Do You Have Borers or Just a Woodpecker?

The yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius), a member of the woodpecker family, is a migratory bird whose summer breeding range includes Texas. The identifying field markings of adult birds are a black crescent on the breast, pale yellow belly, white wing stripe, and a crimson crown. The male also has a crimson chin and throat, distinguishing him from the female whose chin and throat are white.

Although insects make up part of its diet, the sapsucker is better known for its boring of numerous holes in the bark of live trees to obtain sap, the activity from which it derives its name.

The yellow-bellied sapsucker is the only member of the woodpecker family to cause this type of injury. More than 250 species of woody plants are known to be attacked. In Texas they love our oak species and seem to be particularly fond of red oak and burr oak but they love many species of trees and even shrubs.

The sapsucker bores neat rows of 1/4-inch holes spaced closely together through the bark of trees along and around portions of the limbs or trunk. As these holes fill with sap the sapsucker uses its brush-like tongue to draw it out. These holes are periodically enlarged and portions of the cambium and inner bark, together with the fresh sap, are eaten.  Puncture wounds and resulting sap flow on branches and trunks of trees are the most obvious symptoms of injury inflicted by the sapsucker.

After repeated attacks on the same area of a tree, large patches of bark may be removed but I seldom see this happen. If this area is girdled, the portion of tree above this point will die. Many small limbs are killed and sometimes the trunk is girdled and the whole tree is killed but not often. Sapsucker feeding on shade and ornamental trees leaves unsightly bleeding wounds that attract bees, hornets, and other insects to the sweet, oozing sap.

Early in the spring the sapsucker tests many trees around its selected nesting site by making sample drillings before selecting ones it prefers. These trees, because of quantity or sugar content of the sap, are visited several times a day for the rest of the season and sometimes are used as a food source for several years.

Feeding wounds serve as entry courts for a wide variety of wood decay or stain fungi and bacteria. On high quality hardwoods, sapsucker wounds cause a grade defect called "bird peck" that lowers the value of the trees. Many forest trees are attacked high in the crowns, making light feeding wounds or sample drillings less evident. A condition known as black bark may develop which results from certain fungi colonizing the sap flow and discoloring the bark, and is good evidence that injury exists.

To discourage sapsuckers from feeding on a favorite shade tree, wrap hardware cloth or burlap around the area being tapped or smear a sticky repellent material, such as bird tanglefoot, on the bark. On large acreage or orchards, leave favorite feeding trees of the sapsucker untreated. Birds will concentrate their feeding activities on these favorite trees, which often protects nearby trees from serious injury.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Federal regulations promulgated under its authority prohibit shooting or trapping of sapsuckers. Shooting of this species would be an ineffective control anyway because transient birds tend to replace occasional losses to local sapsucker populations.

Bareroot, Balled and Burlapped and Container Grown Plants

Winter is a great time to plant trees and shrubs. It is highly recommended that you put any tree or shrub out well before hot weather to give plants a time to grow some roots before they have to face hot temperatures.

Container plants have the advantage of having all of their roots intact and ready to grow if the pot was properly cared for. Container grown plants are great but be careful! Nurseries grow plants in pots so that they can be sold easily but trees continue to grow even in a pot. This growing means that pots can become too small for the tree as it grows and so the plant becomes root-bound (stunted). To check and see if a plant is root-bound just hold the pot and lift the tree out of the pot. If the roots are just to the pot sides and no roots are circling then the tree should be okay. When planting a container grown plant dig a hole bigger than the plant by double the width but no deeper. Remove the container and plant into the hole as quickly as possible. Air kills the little white hair roots very fast if not put into the ground. Once the hole is back filled with soil then water thoroughly to remove the air spaces.

B&B or Balled and Burlapped plants are not container grown and you need to understand that before ordering them. These plants may have been grown in a nursery but they were dug out of the ground so that many of the roots have been cut off but the soil ball is still intact and very heavy. In fact there should be about 10-12 inches of ball for every inch of tree trunk diameter. When you get a B&B plant remove all plastic including any string or twine. You can leave the burlap only if it is not plastic. If there is a wire basket you can leave it as the roots will grow right through. The biggest problem with B&B trees is that the hole is usually dug with the same tree spade that dug the tree. Tree spades leave the hole sides very slick and hard for roots to penetrate. The best hole is wider but not deeper than the ball.

Bareroot trees are just trees that have been dug very carefully in the nursery so that the roots are pretty much intact but there is no soil. As you can imagine these trees are much more fragile but without the soil they are easier to handle both for the nurseryman and you. Most bareroot trees are dug and then “healed in” at the nursery till you purchase them. To plant them be very sure you keep the roots moist at all times while you’re planting. Dig the hole as deep as the roots go and just as wide. Put the tree in the hole and back fill slowly adding dirt while you pack it. Once the hole is full you need to water well to take out air pockets. Bareroot trees need to be planted now and most fruit and nut trees are sold this way.

God's Creation, Our Work and Happiness

This was my speech to a Men's Group recently and I thought it might generate a conversation or two!

I have three things I want to discuss with you this morning and they have been on my mind since I was asked to speak.  I want to get you think with me about God’s great creation, our work in that creation and what brings us happiness in that creation.

First, I am an agriculturist and a scientist/educator.  In these roles I find myself investigating many things but particularly those things related to plants and animals.  I am constantly amazed at how intricate and detailed the world is around us.  From the sub- cellular level to the infinite number of stars and galaxies there is a tremendous level of organization that points to a fantastic creator God.  Certainly the Bible speaks of his wonders but so does all the physical world that we live in.  All you have to do is look closely at your hand or listen to your own breathing or try to hear your heart beating in your ears and you realize God is at work.  On the cellular level we have now discovered that cells are composed of tiny machines with gears, tracks, engines and more.  There is even keys and locks so tiny we know they are there but can't see them.  On the galaxy level we now know that the sheer mass of space has a tremendous influence on our planet starting simply with gravity but also through normal matter and dark matter and holding us in our position relative to the sun.  If the moon was just a little closer the tides would cover large portions of where we live and make it impossible to even live near the coast.

That being said I was listening to a program the other day about a group, SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, that spends its life searching in outer space.  They are listening and looking into outer space hoping to find life and to hear ET reach out to us.  A PhD astronomer and SETI researcher Seth Shostak was speaking about how fascinating the multitudes of galaxies were and how intricately they fit together and worked together.  He was brilliant as he described in detail all the things “out there” and then he switched to the obvious reality that life is “out there” and his brilliance left him.  His comment was that with all this intricate detail that there had to be a chance that there is life out there and that they would most certainly be smarter than we are.  How can you go from discussing the detail you see in our universe to a conclusion that there is a “chance” that life exists somewhere else?  God creates with a purpose and all that he creates points to him.  If there were other forces at work then why do the laws that govern this world also govern the entire universe?

Let me give you a philosophy I have about our relationship with creation and God.  Number one, God is in control.  Number two, God gives us the knowledge we have.   All knowledge is from him.   We don't discover something new that he didn't know or give us himself. Number three, humans are Gods creation that he loves and has redeemed. They have more value than all else in creation.  His focus and ours is first on him, then people, then creation in that order.

For my second point let me start by saying that from the beginning of creation we see God working and after he creates man he puts him in the garden to work it.  God works and he created us to work and through that work to bring glory to him.  Sin came into this world and through it the ground was cursed but not our work.  In fact we know that we will work even when we are in heaven.  Even now physicists know that there is an underlying power or energy that is powering even our cells.  In science we point to matter/antimatter, light and more but still there is something underlying all these sources of power.  God is at work and if he stops working we cease to exist.

So, God is working and on a parallel track, God is also working through us.  Our work is from God and for God bringing him a great deal of pleasure and glory.  God loves what we do from the simple street sweeper/dishwasher to the President of the United States to the Pastor of our churches.  At the foot of God we all have equal worth and our work, all our work, has equal value.  Too much of the time we look on work as bad, something to be endured when we should be looking at our work as worship.  Follow the logic, if God wants us to work as he is working, our work gives glory to God, so our work is not just about us it is about us and God in partnership.  God is doing his part and we have our part, God creates the cow, we milk it!

Today, take a moment to consider what you do and who you are working for.  Don't consider your job, your work, as something you have to hurry through but actually something that God created for you that is good for you and also brings God glory.  Now with sin and our fallen world there is much that frustrates us but this frustration is not the work we do but sin that has frustrated our work.  

Lastly let me talk about two things that will make your “work” more enjoyable.  First, psychologists have published study after study that prove it is good mental therapy when we do something for someone else more needy than we are.  People who struggle with self esteem issues, depression, etc all benefit when they get outside themselves and serve other people.  So, in the process of doing your work for God also do your work for someone else.  If I remember right we are to love God and love our neighbor which just is what our work can do as we if we do our work for God and for others.

The second thing about our work that will make us happy is through the money we earn in our work.  You have heard many times that money can't buy you happiness but we now know that it can.  Michael Norton with Cambridge University did a study in Canada with money and college students that is quite interesting.  He randomly gave college students different amounts of money and told them to either spend it on themselves or on someone else.  After they spent the day doing this then Michael asked them that night to rate their happiness.  Overwhelmingly the group who spent on others was happier than the group that spent on themselves.  Michael was so impressed with the results in Canada that he went to a country that is much poorer, Uganda, and repeated the test.  Again, the people who spent on others was consistently happier than the group that spent on themselves.  Wasn’t this the problem with the rich, young ruler who questioned Jesus.  I believe he knew something was wrong with himself but couldn’t put his finger on just what.  Jesus went to the heart of the matter, give your money away!

As I finish let me leave you with this.  Recognize God in his creation and spend time understanding your role in that creation.  Your work does matter, it fits into what God is doing and even though he is sovereign he has chosen to work in this world through you. Pure joy is knowing these two points while recognizing that God loves us all and when we serve others like us with our work and our money we are in God’s will doing what he is doing.

Soil Temperature to Plant

I get asked all the time when its time to plant.  Well the best answer is it depends. The reason it depends is that each species of plant will germinate at different soil temperatures. Right now we are buying seed for planting both corn and sorghum.  Corn needs 50 degree or higher consistent soil temperatures and sorghum needs 60.  Pioneer has a great article on corn emergence you should read:   https://www.pioneer.com/home/site/us/agronomy/soil-temp-corn-emergence/

Grasshoppers in Winter

You don't imagine that a grasshopper can survive a winter but here is one!  It is Sunday, February 8, 2015 on a warm, bright afternoon and out jumps this grasshopper. I was surprised that she even moved but she did more than that as I tried to catch her.  I sure hope we aren't plagued again this year like we have been the last few years!