Pastora Fall Treatments

 Great pictures of the September 20 application of Pastora Herbicide on a bermudagrass pasture.  We are looking at the potential for Pastora to control KR Bluestem in bermudagrass and so far the results are great.

Pecan Weevil Can Be Bad

Weevil death rate in a 2 year cycle is 66.9-96 percent and for 3 years is 99.6 percent.  We lose a lot of pecan weevils before they ever get out of the ground.  Males feed on an average of .29 nuts per day while females feed on .23 nuts per day.  We always worry about the number of pecans damaged from feeding but that is very small compared to egg lay.  Males live on average 21 days while females live 23.8 days.  It takes 5 days from ground emergence for a female to start laying eggs.  Females lay eggs in an average of 22.7 nuts per female.  It doesn’t take too many weevils to mean a lot of damage.  For many commercial growers even one weevil is too many.  These early emerging weevils can be the most costly but the late weevils can end up in a sack of saleable pecans which is a real problem. 

Cold Tolerant Citrus

Thanks to Dr. Larry Stein who has been working with citrus cold tolerance and variety selection for years.  He has tested Satsuma Mandarin Miho and found it will tolerate the cold around Georgetown.  It gets 10-12 feet tall and 13-15 feet wide, perfect for our yards.  You would pick it in or around Thanksgiving.

Another Bradford Pear Limb Falls

There has been a lot of problems this year with Bradford Pears.  First they didn't do well after the freeze and have been showing it all summer.  Second they have had problems with Cotton Root Rot fungus and many are dying.  CRR has been a problem and will continue to be a problem since it is in the soil but for some reason it has been more of a problem this year than normal.  Whether it is a cotton field or a Bradford pear we have seen more CRR and unfortunately there is nothing you can do.

This Bradford pear is along the Inner Loop in Georgetown.  You can tell that it was growing at a very close crotch angle and so has included bark.  Included bark is where the two branches are formed and as they get bigger and start to grow together the bark keeps them from forming a solid unit.  The two branches will continue to grow but they are pushing against each other and weakening the whole tree.  In this case the only attachment for the branch was deep down and very small for a branch this size.  This is because it couldnt get bigger because of all the other branches.

Worst Disease of Trees!

I cant tell you how many times I have been called out to diagnose a tree disease and this is the problem.  Most people are good at looking up and seeing dead or dying branches but they fail to look down to see the real cause.  This is simply weedeater damage to the bark which eventually will lead to tree death.