Landscape and nursery
§ Keep an eye out for swallow-wort infestations
§ Scouting guide for diseases: Rust diseases
§ Scouting for abiotic diseases: Fall needle drop
§ Scouting for abiotic diseases: Improper planting depth
§ Abiotic Plant Disorders bulletin now available
§ Master Composter Training Workshop October 12 & 13
Christmas trees and forestry
§ Revised Baythroid XL label
§ Spruce adelgids: Time to control nymphs
Around the home
§ Pardon me! More information on fruit flies
§ Fall invading insects - a little something to look forward to
Other news
§ MSU Soil & Plant Nutrient Lab for soil testing
§ Grant funding program seeks innovative ideas for the farm and ranch
§ Weather news
This is the last issue for the 2007 season of the Landscape CAT Alert newsletter. Included in this issue is an index of articles to help guide readers through the topics covered this year. Educators and specialists have worked hard to inform readers about current issues and crop production throughout the last few months.
Now we would like to hear from you! Please send us suggestions on topics that you would like us to cover in 2008. Also, please let us know how we can improve our print publication and web site (http://www.ipm.msu.edu/land-cat.htm).
Please send your
comments to catalert@msu.edu or mail them
to: Joy Landis, MSU IPM Program, B18 National Food Safety and Toxicology Bldg.,
Thank you. -Joy Landis, editor & Andrea Buchholz, asst. editor
Doug Landis
Entomology and MSU Invasive Species Initiative
Two nasty invasive plants have been gaining an increasing
foothold in
Black swallow-wort [Cynanchum
louiseae Kartesz & Gandhi (previously known as Vincetoxicum nigrum and Cynanchum
nigrum)] is the most widely distributed of the two species in
Pale swallow-wort or dog-strangling vine [Cynanchum rossicum (Kleopov) Barbarich
(previously Vincetoxicum rossicum)]
is less widely distributed in Michigan, with isolated populations in Berrien,
Ingham,
Because female monarch butterflies will occasionally lay eggs in these swallow-worts but larvae generally do not survive on these plants, there has been some concern that infestations may act as an “oviposition sink.” However, several recent studies show that female monarchs greatly prefer their native host, common milkweed, and both conclude that there is little concern that these plants will significantly contribute to declines in monarch butterfly populations.
For more information on the identification, biology and management of black and pale swallow-wort please visit:
Invasive Plant Species of
Black swallow–wort: http://www.nps.gov/plants/ALIEN/fact/cylo1.htm.
Pale swallow-wort: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/cyro1.htm.
Jan Byrne
Diagnostic Services
Hosts include: Aconitum, Anemone, Aquilegia, Arisaema, Aster, Campanula, Hemerocallis, Heuchera, Liatris, Lupinus and Monarda.
Several perennials are commonly affected by rust diseases. Each rust pathogen has its own relatively small host range. Disease management strategies are fairly similar for this group of pathogens.
Diane Brown-Rytlewski
Plant Pathology
It is normal for evergreens to lose their interior needles in the fall. Loss tends to be more pronounced during years with dry weather. It is not normal for needles to drop from the current year’s growth, or to drop in the spring or summer. Check for another cause such as salt injury, a disease problem, frost, or drought if this occurs.
The information is from A
Pocket IPM Scouting Guide for Woody Landscape Plants. For ordering
information, please visit: http://www.emdc.msue.msu.edu/
or call the MSU Bulletin Office at 517-353-6740 and ask for inventory number
E2839.
Diane Brown-Rytlewski
Plant Pathology
When planting, look for the root flare, and plant the ball with the root flare level with the ground. The kousa dogwood in Photo 1 declined over a period of several years before it died.
Symptoms associated with planting too deep include wilting, stunted growth, chlorosis, dieback, early fall color, scorch and the development of adventitious roots. Planting too deep restricts the amount of water and oxygen to the fine root systems, lowering the trees vitality. Trees planted too deep are also more subject to canker development and wind throw.
This information was from A Pocket IPM Scouting Guide for Woody Landscape Plants.
Abiotic Plant Disorders- Symptoms, Signs and Solutions is a new bulletin available through MSU Extension. Robert Schutzki, MSU Horticulture, and Bert Cregg, MSU Horticulture and Forestry, teamed up to write this 16-page informational guide with colored photos to help readers identify potential problems in their landscape.
The publication is available online at: http://www.emdc.msue.msu.edu/inventorysearch.cfm. Or call the MSU Extension Bulletin Office at 517-353-6740 and ask for bulletin E2996.
Beth Clawson
Van Buren County Extension educator
Van Buren County MSU Extension is offering Master Composter Training
as an intensive two-day training workshop on October 12 and 13 at the Van Buren
County Human Services Building East Conference Rooms in Paw Paw,
This workshop will allow you to become a certified Master Composter with the fulfillment of some additional requirements or can be used as continuing education credits for Master Gardener volunteers.
Jill O’Donnell
Christmas Tree ICM educator
Bayer has revised Baythroid XL 24(c) for Christmas Trees that has wording to cover growers that dig a few live landscape ornamental trees from a Christmas tree field. For a copy of the new label, please visit: http://www.ipm.msu.edu/cat07land/PDF/9-21label.pdf.
Jill O’Donnell
Christmas Tree ICM educator
If you have had problems with Cooley spruce gall adelgid on
Douglas-fir or spruce or Eastern spruce gall adelgid on
Spray with a currently registered insecticide in late September or October and/or again in early April to kill these overwintering nymphs. Some growers have timed this application when the red maples begin to turn red in the fall. Make sure to get good coverage.
Howard Russell
Diagnostic Services
It’s always flattering to hear from readers. In the September 7 Landscape CAT Alert issue, I wrote about fruit flies, and admittedly, I was a bit cavalier in my remarks. Two readers wrote to tell me that there is an easy solution to fruit flies and I want to share with you their insights (and my failings).
As a Master Gardener, I look forward to receiving your alerts in our weekly e-news. I was, however, disappointed at your option for dealing with fruit flies. Yes, emptying the garbage more frequently helps, but "A little spray of a household aerosol insecticide will also help keep their numbers down" doesn't seem like IPM to me.
An option given at our Master Gardener class a few years ago was to use a small jar with a homemade paper cone set on top of it. A bit of juice or rotting fruit in the bottom would attract the flies, while the cone shape kept them in the jar to die. I hadn't tried this method until this summer. Instead of a paper cone, I simply set my kitchen funnel into a tall wine glass with a splash of wine in the bottom of the glass. The flies seemed to like the wine much better than the juice. Every day I simply emptied my trap and replaced the splash of wine. The pests were gone in no time, and I wasn't spraying chemicals into our family home.
Howard Russell gives up to fruit flies too easily! Try the following as an experiment. You will be delighted. It works.
Ahh, there is a solution to the fruit fly plague. Insecticide spray? Oh no! (They seem to be immune!) The solution is apple cider vinegar! It is routine at our house, surrounded on the Leelanau peninsula by orchards of various fruits, to lay out the fruit fly traps this time of year. They WILL inevitably get in the house, so we put up our defenses. Here it is:
Fill several juice glasses, (or smaller), with apple cider vinegar to about 2/3rds full. Add a drop or two, no more, of liquid dishwashing soap to the vinegar and swirl a bit. Stretch 'handywrap' or similar (we use 'stretch-tite') across the top of the glas,s so it is taut. A rubber band around the perimeter will hold it in place, if not natural attraction. Punch about a dozen or so holes in the 'handywrap' with a toothpick and set out the traps, one in the kitchen and one in each bathroom. (Various colognes etc., attract the rascals to the bathrooms. And they love mirrors!) Oh, if you have a serious problem, empty and refresh about every week or so. Guaranteed to work!
Howard Russell
Diagnostic Services
It won’t be long before boxelder bugs, cluster flies, Asian lady beetles, pine seed bugs and a few others of our six-legged friends will begin to congregate on the sides of our homes. More often than not, they choose the sides that are warmed by the afternoon sun. As it gets colder, these bugs will attempt to find a way in though cracks, crevices of other points of entry in order to find a comfy place to spend the winter. In unheated structures, they go dormant until spring but in heated homes, many stay active just to annoy us. There is part of me that wants to say there is not much we can do about these unwelcome guests other than spraying a little insecticide around windows and doors, and hoping for the best, but I know of at least two readers who will take offense to these slacker, non-IPM comments.
In the spirit of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), I suggest (like many others) that caulking or otherwise sealing around windows and doors might help to deny them access to the inside. This can be very helpful in older homes with wooden siding and windows, but no amount of caulk will help those of us with vinyl siding. Vinyl siding and soffits are not nailed tightly to the house; vinyl is “hung” or loosely nailed to allow these plastic panels to expand and contract with changing temperature. As such, bugs can easily find their way around siding and soffits and into the wall voids and rafters. From there, they more or less magically appear in the interior living space, which is our space. At this point, conflicts of interest usually arise. What we do about them at this point is a matter of personal choice.
I wish the best of luck to all of you. Have a great holiday season and may all of you successfully overwinter. Pray for peace. – Howard
Darryl Warncke & Jon Dahl
Crop & Soil Sciences & SPN Lab
The MSU Soil & Plant Nutrient Lab (SPN) provides soil
testing and plant tissue analysis services for farmers, homeowners, greenhouse
operations, consultants, agribusinesses, governmental service agencies and
research programs at MSU and other universities. Water samples are tested to
determine suitability for use in growing plants. Samples of soil and plant
tissue can be sent directly to the Soil & Plant Nutrient Lab at A82 Plant
and Soil Sciences Bldg.,
A listing of the services provided can be found at www.css.msu.edu/soiltesting under “Testing Price List.” Test reports include the test results plus recommendations. The MSU SPN Lab works closely with the MSU county extension offices and educators in providing information about testing and managing nutrient inputs for growing plants whether in home landscapes, greenhouses or on farms. Questions regarding testing services, results or recommendations can be directed to county extension educators, the SPN Lab or Jon Dahl at 517-355-0218 or Darryl Warncke at 517-355-0271 x 1270.
The North Central Region
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NCR-SARE) Program is seeking
innovative farmers or ranchers who want to implement a new, sustainable, idea
to improve their operation. NCR-SARE is currently accepting applications for
their 2007 Farmer Rancher grant program.
NCR-SARE awards grants to farmers
and ranchers for on-farm research, demonstrations and education projects. By
providing funds ranging from $6,000 per individual grant to up to $18,000 for
grants awarded to groups of three or more, NCR-SARE helps facilitate essential
agricultural research and development.
Beverly Pender is an urban farmer in
“Our objective is to promote urban farming and to teach the community about healthy food production,” Pender explained.
Pender’s grant is just one example of the wide range of projects that NCR-SARE has funded over the years. Other funded topics include pest and disease management, soil conservation, local marketing, public education, waste management, agri-tourism, crop diversity, aqua-culture and many others.
NCR-SARE grants are awarded based on the applicants ability to describe how their project will be sustainable in terms of having long-term profitability, being good for the environment, producing healthy foods, being socially responsible and supporting their community.
Last year NCR-SARE funded 52 Farmer Rancher grants totaling
$400,037. This year farmers and ranchers throughout the North Central Region
will once again have the opportunity to apply for roughly $400,000 in grant
assistance. The 12 states that comprise the North Central Region are
Grant proposals are due in the NCR-SARE office by December 3, 2007. Interested applicants may contact Joan Benjamin with NCR-SARE at 402-472-0809 or ncrsare@umn.edu. The current Farmer Rancher Grant Call for Proposals application can be found on the NCR-SARE web site at http://ncr.sare.org/prod.htm. Previous project reports are made available through the national SARE web site at www.sare.org.
North Central Region - Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Farmer Rancher Grant Program
402.472.0809 or 1.800.529.1342 (toll free)
Mike Marshall
Horticulture
Jeff
Andresen
Agricultural Meteorology
Geography
An upper air troughing feature across the western United
States will lead to southwesterly flow across the Great Lakes region during the
next several days, leading to above normal temperatures and to the passage of
at least two frontal boundaries through Michigan. A cool front will move from
northwest to southeast across the state Friday, September 21, before stalling
out across the
For the first frontal passage Friday, moisture is generally lacking and for most of the state only scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected, with best chances for rainfall across northern sections of the state. Most areas of the state will remain dry. Precipitation that does fall will generally remain in the 0.10-0.25 inch category where rain occurs. High temperatures Saturday (behind the cool front) will fall back to the upper 60's north to near 80ºF far south, gradually warming back into the 70's to low 80s by Monday. Low temperatures will generally range from the mid- 40's north to upper 50's south on Saturday, warming into the 50's to low 60's Sunday and Monday. Showers and thunderstorms will be possible once again across the state as the next frontal boundary approaches from the west. More moisture is expected ahead of this front (possibly of tropical origin), increasing the chances of a more widespread rainfall event in most sections of the state late Monday into Tuesday evening.
Further ahead, latest medium range forecast guidance
suggests a general continuation of upper air troughing across the western