Installing tree wraps on young trees provides protection to the trunk from applications of herbicides during weed management operations. Additionally, the wraps minimize light interception by trunk tissue thereby reducing sucker growth. During hot weather tree wraps provide shade to the trunk and reduce the incidence of sunburn. With the increasing incidence of earwigs, damage to young trees and the tendency for the insect to congregate under the wraps, tree wraps are being removed in some cases. Recent laboratory data from Dr. Beth Grafton-Cardwell (confirmed by observations in the field) suggests that as the season progresses adults become less and less interested in feeding on leaves (peak of feeding in March and April, declines to next to nothing by June).  So, a management consideration would be to check the earwigs in the wraps in the summer, and if there are only adults present there is less concern than if there are immatures present. Another point would be to consider treatment with an insecticide such as Lorsban if wraps are to be left on for sunburn protection.

If wraps are removed a uniform coating of sun protective material should be applied to the trunk to protect against sun damage. Trunk surfaces should be monitored to ensure that a uniform coating is in place. Sun damage to unprotected trunk tissue can result in partial or complete girdling of the tree.

Jane Delahoyde, a PCA here in Ventura, recently found an unusual scale in lemon here.  It is barnacle scale with a typically long Latin name - Ceroplastes cirripediformis.  It is unlikely to be any worse than other scales, but it's something to keep our eyes on. This is one of the soft scales, often called wax scales because of the wax they produce. It turns out that this has been described as being in Southern California for years, but some years they are just more present.  For more on "Wax" scales see the Texas A&M site

https://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/aimg110.html

or our UC IPM website

http://ucipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7408.html

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Bob Hill, a local Ventura PCA, saw an interesting mite he had never seen before and asked if I could id it.  Well, I sent it in to Mark Hoddle and UCR and he turned it over to his student Ricky Lara to id it.  And this is what he says:

I started finding this type of mite infrequently in 2011, when I was sampling foliage in avocado orchards.  Although seldom seen, they have a wide geographic distribution on avocado. I found them in Cambria (SLO), Santa Rosa Valley (Ventura County) and Irvine (Orange County). At the time I narrowed down the mite family to Winterschmidtiidae. I have to double check, but I believe their feeding habit is listed as fungivorous (The Manual of Acarology). They might feed directly on plant material too (no fungus on the avocado leaves I sampled) but no one has really studied them. I tried rearing them in the lab (without other mites as a food source, only pollen) but the colony only lasted for a couple of months. On avocado I have seen these mites at the leaf-vein junctions. This probably provides a natural home ("domatia") for them as it does for other mites (e.g. phytoseiids, tydeids, stigmaeids). On lemons, the calyx structure probably serves the same ecological function for these mites.

The tydeid mites are what I call the "tidy mites" since their basic function is to run around and clean up leaves, although there are some predatory and scavenging members of the family  This little guy is just one of the many tidy mites found out there and its recent appearance is just a reflection of the weather/climate we have this time.

The red circled mite is the one we are talking about here.  The structures next to it are some egg cases of another animal. The red dots are called opisthonotal glands which produce pheromones, the purpose of which is not clear.

Assessing water quality for Southern California agriculture typically revolves around the total salinity of the water, its total dissolved solids (TDS), and the toxic ions boron, sodium and chloride.  Salts are necessary to plants, because it is in the form of diluted salts that all nutrients are taken up by plants- the macro and micronutrients plants extract from the soil. High salinity leads to water imbalance problems much as if the plant were not getting adequate water.  A toxicity problem is different from a salinity problem, in that toxicity is a result of damage within the plant rather than a water shortage.  Toxicity results when the plant takes up the toxic ions and accumulates the ions in the leaf.  The leaf damage that occurs from both toxicity and salinity are similar in that it causes tissue death known commonly as "tip burn."  The damage that occurs depends on the concentration of the ions in the soil water around the roots, the crop sensitivity and crop water use, and the length of time the crop experiences the ions.  In many cases, yield reduction occurs.  Because crops can not excrete salts the way humans do, salts gradually accumulate in a plant.  As a result plants need a higher water quality than humans do.

Much study in many countries has gone into evaluating water for crop use.  Some of these studies have been on the effects of salts on soil characteristics.  Generally, as sodium concentration increases, a soil will lose its aggregation, eventually leading to poor water infiltration.  Many more salinity and toxicity studies have been done on plants themselves.  Not all crops are equally tolerant of salinity and toxicities, and in general most plants respond to salinity and toxicities in a similar fashion.  If a plant is intolerant of salinity, it will be intolerant of chloride, sodium and boron. Most annual crops are less sensitive to salts than tree crops and woody perennials, although symptoms can appear on any crop if concentrations are high enough.  The reason for greater sensitivity for perennial crops is that the tree is sitting in the ground absorbing salts for a longer period than the lettuce plant that is harvested 3 months after planting.  Furthermore, deciduous trees like walnut shed their leaves each winter, so they can handle salinity better than evergreens like citrus and avocado.

To manage salinity and toxicities, water management is the key.  Depending on water quality, an excess of water will be applied to the soil to leach the previously applied salts away from the root zone.  The poorer the water quality, the more excess water is applied.

Selecting a less sensitive crop is also an alternative when dealing with poor water quality.  Some barley varieties can handle salinity similar to ocean water.  Barley nets a grower $400 an acre, avocados $9,000 and $25,000 if the market is right for strawberries.  Avocados are salt sensitive, so are strawberries and lemons and cherimoyas and star fruit and blueberries and raspberries and mandarins and  nursery crops.  We grow these because with our climate, very few other places can grow them and they return enough money for a grower to stay in business in an area where land, water and labor are expensive.  We really don't have much in "alternative crops" to grow here.