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On this week’s Good Growing podcast, we are answering more of your questions. We discuss the new invasive hornet that has been found in Georgia, coca mulch and worms in ponds, tree roots affecting building foundations, apple fruit rots, and more!
Watch us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fFmCDDUwXQ4
Skip to what you want to know:
00:05 – Welcome
01:20 – New invasive wasp found in Georgia, the yellow-legged hornet
07:47 – Be on the lookout for spotted lanternfly
11:10 – White “worms” in a pond after using cocoa mulch. What are they, and how do we manage them?
18:30 – Will tree roots interfere with the foundation of a home?
23:00 – Water lotus is taking of my pond, what can I do to get rid of it?
29:20 – Large black spots on my apples, what is causing it and how do I get rid of it?
34:00 - Wrap-up, thank you’s, what’s up next week, and goodbye!
Photo credits:
Yellow-legged hornet nest By Francis ITHURBURU - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25339575
Yellow-legged hornet By Charles J. Sharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52006827
Cheese skipper maggots by Deborah Kent
Contact us!
Chris Enroth: cenroth@illinois.edu
Ken Johnson: kjohnso@illinois.edu
Check out the Good Growing Blog: https://go.illinois.edu/goodgrowing
Subscribe to the weekly Good Growing email: https://go.illinois.edu/goodgrowingsubscribe
Any products or companies mentioned during the podcast are in no way a promotion or endorsement of these products or companies.
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Creators and Guests
What is Good Growing?
Talking all things horticulture, ecology, and design.
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. It is another question and answer show. Late summer questions are coming in, and we have got a headline story that has been, pinging our email inboxes quite a bit this last week, and we're gonna talk about that. And you know I'm not gonna do this all by myself.
Chris Enroth:I am joined as always by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson:Hello, Chris. Nothing like coming back from being gone for a week and then some invasive shows up.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Some gnarly invasive that everybody is concerned about and worried about. And it's it's like we're living in deja vu, though, because this has happened before a few years ago. Was it 2020, I believe, that the murder hornet showed up?
Ken Johnson:Yes. I'm hoping I'm hoping this isn't as bad as far as public freak out because we're not COVID and everybody's not home and thinking every wasp they see is a murder hornet. Better be safe than sorry. If you're not sure, send us a picture. But we're talking about the the yellow legged hornet that recently I guess, recently, news stories started hitting about it being found in, I think, the Savannah, Georgia area.
Ken Johnson:I think that started coming out late last week, early this week or this weekend. So I've gotten several emails already about people finding, like like last time, bald faced hornet, cicada killer, couple robber fly, one of the bumblebee mimic robber flies, all thinking they are the new invasive species. But as of August 22 at 02:07PM, to my knowledge, it has not been found in Illinois.
Chris Enroth:Exactly. We we haven't sent out the, the call to across the state to our colleagues, but we doubt that it's here. If it is, we'll eat our words, but highly doubtful that it's here. So, Ken, I've also been getting quite a few questions, and, mine have mainly dealt with bald faced hornets. And and bald faced hornets, they have these beautiful aerial nests that they construct.
Chris Enroth:Why would you think that I'm getting, like, calls for bald faced hornets to the yellow legged, hornets? Do they have a similar nest that they create?
Ken Johnson:Yes. Yellow leg yellow legged hornets will also build aerial nests that look similar. And the pictures I've seen look similar to bow faced hornet, these big paper kinda egg shaped nests. I will say from from the reading I've done, the yellow legged hornets, those colonies can average about 3,000 wasps or hornets kind of at the peak whereas bald faced hornets, tracks like a wasp, are about three, four hundred. So I'm assuming that those yellow legs will be much larger nests.
Ken Johnson:And from what I've seen, they have multiple entry points, whereas multi phase one a has one, maybe two on those. Think the size would be different, but, yeah, they do have these aerial paper nests that they'll create. And I think they're fairly similar size. So they're about three quarters of an inch long, both of them, maybe a little bit bigger here and there, but similar size. They're not nearly as big as the the northern giant hornet or murder hornet.
Ken Johnson:Those are those are pretty big insects, but they are similar size. The the big difference between yellow legged hornet and the ones that we have here, bald faced hornet, cicada killer, European hornet, is they have yellow legs on the yellow tarsi. So the bottom parts of legs are gonna be yellow. The bodies are are black or dark brown, and the abdomen's gonna have some yellow on it. By no means an expert on this, just trying to read up on it the last few days.
Ken Johnson:It's it looks like there are multiple different kinda color morph subspecies, and I'm not sure which one has been found in North America. Over in Europe where it's been introduced, it's the black form where it's primarily black with some yellow on it. But there are there is a variation out there in the population. So it's it's been found in Europe. I think it was early two thousands, mid two thousands, and it's in Spain, France, England.
Ken Johnson:I think recently in Luxembourg, Belgium, so kinda Northern Europe and Italy down into there too. It's also been found in South Korea and Japan as well. So this is native to Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and and some of those island countries in in Asia as well. So we're not the first to get it. Other places have.
Ken Johnson:And, hopefully, you know, it's it's like the the murder hornets out in Washington. They find them. They're able to track those nests down to eliminate them. And this year, I've not heard about them finding any of of the northern giant hornet murder hornet. So, hopefully, they've got that eradicated, then we can do the same with the yellow legged hornet as well.
Ken Johnson:And and they're similar to the the murder hornets. They will go after honey bees and other pollinators as potential prey sources. So that's that's one of the concerns is they will start feeding on those, reading some stuff in Europe. One paper they're interviewing or had codes from beekeepers and stuff from other papers. Know, one guy had 80% loss of bees.
Ken Johnson:Some of them had 30% loss. Some areas had 10% reduction in overwintering colonies. They think attributed to the feeding from these hornets because they're weakening the colonies and stuff. So remains to be seen how bad it will be here, but, hopefully, it does not get this far north, and they're able to to eradicate that population that's that's in Georgia.
Chris Enroth:So I it looks like the primary net risk is to some of our domesticated honeybees. And since this has never been found in North America, we don't even know what might be possible, you know, what what could they do to some of our native bees? You know, we're not quite sure. Would they would they attack something like a a bald faced hornet nest or a bumblebee nest or yeah. Bees.
Chris Enroth:Interesting.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. It's probably safe to assume they would attack other pollinators as well, whether or not they go after honeybees preferentially over the others. I think that remains to be seen. But, yeah, that that is a concern. And, again, the stinging is a concern too if you're allergic to them.
Ken Johnson:Don't yeah. To my knowledge, I could be wrong. They're not anymore that venom is not any more dangerous than others. But if you are allergic because the colonies can get so big, that can cause problems, particularly for allergic individuals.
Chris Enroth:Mhmm. What else, Ken? So, Ken, is there anything else that we need to be on the lookout when it comes to murderous hornets or hornets with yellowed legs?
Ken Johnson:Not that I know of. That could change tomorrow when I read more about this stuff. But, yeah, just for my kind of initial reading last few hours, I I think it's just kinda keep an eye out for it. You know? If you're in doubt, contact your local office, send a picture.
Ken Johnson:If somebody there can't ID it, they'll get somebody who can. I I would say, you know, like everything, it's better to be safe than sorry. Send them in if you're if in doubt, and and we can always tell you, nope. You're fine or yes. You may wanna we may need to send this off to I think USDA is the one that wants to know, probably Illinois Department of Ag if it were to show up here.
Ken Johnson:But right now, I I don't I don't think we need to worry about it unless it's a bunch more widespread than than they initially think. So, yeah, if and now, send a picture. If not, we shouldn't have to worry about it anytime soon or ever, hopefully.
Chris Enroth:Mhmm.
Ken Johnson:But as far as invasive species go, we are what we really should be considered looking for is spider lanternfly. You know? Because it's that's gonna be here soon if I mean, it could be here already and nobody's found it yet, but it's it's in Indiana. I think they found some in Iowa, so it's a matter of time before it gets here.
Chris Enroth:I'm seeing tree of heaven more and more. Now that I know what to look for, that was one of the plant plants I was, I was blinded to that plant. I never I didn't see it. I kind of just thought, oh, that's a black locust or, you know, or that's black walnut or, you know, I just thought that's some compound leaf plant. I didn't pay much mind to it.
Chris Enroth:Now I realized, like, tree of heaven, which is a a host species for spotted lanternfly, is everywhere. And so now I I was sitting in line waiting to pick my kids up yesterday, and I saw this tree of heaven, this whole alley full of it. And I'm like like, I wonder would it be weird if I got out of my car and went and looked at the plants. You think that their other parents would think something and call the cops like I'm sneaking through someone's hedge looking for a spotted lanternfly, but I didn't do it.
Ken Johnson:So you may embarrass your kids. So go ahead. I might.
Chris Enroth:I might. So I didn't do it, folks. I stayed in my car. But if I see something like, how big is a spotted lanternfly? It's it's a inch and a half, two inch.
Ken Johnson:Like, with the wingspan, I don't think it's terribly large.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Act oh, actually, I have one right here. So this is, yeah, spotted lanternfly. You can see I'd say wings spread out, might be an inch and a half maybe. Maybe two inches, but beautiful insect with its wings open.
Chris Enroth:But Ken is really mad at me because I have one of these.
Ken Johnson:They call some people and get me some. So I was watching the we were watching the cardinals game last night, so this was Monday night. And they're in Pittsburgh, and they actually were showing spotted lanternfly crawling around in the stadium. So Oh, gross. So, hopefully, they bring them back with them.
Chris Enroth:Well, they'll show up in St. Louis first, so have a little bit of time before they hop over the river maybe. Maybe. Oh, goodness. Well, Ken and and and kinda back to hornets.
Chris Enroth:As Ken said, send everything to to Ken. He's always happy to talk to you about bald faced hornets, cicada killers, which is what these usually turn out to be, yellow jacket. And and so I I mean, I do too. I love telling people that my stories with bald faced hornets is that they they can hurt people, but it is unlikely unless you go up and you grab that nest and you give it a hug. So, you know, treat them with respect.
Chris Enroth:They can hurt you, so can a hammer. So just you just you're careful. You're careful with those kind of things.
Ken Johnson:So Exactly. Don't don't throw stuff at their nests.
Chris Enroth:Don't do that.
Ken Johnson:Don't try starting it on fire No. Because you're gonna hurt your
Chris Enroth:tree. Mhmm. You set your tree on fire.
Ken Johnson:You're gonna have angry wasps that are on fire coming after you, so don't do it.
Chris Enroth:Yep. As as much as you think that YouTube video would would become viral and you become rich overnight, you might end up in the emergency room burning down your house. So don't do it. Yes.
Ken Johnson:Alright. Let's let's move on from this. So we've got another question that's come in. So we've got a homeowner that's put down cocoa bean mulch around their new garden pond, and the pond is filled with white jumping worms. So what are they?
Ken Johnson:How do they get rid of them? They have a bunch of jumping worms in the pond?
Chris Enroth:I'm like, well, I don't think jumping worms are white. Jumping worms the the invasive jumping worm is an earthworm type, invertebrate soil dwelling, little little critter. So what I think they are, and if I get permission from the person to throw that to user picture, I'll post that right now. I believe that these are cheese skippers, which is a type of fly. Now these, they're also known as ham ham flies, ham skippers.
Chris Enroth:That's because they usually infest meat, you know you know, any kind of meats. They're also this type of insect is also used by forensics to help date when, like, a crime or a murder has happened. They're known also as, like, cadaver flies. And so they will lay their eggs in in meat, and they will eat as their their maggots form, and then they'll turn into adult flies and go look for more dead stuff or meat and stuff. And when food supplies are scarce, they have been known to infest cocoa beans.
Chris Enroth:And when you when that cocoa bean has been harvested, they harvest that cocoa out of that to help us make delicious chocolate. That cocoa bean hole or shell is now now has that larvae or that egg in there, and they're pretty resilient. Some of what I've read about them is that they can survive some of the heat treatments that these mulches do go through or some of that composting process. And when people go to spread them on their landscape bed, they a few days later, once the moisture levels go up, maybe there's a rain or there's irrigation or something, all of these white maggots, they're technically maggots, will pop up out of the ground, and they jump. They they they jump ever so slightly.
Chris Enroth:And that's what we were seeing here is that these maggots were were jumping from the mulch into the the little brand new garden pond that these folks had. So what to do about this? Remove all of your cocoa bean mulch, if that's an option. And in the case of the person I was talking with, that wasn't an option. It was they spread it over a large area.
Chris Enroth:It was several inches deep, and they're like, I I don't wanna dig all this mulch up and and get rid of it. So cocoa mulch is you is also usually expensive, at least in our neck of the woods, because it's not very common in Illinois. And so the other options are going to be you can pull the mulch aside. You can let that soil dry out. You can treat the mulch in the or the soil with a diatomaceous earth, which in my opinion and Ken, you you can weigh in on this too.
Chris Enroth:Like, I don't think diatomaceous earth works too well for us, at least outside in Illinois. It's just is do you see that same thing?
Ken Johnson:Yeah. Especially, like, this week when it's, like, 100% humidity. Or or we're getting a lot of rain, that that stuff will clump together. And you have to you can use it, but you're anytime it gets wet, it's gonna clump, you have to reapply. So it's more of an indoor or dry climate type use.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. You have scorpions in the Southwest, and diatomaceous earth might be more useful for you. But here in the Midwest, so humid, we get fairly consistent rainfall. The way it acts is actually by cutting and pulling moisture out of that insect. And, you know, when it gets wet, it stops working.
Chris Enroth:So this so there's that. So diatomaceous earth is kind of that organic based option. The other synthetic option would be to treat your mulch bed with a pyrethrin based insecticide. And because these worms are actually maggots, they are insects, the pyrethrin insecticide would kill them.
Ken Johnson:Embrace it. Get some fish. You'll have some well fed fish.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. I oh my gosh. So, yeah, if hopefully, I can use a picture from the question, but if not, I'll describe it, especially for those listening. This is a garden pond that is like, the the bottom of the pond is white with these maggots. I mean, it's it's pretty incredible.
Chris Enroth:So throw some fish in there. They'll have a nice dinner, lunch, breakfast, everything. Yep. I bet it would.
Ken Johnson:So I've never used cocoa malt. Does it smell like chocolate?
Chris Enroth:It does smell like chocolate. Yes. And I think some people will probably make sure that we wanna mention this. It is attractive to dogs, and dogs will eat it, and it is toxic to dogs. So if you do have dogs, want to avoid that.
Chris Enroth:But otherwise, coca mulch is actually I think it's a very pretty mulch, aesthetically pleasing, and I do like that chocolate smell. So if I didn't have a dog and I'm I'm not really worried about the the cheese skippers, but there are some human health issues there. Like, we could talk about those. I I I'd use it. Maybe in a little spot in the garden, not the whole not the whole landscape.
Chris Enroth:But yeah. Did you ever encounter coco mulch down in Florida?
Ken Johnson:I don't remember ever coming to contact with it.
Chris Enroth:They like pine straw down there, don't they?
Ken Johnson:Yeah. Yeah. North Florida. There's lots of pine trees and the pine nugget mulch. That's another of the well, I know the bag stuff you get here, the cypress and the dyed stuff.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. And and I I mentioned I wasn't too concerned about the cheese skipper flies. However, like, they're not gonna necessarily hurt you, but there are have been shown that if we consume, like, the meat, they also do go into cheeses and things like that. If they if we consume that, they actually will live inside of us. Sometimes they will latch onto our intestines.
Chris Enroth:They have hooked mouth openings, and so they can cause us intestinal distress. So they're actually delicacies. There's a type of cheese in Italy where they want them to infest that cheese. They then eat the cheese with the maggots and all in there, and it is supposed to be a delicacy. My I draw the line of blue cheese.
Chris Enroth:Definitely, it's a hard no on this cheese.
Ken Johnson:Road trip. No. Thank you. Eat our cicadas next year and wash it down with some mega cheese.
Chris Enroth:Oh, nope. Can't do it. It's supposed to be really good, though.
Ken Johnson:It's only one way to find out.
Chris Enroth:We'll go to the doctor after that and say, how do you get rid of these parasites in my gut? Probably not good for you.
Ken Johnson:Well,
Chris Enroth:anyway, Ken. Well, let's follow-up gut parasites with a tree question. So someone is considering buying a house but wants to make sure that the roots of some large trees on the property are not are not or will not interfere with the foundation of the home. So the trees are about 25 feet away from the house. How far out do the tree roots go, and is their foundation safe?
Ken Johnson:I would say for most trees, your your roots are definitely about to the the drip line probably two, three times that. So they're they're gonna be so remember, these are good sized mature trees, so they're gonna have the roots up into that up by that foundation. So roots can get into the foundation of the house. They're not gonna cause the cracks. They're not gonna penetrate through that, typically.
Ken Johnson:They're gonna find cracks or something, and it will exploit those cracks and and work their way in. And there's I mean, short of fixing your foundation, there's really no way you can prevent that. You know, they were asking about, you know, where can I see where the roots are? The only thing I can think of is getting an air spade and and getting all that out. There's you wouldn't be able to use a dye or anything because you wouldn't be able to see it and stuff.
Ken Johnson:But it it's probably safe to assume you're gonna have roots up close to them unless you've got some incredibly compacted soils that they can't make it through. And best bet's probably gonna be do a house inspection. Have them pay careful attention to that foundation if they're if you're concerned, see if there's any cracks or anything that may need to be taken care of before you were to purchase the house. And so probably your cinder block brick foundations are probably gonna be a little more likely to have trouble than a than a poured foundation, probably more likely to have cracks that they would be able to to get into. I don't I haven't heard about it happening terribly often.
Ken Johnson:I know it's always a concern of people, but I wanna say it's the exception of the rule, but I don't think it's maybe as common as sometimes it's made out to be. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. I'm no foundation expert, but, I I have I have had water in my basement. And the fix for that, as I was walking around with with the tile slash foundation expert, he pointed out a vertical crack in our poured concrete foundation. And that vertical crack, he said, I bet you that goes all the way from the top to the very bottom of your foundation. So I dug a really deep hole, so deep that, like, I was doing handstands to try to get to the bottom of the foundation.
Chris Enroth:And I didn't make it to the bottom, but I was I was almost there. And he was right. As I could keep digging and digging and digging, and that crack went all the way from the top of that foundation wall all the way to the bottom. And so I I he said, you know, you probably don't have to get the whole thing, but seal as much as you can with a little bit of silicone caulking, and, you know, that that's primary recommendation. Seal, caulk all the the cracks and crevices of your foundation there to help eliminate that.
Chris Enroth:And as Ken said, trees are not they're not roaming the soil with little pickaxes and hammers trying to chip their way into your house. They can only take advantage of a situation. So they can make it worse, but that they they cannot create the crack.
Ken Johnson:No. So we had a in our house our house is over a 100 years old. It's got a brick foundation. We had a large maple tree that we took down a couple years ago, but it was probably ten, fifteen feet from the house. We never had Mhmm.
Ken Johnson:Problems with with that getting into the foundation. So let's say it's it's not gonna happen in that situation or it's never gonna happen, but say more often than not, you're okay. Unless it's growing right on top of the like, you plant it underneath your eave. Mhmm. Then then you may get into some trouble
Chris Enroth:in more ways than one. There's more problems there. You gotta worry about more than just foundation. And I have seen that where a tree literally grows up into that that that roof overhang there, and it was planted there on purpose. And some there's some trees, they're, like, angled out.
Chris Enroth:They had to, like, do some corrective pruning instead of cutting the tree at the base and killing it and planting one properly farther away from the home. They correctly pruned it so that it angled back and forth around the roof, and that's just you're asking for problems.
Ken Johnson:Not a good idea. No. Let's let's go back to the ponds real quick here. So we've got a water lotus. Water lotus is taking over a pond.
Ken Johnson:What can you do to get rid of that?
Chris Enroth:So water lotus, it's the American water lotus, is a native plant to our neck of the woods and but it can take over a pond in a hurry. It is an aggressive spreading water plant. It likes the roots like to be submerged in the water, and the leaves like to emerge above the water. And sometimes the leaves will actually be, suspended above the water, and sometimes the leaves will just be floating on the water. They have a beautiful flower.
Chris Enroth:Their seed heads are often used in arrangements, floral arranging, and I believe every part of that plant is edible. Native Americans would dig the roots and and eat them kind of like a potato. And so it's it's it's a common plant, and it commonly goes and takes over small farm ponds, backyard garden ponds, and the like. So for controlling this, we have a few options. Now most people have tried a lot of the mechanical options, which is pulling by hand, but you can exhaust that root system, especially in a smaller sized pond.
Chris Enroth:So you can just pull and pull and pull as long as as you can keep up with it, and you can eventually kill it. You can shade up the the the pond. So the interesting thing about pondweeds, and if you look at ponds, most of them are growing in full sun. Most pond weeds are adapted to full sun. So there's not many trees growing in the middle of the pond, unless you've got bald cypress or something.
Chris Enroth:So shade covering that area with with some type of tarp or plastic cover for smaller backyard ponds can help kill and eliminate, troublesome garden weeds or pond weeds. Now the water lotus requires a certain depth for it to be able to, photosynthesize and send up a a shoot and and and survive. And if you have a larger pond, the recommendation is to make it make the edges deeper, so four foot or deeper, and these plants cannot grow up and and and grow leaves and flower and so on and so forth. And it's interesting to see this because, especially in my part of the stretch of the Mississippi River, there's a water a lot of water lotus growing along the edges. And you can tell when that main channel is becoming silted in because the water lotus creeps out towards the center of the river.
Chris Enroth:So it it's pretty cool to watch, but not cool if you're a barge if you're a barge captain. So other things, you can draw down your pond. You can empty it if you can. If you have fish, you need to leave at least eight feet of water in the center so they can survive. If if you don't have fish, you can just totally empty it, let it dry out, plants will die.
Chris Enroth:Now a lot of people have tried these things. Sometimes they work. Sometimes, especially with hand pulling, it doesn't work. They often turn to chemical control. There are several herbicides that you can use.
Chris Enroth:You have to make sure that whatever herbicide you use that it is labeled for use on water, surface water, ponds, lakes, etcetera. So the active ingredients that have given known, excellent control, we'll say, for water lotus is going to be imazapyr and two four d. I could give you product names, but I don't know what listeners, viewers, I don't know what you have on your shelf in your hometown. So imazapyr and two four d, they are rated as excellent in terms of controlling water lotus. Mississippi State Extension does recommend a surfactant added to it so that it helps it stick to the leaf.
Chris Enroth:And so read your label directions. It'll tell you how much surfactant to mix into your product there. Glyphosate is another one that doesn't give excellent control. It's considered good control. And, glyphosate is, again, commonly called Roundup, but you do not spray Roundup.
Chris Enroth:There is you have to use a pond. You have to use that product labeled for ponds. So some of those include Rodeo, Aquanet, or Aquamaster, Aquanet, Aquaneet, and Refuge. So those are just a couple different brands out there for the glyphosate based spray, which is kind of middle of the road. Two four d and imazapyr considered excellent, though, in terms of their control.
Ken Johnson:Is this one where people grow them in pots? I think can to kind of avoid some of these issues.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. You could grow them in pots. And especially if you have, like, a hard liner garden pond, it it probably won't spread in that. Now if you have a an, like, a earthen pond and you grow on pots, that rhizome or that that root that it can move probably out of that pot, especially with flowing water. So you can probably slow or reduce its spread in most garden ponds by growing in a pot, but I I I see how it moves up and down the river.
Chris Enroth:And so it does move even though it's, you know, in the water.
Ken Johnson:Well, you bought every year
Chris Enroth:and print it up. That's right.
Ken Johnson:Yes. More work than you want. I
Chris Enroth:think it's a cool plant, and I I I love kind of those emergent kinda shoreline aquatic plants, especially the old stories from the European settlers as they moved to the West, and they talk about canoeing through the bottomlands of the Mississippi River. And it's just it you're literally, they were canoeing through jungles of plants, like, over their head. That pretty fascinating. Well, Ken, our last question of the day is about apples that have large black spots on them. So what are they, and how do they get rid of these black spots?
Ken Johnson:Alright. We'll pop up a picture here right now so you can see what we're talking about. But if you can't see it, so we've got an apple. It's got some large black spots on them. They're kinda sunken.
Ken Johnson:They have these concentric circles or target pattern on them. And more than likely, this is gonna be bitter rot. This is one where you cut it open, kinda have a v shaped necrotic dead area going towards the center of the apple to show a picture of that too. So this is one of the fruit rots. Some are some are fruit rots we see in apples.
Ken Johnson:Bitter rot, black rot, white rot are kind of the three main ones that you see in apple production. And with this, once your apples get it, there's nothing you can do about it. Just just get rid of them and and hope for better luck next year. So so the big thing for these in all orchard, but particularly home orchard, is good sanitation. When these apples die, they may form a mummy.
Ken Johnson:So you just get this big black wrinkly apple that's all shriveled up that hangs on the tree, and that will stay on the tree throughout the winter into the spring. So you wanna make sure you go in and clean all those up because that could be a source of inoculum or where that disease is gonna spread the following spring. So do a good job of sanitation. Get those mummies out of the trees. Get the fruit off the ground that have dropped.
Ken Johnson:They can cause cankers on the on the stems, so sunken areas that are diseased. You wanna prune those out. Just do a good job of getting all that apples, leaf litter, all of that. Get that out of your from underneath your tree, get it out of your landscape, bag it, burn it, whatever you however you need to get rid of that out of your landscape so you're not having all those spores being released in the spring to reinfect your apples next year. Next year, you unless you've got an incredibly disease resistant cultivar, and to my knowledge, there really aren't any cultivars that are gonna be resistant to these fruit rots, you're gonna need to spray.
Ken Johnson:Especially here in the Midwest, we've got a nice humid climate, which is perfect for disease development. It's not like out on the West Coast, California and Washington where they don't have any humidity, and they can get away with not spraying anything. You know, we've gotta do that here. And, you know, there are spray guides, you know, spray charts, you know, at at the different development stages of of tree fruit, whether it's apples, peaches, grapes, what have you, you know, silver tip, petal fall, all those different stages. You make these different sprays to protect your plants from different diseases and pests.
Ken Johnson:So with with these fruit rats for home growers, captan is gonna be your best bet, and this is gonna be on your cover sprays and stuff. And that's gonna protect those apples from those spores landing on them and germinating and affecting your fruit. So good sanitation, and make sure you're following a spray schedule the following year. And captains what's gonna is gonna take care of premature your fungal diseases, in this case, your fruit rots. And I'll say there are some smaller sooty blotch and fly speck.
Ken Johnson:These are small black spots you got on apples. You can rub those off. They're superficial. But, again, spraying will help eliminate those. If you're, you know, you're not selling these, it's not a big deal.
Ken Johnson:You can wipe them off. But commercial production, you can't have that city blotch and fly speck because nobody's gonna buy those.
Chris Enroth:I love polishing an apple straight off the tree with my shirt because you, like, pull it off the tree, and it's this dull, kinda colored apple. Like, you polish it. You wipe off all a lot of that dust and dirt and stuff that's accumulated on over the summer, and it reveals this bright shiny apple. And then you can eat it as long as it's not rotten.
Ken Johnson:Don't wear a white shirt while you're doing that.
Chris Enroth:That's right. You you'd probably be like, I'm gonna eat this thing now. Yeah. Things get dirty outside. It's just the nature of things.
Chris Enroth:So but, Ken, I guess that means I'll just go with now that we've got the the apple rots taken care of, I'm just gonna plant junipers and hawthorns next to my orchard. Is that does that work out still? No. Maybe not. Make an apple orchard upset by planting junipers and hawthorns next to it.
Chris Enroth:So be happy with
Ken Johnson:you. Cedar apple rust. But there are some cultivars a little more tolerant, resistant to that. But, yeah. Home orchard, no big deal.
Ken Johnson:Commercial orchard, yeah, they may get a little
Chris Enroth:They'll be upset. So yeah. Yep. Yep. Well, that was a lot of great information about what's happening around the state and also just what happens in Georgia when it comes to the yellow legged hornet.
Chris Enroth:Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. And a special thank you to Ken for hanging out, answering questions every single week. Ken, thanks for joining me.
Ken Johnson:Thanks for being here too. It's been fun.
Chris Enroth:It's absolutely fun.
Ken Johnson:Go back. Start catching up on emails again here. Let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth:Oh, we shall do this again next week. It will be a garden bite because Ken and I will be at the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois. So, hey, if you wanna see us, stop on by the Illinois Extension tent, and you can chat with one one of us or eve the even more knowledgeable Illinois Extension folks that will also be joining us there. We're gonna have a pollinator display. We're gonna have I'll have ginger there.
Chris Enroth:We're gonna have all kinds of gardening, vegetable, landscaping information. So stop on by, check us out, Indicator, the Farm Progress Show. Listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening or if you're watching this on YouTube, watching. And as always, keep on growing.
Ken Johnson:Good
Chris Enroth:thing this isn't live.