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Talking all things horticulture, ecology, and design.
00:00:04:16 - 00:00:23:13
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois. And we have got a great show for you today. What's going on? I don't know. And by what's going on, I mean, what's going on out in our gardens and landscapes? my goodness. The questions are pouring in.
00:00:23:15 - 00:00:38:23
Speaker 1
We've had drought, we've had rain. We've had all the types of weather this year. And that means problems, problems are occurring. And, you know, I'm not doing this by myself. I'm joined, as always, every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Again.
00:00:39:00 - 00:00:46:16
Speaker 3
Hello, Chris. It's been a it's been an up and down year for the questions and panic that people have had in the garden.
00:00:46:18 - 00:01:07:00
Speaker 1
Most definitely. Now, I think we I think we called it a few weeks ago or like, hey, it's been dry and then we got all this rain like, guess what's coming up? The disease questions like, this other problem that we like is, is building up so too this. So, you know, droughts kind of a silent disaster. Nobody really notices the effects until a few weeks after.
00:01:07:00 - 00:01:25:06
Speaker 1
But then, you know, we have plants that are now dealing with that drought stress that we have occurred like no rain in the month of June. And then what, July, at least for some parts of Illinois where the wettest on record for that month. So it's it has been a definite roller coaster.
00:01:25:08 - 00:01:29:12
Speaker 3
You know, it was dry and then got lots of rain and everybody's tomatoes are cracking.
00:01:30:04 - 00:01:36:17
Speaker 3
And a lot of other fruit issues associated are associated with lots of rain after a lack of water.
00:01:36:19 - 00:01:43:09
Speaker 1
So if you're tomatoes aren't cracked and you're probably growing underneath plastic or something there, you know, in a high tunnel or greenhouse.
00:01:43:09 - 00:01:45:19
Speaker 3
So you've got one heck of a water bill.
00:01:45:21 - 00:02:05:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's true. You've just been dumping the water on the ground there. So I envy you. But I. I wanted to share something with you. Can. So I. I was on a site visit, and I just so happened to come across a beautiful dog day cicada. So let me throw that picture up real quick so I could share this with you.
00:02:05:00 - 00:02:16:11
Speaker 1
So, Ken, what do you see? What I see this lovely cicada coming out of its its shell, its larval pupil.
00:02:16:13 - 00:02:17:24
Speaker 3
Exhibit, an excellent.
00:02:17:24 - 00:02:42:07
Speaker 1
Severe exoskeleton. There we go. I thought it was just gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. Let's see. I kind of came in there more towards on top of it on this picture. But the wings, it's like a rainbow of like blues and yellows and purples. And I'm guessing is that just before the wings sort of harden off and, you know, change to their final color?
00:02:42:13 - 00:02:51:14
Speaker 1
Or did I did I find something rare and unique? Should I go run back to this tree and grab the cicada and and sell it and pin it?
00:02:51:16 - 00:03:03:14
Speaker 3
It looks like the wings are fully expanded. You know, they're probably just hardening off. I've never actually seen one in the process of coming out there for annual cicadas. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
00:03:03:14 - 00:03:23:09
Speaker 1
But we know it's the annual it has the black eyes. It kind of has that army fatigue camo color to that's body. And then yeah, it doesn't have the the red veins or the wings either so but it instead the veins are like I thought it was gorgeous. So you know, look out for those dog day cicadas as they're emerging from their exoskeletons.
00:03:23:09 - 00:03:27:07
Speaker 1
It's it is a lovely sight to see.
00:03:27:09 - 00:03:37:22
Speaker 3
You know, I think their most recent recall, the Wild podcast, was on cicadas as well. So you can learn about scissor grounder to Cicada one, the ones we hear in the summer.
00:03:38:17 - 00:03:48:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, they are Brody's Brody Dunn's podcast, Call of the Wild. So we can link to that one also so you can hear and learn all about the cicadas.
00:03:48:12 - 00:04:03:23
Speaker 1
Well, kid, I guess before we dive into, you know, all the things going on out in the in the world that that we are dealing with her ah thing how are you dealing with things at your backyard in your neck of the woods?
00:04:04:00 - 00:04:21:02
Speaker 1
I been to your place a few weeks ago. Things were jam and coming along. I'm guessing you're just you know it like swimming through tomatoes, corn, celery, all that good stuff.
00:04:21:04 - 00:04:49:06
Speaker 3
That's going on pretty good. The mulch? Yeah. The cover crab mulch is still holding strong. So minimal weeding so far the corn hasn't is just starting to to tassel. But it's like a tall probably like 910 feet tall now. And with the storms that came through snapped a bunch and a half and they actually snap it. So it's just give me a little bit of a disappointing year for corn, but it's now shading out stuff because it's so tall.
00:04:49:06 - 00:05:11:00
Speaker 3
So we've got quite a few peppers. Peppers are doing really well. Tomatoes are coming in pretty well as well, so celery is still nice and very intense celery flavor, I guess. It's been so hot and like a water, but I'll try that when it cools off a little bit. And the rain, we had plenty of rain, but now the rain shut off.
00:05:11:00 - 00:05:13:24
Speaker 3
So I think it's because, you know, the week before we get rain again.
00:05:14:01 - 00:05:40:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, I ate while I was gone for a week. The the bunnies or somebody found I had a lot of parsley. It just vanished. It's just gone. There's no more I know it wasn't like a swallowtail or anything like that. Larva caterpillar, because usually you get stems or something that's left behind. This is just something like pulled it out of the ground in, like, drug it off into the woods and that just there was carnage.
00:05:40:12 - 00:06:02:18
Speaker 1
So it was it was pretty bad. But I really notice this year, you know, I've tried doing a lot of in-ground planting with my vegetables. And every once in a while, you know, we get a really good year. But more consistently, my in-ground vegetables just don't do much of anything. I should do a soil test to figure out why, but I have it.
00:06:02:19 - 00:06:21:21
Speaker 1
So I that's what I should do. But instead of doing that, I even I went through the extra hoops of comparing in my in-ground peppers and then I potted some up into containers and I like compared and contrast them in my containers. I'm getting all types of peppers and stuff that my peppers I put in the ground. Nothing.
00:06:22:02 - 00:06:36:10
Speaker 1
They're just sitting there. They're not unhealthy looking. They're just peppers, you know, They're not full or anything. They're just a like a stalk with some leaves. So I should probably use soil test.
00:06:36:16 - 00:06:38:08
Speaker 3
Same song exposure.
00:06:38:10 - 00:06:46:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, same zone exposure. Yeah, they're near each other. So I'm like, well, that potting soil is giving you something that my native soil is not.
00:06:46:19 - 00:06:51:07
Speaker 3
It sounds like it sounds like a do as I say, not as I do situation.
00:06:51:07 - 00:07:03:04
Speaker 1
Exactly. Yep. Yep. Our listeners viewers just know I soil test for work. I should probably also do it for personal at home use to.
00:07:03:06 - 00:07:04:24
Speaker 3
Learn from our mistakes.
00:07:05:01 - 00:07:35:06
Speaker 1
Yes, exactly. Well, speaking of learning and and mistakes, not necessarily mistakes. Just like the things that nature and plant gardening, horticulture, all that stuff throw at us. We have a slew of questions that have come in to our our inboxes, our offices and all of that. And so can I guess let me kick this one off. I'm going to throw this one to you because you're the one who actually helped me with this question.
00:07:35:08 - 00:07:58:12
Speaker 1
I was sitting at a baseball game a few weeks ago and had a conversation with someone and they said, man, there are these green bugs covering my daylilies and they're just eating all the day lily flowers. I said, Well, boy, I really don't know what that would be. I thought perhaps aphids or something along that, or a falling plant bug, cucumber beetles.
00:07:58:14 - 00:08:12:17
Speaker 1
And then a few days later they sent me an email with a picture and then I sent that email to you just like I have no idea. And what in the world is eating this guy's day? Lily Flowers.
00:08:12:18 - 00:08:21:20
Speaker 3
So this was northern corn Rootworm, I think. I think you mentioned this person lives in surrounded by a corn fields.
00:08:21:22 - 00:08:22:15
Speaker 1
Correct? Yeah.
00:08:22:21 - 00:08:44:00
Speaker 3
So if you live well, if you live anywhere near corn, especially if you have corn fields surrounding it, this is one you probably see before such a small green beetle. So during the the spring itself, the larvae will feed on the roots of corn and they can cause some pretty significant damage to corn. If you get pain of populations and a midsummer timeframe, they'll put pattern into adults.
00:08:44:02 - 00:09:09:01
Speaker 3
The females will lay eggs in the soil and then they'll kind of disperse after egg laying and oftentimes you'll find them feeding on your flowers. So I've got sunflowers. I've seen quite a bit on disability, you know, all the the ray flowers are just right, flowers off, you get them on squash and stuff, all kinds of flowers eating, eating those petals on the flowers.
00:09:09:01 - 00:09:40:04
Speaker 3
You can also see them on on to carrots, pumpkins and stuff, eating on the rinds sometimes as well, along with cucumber beetles. So, so they can they can be an issue this time of year for sure. There's not a whole lot as far as flowers go. There's not a whole lot you can do because anything you'd spray to kill, those are going to kill any pollinator that goes on there short of bagging them, bagging those those flowers and eating them come to be a really find like cheesecloth type really the only way to keep them off, but then it can't see the flowers.
00:09:40:04 - 00:09:58:04
Speaker 3
So what's the point in doing it? I guess if you're taking something to the state fair this week, maybe you'd want to let them keep saying nice, pretty flowers now. But other than that, it's a it's a live and let live. Their stuff's going to look pretty ragged once they start feeding on it. But fortunately, there's not much you can do about it.
00:09:58:06 - 00:10:08:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. And in this case it was daylilies flowers. And so, like, now they only really last a day. So you're not going to miss out that much on on the flowers.
00:10:08:12 - 00:10:13:09
Speaker 3
But on the, on the rotate their crops. Maybe you're.
00:10:13:11 - 00:10:42:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. It seems to be a pretty consistent issue with continuous corn planting and then they even do as after he found out I saw that the northern corn rootworm is has now adapted that it has an extended diapers, which means it can lay eggs and then those eggs can then lay dormant for up to four years. They said, which that's that's a long time to have to wait.
00:10:42:03 - 00:10:44:24
Speaker 1
But really that's only been found in the Midwest.
00:10:45:01 - 00:11:08:19
Speaker 3
So yeah. So if you live by corn, just going of deal with it, I'll answer it. Just deal with it. All right. So our next question here is problems with Penn Oaks. And there's many problems. So this particular one sounds like this tree is is green. So we're not having any of the classes we typically see, but frequently losing large limbs.
00:11:08:19 - 00:11:28:04
Speaker 3
And when storms a person is worried, it's hollow inside is going to fall over. And a house had an oozing wound. They had all kinds of gnats on it about a year ago, seem to heal itself off Now. There's another hole of an ooze or no gnats. So any ideas as to what's going on with this?
00:11:28:06 - 00:11:57:17
Speaker 1
I'd say the biggest problem here is that it is a Pennock. And there you go. Just do a basil cut and replant. But know that you can't do that because pin oaks are massive trees very often in the landscape. So let's start with just pin oak growth habit in general. So our former horticulture east specialist, I think he worked for a pesticide safety team at the end of his career.
00:11:57:17 - 00:12:23:09
Speaker 1
Dave Robson He would often remark to me about how he would see people planting pin oaks in their yards and they plant them because of all the oaks. It's one of the faster growing ones, he said. That grows so fast that sometimes that terminal leader, that main trunk, that tip of that trunk would be so succulent in growth, it would flop, just flop over because it had just grown so quickly.
00:12:23:14 - 00:12:48:06
Speaker 1
And that's if you can give them adequate water, plenty of water. And those pin oaks are going to put on a lot of growth pretty quickly. Now, the problem with PIN Oaks are that they can grow very quickly and they can grow very tall. So the house that I'm in right now, we have actually two pin oaks that are on the northern side of our house and they are one of the tallest trees on our street.
00:12:48:08 - 00:13:13:18
Speaker 1
And if I could have gone back in time, I would have convinced the former owners to either not plant them or plant them farther away from the house, actually, as far away as possible, because as what this person comments about in this is that these pin oaks are losing limbs in windstorms. That is because pin oaks are lousy at shedding their limbs.
00:13:13:20 - 00:13:40:14
Speaker 1
So they're you know, in forest trees are going to lose their lower limbs. It's just how it goes. Pinnock's I find that if you just so much as look at them, maybe accidentally break a tip off of that little branch, that whole branch just up and dies on you, it seals off that branch at the main trunk and it just says, All right, this whole lower branch is done for, you know, Kris looked at me funny.
00:13:40:14 - 00:14:03:09
Speaker 1
I don't like that. And this maybe a maybe I'm being a bit extreme, but they just hold on to those dead limbs and they just hold on to them. And then a storm comes along and they finally break off. So they are really bad at shedding limbs, which, you know, if if they could, like other species, would shed them more normally.
00:14:03:15 - 00:14:36:04
Speaker 1
It might be smaller limbs here and there that are coming off. You wouldn't notice as often. But here it's usually larger limbs that are just fallen out of the tree because of the windstorm. So that's so, you know, a couple of issues there. Now, the oozing full both of my pin oaks and the multiple pinnacles that I have had this year and in years past about this particular oozing hole is has to do with a bacterial infection in the tree itself.
00:14:36:06 - 00:14:57:16
Speaker 1
It's not necessarily a fatal infection, but it's not like it's good for the tree. So what this is, it's called slime Flux, also known as Westwood. But this bacterial infection, what it does is it builds up in this the sap, in the vascular tissue, and it creates a lot of pressure. And that pressure as it builds and builds, what is water like to do?
00:14:57:18 - 00:15:16:11
Speaker 1
It likes to find the easiest way or the lowest point. And so this is the same thing. It will find a wound or some opening and it will use out of that particular wound. It could be a wound created by a lawnmower. It could be a wound created by a woodpecker or a squirrel. It could be a frost crack.
00:15:16:11 - 00:15:45:21
Speaker 1
Any any weakness in that tissue, that pressure of that that slime flux that that that sap will will push out of there. A healthy Pennock can easily wall this off, grow out of it, which is what it sounds like in this particular question is what happened now the other kind of the last part of this question was, well, now there's a new hole, but there's no ooze and there's no insects buzzing around this particular spot.
00:15:45:23 - 00:16:16:15
Speaker 1
What's going on? So I did get a picture of this, and it looks like it's just something either done by a squirrel or perhaps a bird or woodpecker, because I could tell that it's it's a hole about the size of a dime, maybe a bit smaller, and it's jagged and ragged around the edges. And so I guess Ken, if it's an insect boring into wood, it would be more smoother, more it wouldn't be as ragged in terms of how the damage appears.
00:16:16:17 - 00:16:28:09
Speaker 3
Yeah, in my experience, especially a hole that big would be something coming out. And those are typically you think about the hammer lash or was it very smooth margins stuff on them.
00:16:28:11 - 00:17:13:24
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I, I would just say for Pinnock's if you do have them keep a close eye on them for that slime flux and that bacterial infection. Highly do recommend having a certified arborist take a look at these trees to evaluate them and just do everything you can to keep them healthy. And if you are going or you want to plant a pin oak, I would suggest as far away as possible from the house and do a soil test because Penn Oaks are particularly sensitive to our our soils here are kind of higher soils, which then cause a whole other slew of problems where the tree can't take up enough iron and then you wind
00:17:13:24 - 00:17:23:07
Speaker 1
up losing your tree because of that. So Penn Oaks, not awful trees planted far away from the house and good soil.
00:17:23:07 - 00:17:27:08
Speaker 3
You ever hollow trees or burst.
00:17:27:10 - 00:17:30:14
Speaker 1
If always.
00:17:30:16 - 00:17:36:21
Speaker 3
All of them will have the tools. But there I think there's different ways you can tell. But I don't know how to do it.
00:17:36:23 - 00:17:50:15
Speaker 1
And I some of them have very fancy tools. Others take a rubber mallet and they like whacked the trunk of the tree and they put their ear on it like, yeah, it's hollow in there. So, you know, like an old prospector would know, looking for gold.
00:17:50:15 - 00:17:58:12
Speaker 1
Well, Ken, you have been seeing a lot of teeny tiny little aphids everywhere.
00:17:58:14 - 00:18:05:00
Speaker 1
Why? And it's like, yeah, where are we seeing all these aphids at some again?
00:18:05:02 - 00:18:30:17
Speaker 3
So last year some places had a lot of aphids, but this year I've had more aphid questions than I had last year, and I don't know if that's where it was dry. So plants are stressed and that's them. Usually we see aphids more in a cooler temperatures, but even now into the summer, getting questions on aphids, on tomatoes to request aphids, covering tomatoes, corn, milkweed and necessarily oleander aphids on milkweed, other types of aphids as well.
00:18:30:17 - 00:18:56:17
Speaker 3
So it seems to be at least here in Jacksonville area, if it's everywhere, at least in some places. So fortunately with aphids, typically they're not going to cause enough damage to kill the plant. It'll stress them some, but they're typically not feeding enough for populations don't always get high enough to cause a lot of damage. You can see that especially on smaller plants or if they get you get a whole bunch of them.
00:18:56:17 - 00:19:21:08
Speaker 3
On the new succulent growth feeding like he could kill that new growth. But a lot of times nature takes care of itself. So there's all kinds of different predators as lady beetles, lay wings, a parasitoid wasp, all kinds of things they'll feed on if it's a lot of times if you leave them, nature will run its course and get those populations down where they're not causing issues.
00:19:21:10 - 00:19:38:03
Speaker 3
Another, if you've got high populations and you might try to knock them down quickly, just strung a stream of water from her hose, blast them off the plant, obviously don't want to do like a pressure washer and strip all the lives of plant, but knock the aphids off the plants, not times they don't. They won't necessarily climb back on.
00:19:38:05 - 00:20:09:15
Speaker 3
Do that a couple of times. A lot of times it's all you need to do to reduce those populations. And then, you know, balls fails. You can't use insecticides if you're doing this on blooming plants. Most insecticides nowadays say do not use on plants that are in bloom. So the more of a vegetable crop type situation and if you're going to be using insecticides and you can use soaps or oils and, and there's other things, so there there's some safer or less toxic to say, products that you can use for aphids.
00:20:09:20 - 00:20:36:18
Speaker 1
I've seen a lot of issues on tulip poplars and when you have aphids up in those shade trees, people underneath that tree, they often get coated in that wet, wet honey. What does that honey do? What do you do? Okay. Yeah. And so I but then a few weeks later, I start seeing a lot more lady beetles and a lot more other insects up in that.
00:20:36:18 - 00:20:40:13
Speaker 1
That canopy go into town.
00:20:40:15 - 00:20:50:23
Speaker 3
A lot of know if if you ever give the predators and stuff a little time to find them, they'll look clean up pretty well. So you got to be patient and give them the chance.
00:20:51:00 - 00:21:01:24
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I think yeah, we'll talk about this in a second. So yeah, when we get to Magnolia Scale.
00:21:02:01 - 00:21:13:15
Speaker 3
Before we get to that. So we have another tree question here. So why did my ash tree fall over? It seemed healthy and we've treated four treated it for EAB every year. Right.
00:21:13:17 - 00:21:22:21
Speaker 1
Well, let me let me share some pictures again here. They get them reloaded and the old picture sharing machine.
00:21:22:21 - 00:21:43:01
Speaker 1
Well, can I can you see my screen with looks like an ornamental pear on the left side of the image already is dealing with some problems, But then there's a little vacant spot there in the landscape as well. Yes. All right. So we'll see if you also see you can can figure out what's what's wrong with this.
00:21:43:01 - 00:22:06:13
Speaker 1
This here picture of. my gosh, is that Jordy Nelson's jersey from the Green Bay Packers wide receiver Hall of Famer. I'm so sorry, Ken. As a Bears fan, I didn't mean to show you that picture. I a big fan of Jordy. He went to Kansas State. That's where I went. So go Wildcats.
00:22:06:13 - 00:22:09:22
Speaker 1
Back to the issue at hand.
00:22:09:22 - 00:22:25:18
Speaker 1
So this is the former location of an ash tree. I would say the age of this tree was about maybe a foot, you know, maybe about 12 inches, I would say. And that's
00:22:25:18 - 00:22:28:14
Speaker 1
check this out, Ken. What does that look like now?
00:22:28:14 - 00:22:31:03
Speaker 3
Some crazy circling birds there.
00:22:31:05 - 00:23:00:05
Speaker 1
Some nasty, nasty, circling routes. And this is after a stump grinder went through here and probably cut out some other routes as well. And so this is just one side of the tree. As I kicked around more and more soil, I uncovered more and more gor circling this right here. This is a massive circling route on on on kind of next to that other more apparent ones.
00:23:00:07 - 00:23:32:06
Speaker 1
And this one is really just a wall of wood of of roots that was strangling this tree that was really planted too deeply. Again, more, more shots of these circling roots. Again, there's the ones that are apparent. There's even more on this other side. And and really what happened in this instance was the strong wind had come through and had there was a little bit of an opening in this neighborhood.
00:23:32:06 - 00:24:08:07
Speaker 1
And we could see directly to the the kind of the north northwest ish side of the neighborhood where this wind came through. And just pushed this tree over that it had been curdled and rotted at the base and it just snapped like a toothpick. And that's not it. That's a different tree. So, yeah, he's girdling roots. So that goes into the the idea that how we plant our tree and really the selection of those original materials that we put in the ground is so important.
00:24:08:09 - 00:24:27:06
Speaker 1
And trying to eliminate as many circles and roots is as we can see. There's a lot of different strategies to do that. Some of them is just like making some slip cuts on the root ball. That's probably the least invasive one. The others than cutting doing the box cut method where you just shave off those outer roots when you take them out of that pot.
00:24:27:08 - 00:24:46:07
Speaker 1
And then the probably the most aggressive method is you take that tree out of the pot and you wash off every piece of potting mix on that root ball and you prune off everything that looks like a circle and root, and then you splay those roots out in the planting hole, and then you plant that tree to try to eliminate any circling roots.
00:24:46:09 - 00:25:06:21
Speaker 1
Very often does not happen though, and as is the case, you know, you invest the money and time of buying the tree, planting it, and then treating it for emerald ash borer and taking care of this tree for years only for it to already be dead, you know, because of the way it was raised and planted in the nursery.
00:25:06:23 - 00:25:18:03
Speaker 1
And then, you know, all of that money, all that time, all that investment in that tree, it just snaps off like a like a toothpick.
00:25:18:05 - 00:25:21:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. Those are some crazy girdling roots.
00:25:21:14 - 00:25:22:02
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:25:22:04 - 00:25:25:20
Speaker 3
I've ever seen one that mad.
00:25:25:22 - 00:25:50:16
Speaker 1
It was. It was quite a sight to see and how I mean, I didn't find a non girdling root in this whole planting hole. They were all going in a circle. So. And when I asked the folks where this was planted, this was planted by a landscaper, they did not plant this tree. So that's just be mindful, you know, keep an eye on things.
00:25:50:18 - 00:26:08:22
Speaker 1
The other thing that I also tell folks, if they're like and you know, when I see circling roots, the tree's still alive. I do the the wiggle test. We've probably talked about it on the show before, but I grabbed the tree by the trunk, kind of low down, if I can, and I push and pull on and I wiggle it.
00:26:08:24 - 00:26:26:05
Speaker 1
Try not to break it if it's especially if it's a small or a wee wee tree. But if I can see that soil of that RuPaul move, I know that it has not anchored into that native soil and that it's probably got more and more circling roots and it might not be established at all into that native soil.
00:26:26:07 - 00:26:32:07
Speaker 1
It's only a matter of time before something like this happens. A windstorm comes and just snaps a tree and a half.
00:26:32:18 - 00:26:33:21
Speaker 3
It's crazy.
00:26:33:23 - 00:26:39:07
Speaker 1
Yeah, I was. I was. Well, it was not like.
00:26:39:09 - 00:26:39:10
Speaker 3
A.
00:26:39:10 - 00:27:05:12
Speaker 1
Hundred percent of weird, depending on your perspective. It was a pretty interesting thing to come across. Yeah. Speaking of coming across, interesting things. Another one that I have also seen a lot of this year, again, you have been getting it seems like it's coming from your neck of the woods and you might be responsible for this Magnolia scale.
00:27:05:17 - 00:27:19:18
Speaker 1
This stuff is everywhere. I'm getting calls from southern Illinois, eastern Illinois, western Illinois. I'm not getting much from northern Illinois, but it seems to all be happen in central Illinois and southward. So Magnolia Scale, what is the deal in talking?
00:27:19:18 - 00:27:45:07
Speaker 3
Yeah, talking to some other people, it seems to be this year and last couple of years, it's there seems to be more more and more calls about magnolias scale For whatever reason, they say I have not been going around and spreading it. Not yet anyway. So if you're not familiar, if you got to see our native magnolias don't typically have problems with it, they may get it, but they don't really cause many issues.
00:27:45:09 - 00:27:50:22
Speaker 3
It's more the are non-native species.
00:27:50:22 - 00:28:18:01
Speaker 3
star saucer. And Lily Magnolias are some of the more most susceptible ones that they found for these whereas are are native species cucumber tree magnolia is very is pretty resistant to it and severely damaged and like sweet bay magnolia I found it is rarely attacked. So while this is going to depend on the type of magnolia but I think a lot of people have these non-native or higher and hybrid types magnolias.
00:28:18:01 - 00:28:37:17
Speaker 3
That's probably why we're seeing it more and more. So these are this time you're either going to be white or maybe even pinkish on the branches, usually underside of branches. They produce a tremendous amount of honey. You do see a lot of city mold, a black fungus. Fungal growth on the leaves of plants makes everything look unsightly. Perfect car under it.
00:28:37:19 - 00:28:58:08
Speaker 3
Car is going to be nice and sticky and if you don't drive it for a while to clean it, it's going to get nice and black as well. And with these manager it can be a little bit tricky. And a lot of this is going to depend on the timing. So this time of year, now we're going into August, what times the eggs are going to start hatching and the crawlers not only for Magnolia Scale, but for scale in general.
00:28:58:08 - 00:29:19:23
Speaker 3
Crawlers are going to be the easiest age to manage because they haven't created that hard coating that's going to protect them from contact insecticide sprays. So most crawlers are out and that's when we want to apply insecticides to kill those because the females, once they lay their eggs, they'll die. So they'll be in and they can stick around on the tree for for a period of time.
00:29:19:23 - 00:29:40:12
Speaker 3
So you may need to scrape them off if you are treating to make sure they're dead and stuff. And subsequent years. So timing here. So the timing is important. Now you can do it again in the spring kind of when they start waking up, you can do a dormant spray as well. But the problem one problems I think with this is magnolias, they can get pretty big.
00:29:40:14 - 00:29:59:10
Speaker 3
And for a typical homeowner, you're probably not going to have the equipment to be able to spray 20, 30 feet up into a canopy of a tree, which is going to cause some issues with getting good coverage because you can get the bottom fine if you're not getting the top, you're not going to control the manual scales up there and they're just going to keep spreading.
00:29:59:12 - 00:30:36:22
Speaker 3
So you can use systemic insecticides as well. This can be done in the fall. And they had some success over those in the Ohio State. They did some studies and they found flying imidacloprid plants in early May, did a really good job of kind of managing manually a scale. So and again, that may be something you're having a pest or landscape company, some kind of pest control people applying this as well depending on on how big the tree and stuff is and whether you're systemic, you're applying that to the soil.
00:30:36:22 - 00:31:01:05
Speaker 3
The plant will take that up, move that insecticide throughout the tree and protect itself. So, so much like in EAB emerald ash borer management with that. So there are things you can do, but timing and proper application are going to be important for that. And I think that's one of the reasons why people may not get adequate management on that.
00:31:01:07 - 00:31:26:08
Speaker 3
And another interesting thing with this is ants will often farm or protect them. Same thing with aphids. These insects that produce honeydew ants will feed on that and they will protect those insects from natural enemies. So there's a some research done in Kentucky, and they found that if magnolia trees were, ants were excluded. So they put up like sticky stuff so you couldn't climb up and down the trees.
00:31:26:10 - 00:31:40:05
Speaker 3
There is an 82% reduction in the number of magnolias scale on those trees because natural enemies could then get to them and attack them. So we want to be killing all of our ants. But just a interesting aside.
00:31:40:07 - 00:32:02:04
Speaker 1
Yes, that was the question I was going to ask you about. The aphids were were the ants. I have seen ants take even like caterpillars that aren't going to bother the aphids or the scale and take them and throw them off the plant just like everybody off except for the aphids or scale, because we love their poop, we're going to drink that.
00:32:02:06 - 00:32:04:22
Speaker 1
It's full of sugar. Goodness.
00:32:04:24 - 00:32:14:20
Speaker 3
It'll be there. Basically, you know, cattle ranchers, they're there tending to them and protecting them and making sure nothing gets to them.
00:32:14:22 - 00:32:40:08
Speaker 1
And again, let me stress also the importance of personal protective equipment, PPE, when you're spraying into trees, anything above your head, which I don't recommend, I say if you're spraying above your head to hire someone or don't do it or, you know, figure something else out, the very common active ingredient I see for Meg Magnolia Scale crawl or control is mouth tie on.
00:32:40:13 - 00:32:58:04
Speaker 1
So it's a pretty potent insecticide. It may not even be available in some states anymore. And so just please protect yourself. Don't please, you know, put a mask on or something. Don't spray with your mouth wide open, you know, up into the tree. Just drift back down. Back down in your mouth.
00:32:58:06 - 00:33:03:07
Speaker 3
Yeah. No T-shirt, shorts, sandals, cover as much of your body as again.
00:33:03:09 - 00:33:04:08
Speaker 1
Yes.
00:33:04:10 - 00:33:12:15
Speaker 3
And above your head, you probably won't look at coveralls. Or especially if you have to get under the tree. You don't have anything that's powerful enough to stand yet.
00:33:12:15 - 00:33:27:21
Speaker 1
Further away and you think you'll keep it off of you. But it it can drip easily. You know, you'll realize that soon. It's raining. Yeah. Insecticide All around you, though. Yep. To protect yourself.
00:33:27:23 - 00:33:29:13
Speaker 3
Read the label.
00:33:29:15 - 00:33:31:24
Speaker 1
Read it. Really good. Follow it.
00:33:32:04 - 00:33:46:15
Speaker 3
All right, now we've got one more question we haven't necessarily heard about, but we might potentially hear about it since it's this year is a cicada year as the oak leaf goal might.
00:33:46:17 - 00:33:57:00
Speaker 1
So many goals for oaks. And now we have this one owl and I'm itching right now just thinking about it. Describe this oak leaf goal might.
00:33:57:02 - 00:34:30:10
Speaker 3
So back in 2007, in the Chicago area, there's a lot of reports of people coming down with more rashes and itching really bad. And they found it was more the most likely culprit. I think they confirmed that it was Oakleaf gall mites. So this is a a mite that's around all the time. And they typically feed on some some midges that form gulls pocket gulls usually I think it was pinnock trees and oak trees though who might have a crawl in there.
00:34:30:12 - 00:34:54:22
Speaker 3
The females will feed on those, those larvae, that's why larvae damages and then they'll reproduce, you know, create more mites. And that kind of cycle goes on. And and sometimes they can reach levels where they can cause problems or fall to the ground. Once they're that gull no longer has any midges in it that fall to the ground in hopes of the wind will disperse them.
00:34:54:22 - 00:35:15:19
Speaker 3
And if they land on people they'll be, I don't know, can cause that itching and an irritation and stuff. But in 2007 they found they're actually feeding on eggs that cicadas lead. So I guess periodical cicadas of the late eggs and the tips of branches all over the place. We have probably billions, if not trillions of cicada eggs all over the place now.
00:35:15:19 - 00:35:37:04
Speaker 3
So we have this this giant food source for these mites and feeding on them. Populations explode. We have more mites falling to the ground, landing on people. And typically these are going to be like the neck, shoulder, chest area because they're falling down from trees by people. I think a saw was usually 10 to 16 hours after being exposed to them is when you start touching and stuff.
00:35:37:04 - 00:36:03:02
Speaker 3
So it's kind of at first people kind of had a hard time associating it as how this happened and stuff. But through investigation, they, they narrowed it down to this particular mite. So let's say it's going to happen, but we have seen it in the past. I think they saw it out in my Washington, D.C., in Ohio in previous years, an uptick in these mites after following in years they had periodical Skitter emergence
00:36:03:02 - 00:36:03:14
Speaker 3
out.
00:36:03:16 - 00:36:14:02
Speaker 1
So in addition to watching out for chiggers coming from brush underfoot now don't stand under the oak trees chiggers.
00:36:14:02 - 00:36:16:22
Speaker 3
From below and go mites from above.
00:36:17:18 - 00:36:26:05
Speaker 1
it's a rough year for them cicada folks. Maybe I lucked out not having any periodical cicadas in my backyard, so. Ooh.
00:36:26:07 - 00:36:48:09
Speaker 3
Yeah. And so, you know, some of the recommendations you try to avoid areas that could potentially have these which easier said than done depending on where you're at, you know, again, trying to cover as much of your skin as possible, removing that clothing if you're outside of an area where these potentially are ads showering frequently, if you're going to be exposed these long periods of time.
00:36:48:09 - 00:37:10:20
Speaker 3
So you get them off your body, stuff like that. I've heard conflicting advice on an insect repellent like DEET. Whether or not it will work, it's not going to hurt to put it on. But there's some some people say recommended, others say don't bother because it doesn't really work. So take that for what it's worth. But I would say maybe we're on the side of caution.
00:37:10:20 - 00:37:15:00
Speaker 3
Put it on. If nothing else, you'll repel the mosquitoes and and ticks to yourself.
00:37:15:00 - 00:37:26:06
Speaker 1
That's right. That's right. Yeah. Another good insect repellents, Iquitos and Texas. Yeah, sounds like those. But it sounds like those gall mice are just falling on you. Taking a bite?
00:37:26:08 - 00:37:48:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's summer. They can produce, you know, a tree can produce thousands of them. Tens of thousands. And that's without periodical skeeters. And there's this giant food source. And now its periodical, Skeeters have been hatching. I've seen pictures on social media that people have managed to see the actual nymphs coming out, hatching out and stuff.
00:37:48:21 - 00:38:01:05
Speaker 3
I have not seen any at most of the egg laying in my yard is just too high up to seem a few. They're low enough. I haven't seen any. They probably already hatched more.
00:38:01:07 - 00:38:05:04
Speaker 1
Keep watered can stay vigilant. Take those pictures when they do
00:38:05:04 - 00:38:16:02
Speaker 1
well that was a lot of great information about what is going on around Illinois as we get started with August here in 2024.
00:38:16:02 - 00:38:34:09
Speaker 1
Well, a good growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by me, Kristin Roth. Hey, again, thanks for being with me as always, every single week chatting now about, you know, some of the issues and problems we've been seeing as we get into the later part of the summer.
00:38:34:11 - 00:38:43:06
Speaker 3
Yes, thank you. It was fun and probably enjoyed those gurgling or it's more than I should have. But those those are impressive.
00:38:43:08 - 00:38:48:08
Speaker 1
We and we enjoyed them so that you, dear listeners and viewers, can do something about them.
00:38:48:10 - 00:38:50:09
Speaker 2
Yes.
00:38:50:11 - 00:38:53:06
Speaker 3
And let's do this again next week.
00:38:53:21 - 00:39:18:15
Speaker 1
we shall do this again next week. Old timey Garden remedies. Do they work? What are some interesting ones out there that we probably would not hatch ourselves doing anymore? Well, we're going to chat about those next week. It'll be a fun one. Looking at some of them old timey stuff that, yeah, we don't often recommend anymore. So we're going to cover those.
00:39:18:17 - 00:39:25:20
Speaker 1
Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening or if you're watching us on YouTube watching and as always, keep on growing.