen.

Tomatoes don't need to have insect pollinizers to set fruit. Rather, the flowers are typically pollinated by wind action. If you have flowers on your plant that have not yet set fruit, try to duplicate the wind effect by gently shaking the plants once or twice a day, preferably mid-morning. Also, it may be helpful for you to know that tomatoes usually don't set fruit when daytime temperatures are more than 85 to 90 degrees. It's been somewhat cooler throughout our county in recent days (but not the last several days when this was edited and updated for posting) and hopefully, you may have had some additional fruit set then. But it's about to get hotter again for the next several days (or more likely cool again thank goodness). By early week when this blog is posted, it's supposed to be cooler again. Hopefully, at that time some additional tomatoes will set, particularly if you remember to shake the plant occasionally.

One final thought, keep track of how well all of your tomato plants produce and how much you enjoy their flavor. I typically try to plant at least one variety that has been a reliable producer in prior years to make it more likely that I'll get a steady supply of tomatoes. I re-plant slow producing varieties again only if I really thought their taste was outstanding and worth the wait and low production rate.

Hope you soon have some tasty tomatoes to harvest.

Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (tkl)

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Notes: Contra Costa MG's Help Desk is available almost year-round to answer your gardening questions.  Except for a few holidays (e.g., last 2 weeks December), we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 2380 Bisso Lane, Concord, CA 94520. We can also be reached via telephone:  (925) 608-6683, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at  http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/. MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Biog.