Test PB Collection: FTE

Wood Ashes as Fertilizer - 1995 Hunger Signs in Plants - 2001 Avocado Leaf Analysis - 2000 How to Read those Reports - 1996...

There has been considerable talk lately of recycling yard prunings and clippings as mulches and composts. Another source of recyclable materials is the ash from the fireplace or barbecue. At one time wood ashes were a chief source of potassium and much used in farming and horticulture.

Since Greek and Roman times, the appearance of a plant has been used to help identify plant health. The plant speaks through distress signals. The message may be that there is simply too little or too much water.

So you took your leaf analysis in mid- August or are having it done now in October, and you are now planning your fertility program for the year ahead. The sampled leaves were the most recently expanded, and matured, healthy, terminal leaves from the spring flush and from non-fruiting branches.

By this time of year avocado growers should have finished taking their annual leaf samples for a tissue analysis. The leaves would have been from fully-expanded, terminal spring flush, on branches without fruit. The sampling should have occurred mid-August to mid-October.

Adjusting to a Smaller Fruit Load - 2000 Living with Fire - 1998 Avocado Record Keeping - 1996 Planting Trees - 1998 What Alternative Crops? - 1999 Windbreaks in New Zealand - 2001 What are our Groves Really Yielding?

This past spring with its cool temperatures has generally meant a poor fruit set for the avocado industry. Walking orchards in the Santa Barbara/Ventura area turns up trees with little or no fruit set.

The very fact that avocados can be grown in hard to get to places means that the trees are also in areas that are subject to wildfire damage. Recently several hundred acres of avocado burned in the Fillmore/Santa Paula foothills. The fire was fanned by high winds and low humidity.

Plop, plop. The sound of fruit dropping. Ever wonder how much fruit is lost from windfall or the tree thinning itself in order to carry the remaining fruit? We monitored 15 trees in a 5 acre block from January to harvest in September.

Although the total acreage of subtropical fruit trees is declining in Southern California, growers are replanting declining groves and switching over from old varieties to new.