You may have heard that the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection

Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic (HPAI) H5N8 avian influenzain a commercial turkey flock in Stanislaus County, California.

Avian influenza — commonly called “bird flu” — is a disease found in a wide variety of domesticated and wild birds. Once introduced into an area, infection can spread through bird-to-bird contact or through contact with contaminated clothing, shoes, hands, feed, water or equipment. Because waterfowl are reservoirs for avian influenza strains that can be fatal to domestic poultry (yet often show little to no signs in waterfowl), backyard and commercial chickens raised near areas commonly used by migrating waterfowl are at risk of transmission.

“Due to normal waterfowl migration along the Pacific Flyway, during the winter there are approximately eight times the number of waterfowl in California than what we will see three months from now,” said Maurice Pitesky, a poultry specialist with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “There are lots of birds that winter and establish roosting and feeding habitat in California wetlands and agricultural crops. If you are a poultry owner — either backyard or commercial — and live in proximity to waterfowl and their habitat, your birds are at risk.”  This is the first finding of HPAI in commercial poultry during the ongoing disease incident in the Pacific Flyway. No human cases of these avian influenza viruses have been detected in the United States, Canada, or internationally, and there continues to be no public health concern.

Many residents of San Joaquin County have backyard birds. Although your typical backyard flock is not the same scale as a commercial poultry operation, it is important to keep your birds safe and healthy. If you or someone you know have backyard flocks make sure that they remain confined for the remainder of the winter and do not go onto the premises of anyone else who has birds.  This is spread primarily through wild birds coming into contact with domestic.

6 Ways To Prevent Poultry Diseases

Keep Your Distance: Restrict access to your property and your birds. Consider fencing off the area where you keep your birds and make a barrier area if possible. Allow only people who take care of your birds to come into contact with them. If visitors have birds of their own, do not let them near your birds. Game birds and migratory waterfowl should not have contact with your flock because they can carry germs and diseases.

Keep It Clean: Wear clean clothes, scrub your shoes with disinfectant, and wash your hands thoroughly before entering your bird a rea. Clean cages and change food and water daily. Clean and disinfect equipment that comes in contact with your birds or their droppings, including cages and tools. Remove manure before disinfecting. Properly dispose of dead birds.

Don't Haul Disease Home: If you have been near other birds or bird owners, such as at a feed store, clean and disinfect car and truck tires, poultry cages, and equipment before going home. Have your birds been to a fair or exhibition? Keep them separated from the rest of your flock for at least 2 weeks after the event. New birds should be kept separate from your flock for at least 30 days.

Don't Borrow Disease From Your Neighbor: Do not share lawn and garden equipment, tools, or poultry supplies with your neighbors or other bird owners. If you do bring these items home, clean and disinfect them before they reach your property.

 Know the Warning Signs of Infectious Bird Diseases:

• Sudden increase in bird deaths in your flock
• Sneezing, gasping for air, coughing, and nasal discharge
• Watery and green diarrhea
• Lack of energy and poor appetite
• Drop in egg production or soft- or thin-shelled misshapen eggs
• Swelling around the eyes, neck, and head • Purple discoloration of the wattles, combs, and legs (AI)
• Tremors, drooping wings, circling,twisting of the head and neck, or lack of movement (END) Early detection is important to prevent the spread of disease.

Report Sick Birds: Don't wait. Owners of backyard chickens who observe illness or increased mortality in their birds should call their veterinarian, local Agricultural Commissioners Office at 209-953-6000.  or the California Department of Food Agriculture sick bird hotline at (866) 922-2473.

All bird owners, whether commercial producers or backyard enthusiasts, should continue to practice good biosecurity, prevent contact between their birds and wild birds, and to report sick birds or unusual bird deaths to State/Federal officials, either through your state veterinarian or through USDA's toll-free number at 1-866-536-7593.  Additional information on biosecurity for backyard flocks can be found at healthybirds.aphis.usda.gov.

The University of CA has a great website for Backyard Poultry including basic care, coop design and disease information.

Click here to watch a video full of helpful tips on keeping your backyard flock safe and healthy.

 

If you have a gardening related question you can contact the UC Master Gardeners at 209-953-6112. More information can be found on our website.

It is time to make selections of bare root plants and there are lots of choices to bring fruit, nuts, and beauty to your garden. The reason for planting bare root plants is that they are cheaper and will generally establish better than potted plants bought later in the season. There is also a wider selection available now than there will be in pots in June.

If I were to plant fruit trees, my first picks would be cherries, plums, pluots, peaches, nectarines and apricots. These trees are not as highly disease and pest prone as apples and pears. Peaches and nectarines need to be sprayed for peach leaf curl and bacterial canker can attack most of these trees. However, apples and pears are more difficult, because of the prevalence of fireblight and codling moth in our area. Not that I don't have lots of them, but they do take more attention to keep trees disease free and to get a crop. Check out Sunset Western Garden book for listings of fruit tree varieties that will do well here.

Local nurseries like Port of Stockton carry a good selection of fruit and nut trees, black berries and blueberries.  Delta Tree Farm also carries bare root fruit trees. Peaceful Valley Farm Supply has a good selection of bare root products as does Raintree Nursery. Big box stores also carry selections of bare-root trees and berries. One tip on planting blueberries—make sure that you lower the pH by using soil sulfur and compost, before planting them.

Roses are beautiful and great flowers if you don't mind the annual pruning and dead heading chores. Some rosarians

advise not to buy those bare root roses packed in wood shavings in plastic bags. It is true that this packaging can dry out, but this is rarely the case. Look them over carefully for dead canes or punctured packaging and best to buy #1 Grade roses. The secret to success is to buy them early when they arrive and before the warm store conditions cause them to break dormancy and sprout. Also, soak them in a bucket of water overnight before planting to rehydrate and then keep them watered consistently until they become established.

There are a few thousand named rose varieties in various growth styles from Hybrid Teas, Grandifloras, Floribundas, Polyanthas, Miniatures, Mini-floras, Climbers, Old Garden roses, and shrubs. The rose universe is growing with new varieties produced each year. Newer roses tend to have been bred for disease resistance, which is a good feature and fragrance is also making a comeback. Older roses with good reputations for flourishing and disease resistance are good too. The American Rose Society annually produces a handbook of roses that scores them based on scores by rosarians  across the country: Perfect; 9.0-9.9=Outstanding; 8.0-8.9=Excellent; 7.0-7.9=Good; 6.0-6.9= Fair. This handbook is produced annually and is available to members of the American Rose Society.  Few roses merit the perfect score, but I generally wouldn't plant one that didn't score well above 7.

Baldo Villegos is a renowned Rosarian living in Orangevale, CA who has grown hundreds of roses. He has put together a list of 100 roses recommended by the Sacramento and Foothills Rose Societies for growing just about anywhere. To access this list go to his website.  The Regional Rose Society District that consists of California, Hawaii and Nevada also maintains a list of regional favorites.

Some of my favorite roses would be: Hybrid Teas: Arizona, Aroma Therapy, Black Magic, Brandy, Dainty Bess, Double Delight, Honor, Mr. Lincoln, Oklahoma, Olympiad, Peace, Perfect Moment, Perfume Delight, Proud Land, Touch of Class, Tropicana;  Florabundas: Gene Boerner, Julia Child, Iceburg; Polyanthas: Cecile Brunner.  I don't have many of the other types and those I do have are still on trial.  Rose blooms are most abundant in the spring and fall, but with diligent deadheading, they bloom all season.

Pruning time for roses is also at hand and pruning roses is a task that many approach with trepidation, but it is really not that difficult.  The goal is to thin, shorten and invigorate the plant. Keep the rose bush open for light penetration and air circulation and select for younger canes that will replace the older, spent ones. This will provide more blooms and larger ones from the more vigorous young canes. There are lots of good rose pruning guides available in books on roses. I found an excellent online guide by Baldo Villegos that is comprehensive for all types of roses.

For more information, visit the UC CA Garden Web rose page.

Cold weather is not everyone's favorite, but chilly winters are crucial to the life cycle of California's temperate fruit (and nut) trees, whose health and productivity affect farmers and backyard orchardists alike. The harvest of these trees are mainstays of the Central Valley's economy and kitchen tables all over the United States.

The term “temperate fruit tree” refers to trees that go dormant in winter, preferring moderately cold winters without the killing freezes of the coldest zones. Dormancy begins in late fall and lasts into early winter, initiated by lengthening days and cooler temperatures; it is chemically wrought by hormones suppressing buds for next season's foliage and flowers until conditions are right for tender new growth.

What is critical is how the tree breaks dormancy. Trees listen for the signal that yes, winter has arrived. The necessary signal strength varies between species, but is officially referred to as “chill hours”, or vernalization, when the temperature stays between 32°-45°F. The hormone responsible for dormancy breaks down in this range, allowing buds to develop into flowers or foliage when the weather warms up in late winter. Interestingly, temperatures below 32°F are ineffective and do not count; hours when temperatures exceed 60°F are actually subtracted from the accumulated chill hours.

When a tree does not receive the necessary signal to break dormancy, the buds tend to leaf out later, and the flower buds may appear irregularly, which can result in a longer bloom period. This may seem beneficial, but flowers are delicate things, and the longer the bloom period, the more likely they will be exposed to diseases such as fire blight and brown rot, meaning a harvest of fewer and deformed fruits.

Why all this talk about tree signals and deformed fruit? Climate change is making warm winters more frequent, resulting in poor harvests for certain fruit trees. As stated above, some require more chill hours than others, depending on species and varieties within species. Choosing “low chill” (requiring less than 300 hours at 32°-45°F) will hedge your bets, with the added benefit of getting more for your water and compost inputs when chill-needy trees have a low yield.

Figs, olives, and quince have the lowest natural chill requirements, followed by persimmons, pomegranates, almonds, and chestnuts. The more commonly grown fruits such as cherries, apples, peaches, and plums required breeding to develop low-chill varieties for folks living in areas like southern California where chill hours are minimal. Fortunately, us valley-dwellers can benefit from this horticultural achievement as well.

For a list of low-chill fruit tree varieties, I recommended visiting the UC's California Backyard Orchard webpage:

http://homeorchard.ucanr.edu/Fruits_&_Nuts/

Select a fruit and click on “varieties for planting in the home garden” and scroll down to the list of low-chill varieties, if applicable (naturally low-chill species such as fig and persimmon will not have a separate list).

If you have a gardening related question you can contact the UC Master Gardeners at 209-953-6112. More information can be found on our website.

A plant's ultimate goal is to self-perpetuate in some way by making more of itself. Their life cycle, be it short or long, consists of building up vegetative growth, which in turn supports seed development and other methods of

self-propagation (runners, bulblets, etc).

Plant life cycles fall into three broad categories: annual, biennial, and perennial. Words that often accompany these terms are “herbaceous” or “woody”, a reference to stem characteristics. Woody stems have hard, fibrous growth whereas herbaceous stems do not.

Annuals
Annuals complete their life cycle in one growing season. Most are small and best used in borders or to fill in spaces around permanent plants. Although annual wildflowers can re-seed, if you want your nursery six-pack of annuals to self-sow, make sure it isn't a sterile hybrid. Some annuals will not always come true from seed and need to be purchased as plants if you want a certain variety.

Biennials
Biennials complete their life cycle in two growing seasons, often going dormant in the winter, then sending up new vegetative growth and flowers the second year before dying. The most famous examples are cole crops such as broccoli and cabbage, which we often treat as annuals in the garden.

Perennials
This category of plants lives for many years, varying greatly in how long it takes to produce their first flowers/seeds and reach senescence (old age). Below are some of the major types of perennials:

Evergreens support foliage year-round, although they will shed leaves sporadically. Examples of evergreens include conifers, photinia, boxwood, and California natives such as Coffeeberry, Toyon, and Buckwheats. These should form the backbone of your garden, as they provide the basic structure around which your shorter-lived annuals and perennials are planted.

Deciduousperennials shed all their leaves when they go into winter dormancy. Examples include Crape myrtle, stone and pome fruit trees, and Valley oak. Plants that retain a branching, woody structure in dormancy add an architectural element to the winter garden.

Herbaceous perennials are a sub-set of deciduous perennials whose stems lack hard, fibrous growth. They die to the ground during dormancy, surviving underground as roots or bulbs. This can happen in winter (Peony, Coneflower, and California fuchsia) or in summer (Amaryllis and Blue-eyed grass). These plants are cut to the ground once the foliage has died back to keep the garden tidy. These tend to be the most showy plants (after annuals), but they are “blank” in dormancy so it's good to be sparing with them in the garden.

Semi-deciduous plants lose some of their leaves in either winter or summer. In California, many plants have adapted to the long dry season by dropping foliage to conserve water.

It's important to point out that plants can behave differently, depending on what climate they are being grown in. For instance, tomatoes are annuals in the Central Valley but are perennials in their native land (Mexico). When reading plant descriptions, make sure to note the zone being used. If there are not specific descriptions for various zones, try doing more research using a different source. Sunset is a great source, as are other books written specifically for California gardens.

If you have a gardening related question you can contact the UC Master Gardeners at 209-953-6112. More information can be found on our website.