Water young trees and shrubs suffering in drought
By ROBERT KESSLER Penn State Cooperative Extension Franklin County office

COMING EVENTS

July 23 to 28 - Shippensburg Community Fair, Shippensburg Fairgrounds, Possum Hollow Road, Shippensburg.

July 28 - Summer Garden Experience, Southeast Research and Extension Center, 1446 Auction Road, Manheim.

Aug. 1 - 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Farm and Safety Day Camp, Chambersburg Road & Gun Club, Call Extension office at 263-9226 for information and registration.

Aug. 14 - 10 a.m., Cut Flower Trials and Flower Arranging Demonstration, Horticulture Garden.

Aug. 22 - Noon, Tomato Tasting Day, Horticulture Center on Franklin Farm Lane, Chambersburg, open to public. Call 263- 9226.

Aug. 19 to 25 - Franklin County Fair, Chambersburg Rod and Gun Club, 3725 Warm Spring Road, Chambersburg.

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DISEASE ON VEGETABLE

VINES

If you grow vine crops like cucumbers, pumpkins, and melons, you want to be on the lookout for downy mildew. You have probably had powdery mildew in the past, especially in pumpkins late in the season. It will cause the leaves to get brown and dry. Downy mildew will do the same, but the concern is that downy mildew is showing up

earlier than

it use to and it is becoming hard to control.

Downy mildew will first show up as a pale yellow spot on the upper leaf surface of the older leaves on your vine crops. Next the older leaves near the base of the plant begin to curl at the edges. This curling can spread very quickly to the younger leaves and the plant begins to die.

It is important that you keep your plants as dry as possible in your home garden to prevent this disease. Over head sprinklers should be avoided when watering your vine crops. You should water with a soaker hose or place your regular hose in the root zone and run it for an adequate amount of time to water your vine crops.

One of the big concerns with downy mildew is that it has multiple strains that have varying resistance to fungicides. Homeowners however, have few choices. If you grow any of the vine crops, especially cucumbers and melons, you should start using a protective fungicide spray using chlorothalonil (Daconil) and spray the plant thoroughly. Reapply the spray every 10-14 days and watch your plants closely between sprays. If you see yellow spots or blotches start to show up on your older leaves as we described them, you have downy mildew and you will need to switch to a control material. Some of the garden centers in our area carry fungicides that have salts of phosphorous acid, which can control the downy mildew and stop its growth. Excel L.G. Systemic Fungid and Agri Fox are two names to look for. The products are not inexpensive, so if you only have one or two cucumber vines, you might want to get rid of your vines and go to a vegetable stand. But if you grow a lot of vine crops, the cost of the material is easily justified.

Now the curative products will control the active fungus, but you want to still keep using your preventative sprays on your other vine crops that haven't yet shown the disease.

REDUCE MOSQUITO BITES

Summer is a great time to spend outdoors, but when the sun goes down and the mosquitoes start to fly, many people will go indoors. This is an effective way to reduce or prevent mosquito bites. But there are other things you can do to reduce your exposure to mosquitoes.

- Wear light-colored clothing when you are outside in areas that could have mosquitoes. Dark clothing can be more attractive to mosquitoes. Avoid certain floral scented soaps and lotions and perfumes.

- Avoid areas that are known to have mosquitoes in large numbers, such as wooded areas by water, weedy areas or areas that have heavy vegetative growth. These are good resting areas for mosquitoes, but they will be happy to dine on you if you come into their area.

- If you have to be outdoors when mosquitoes can be bad, you should use an insect repellent that contains DEET. Limit the exposure of children to DEET by using a product that is 10% or less DEET. Adults should not use products with over 30% DEET. Wear long sleeves and long pants and only spray the remaining exposed skin. Do not over use DEET and follow instructions on the label.

WATER TREES AND

SHRUBS

If you have trees or shrubs that were planted in the last three to four years, you should be watering them. It is really dry in most areas of our county and these young trees and shrubs are going to suffer if they don't receive adequate water. We often talk to people who when asked for details, we find that they aren't doing a very adequate job of water.

Let me give you a few examples to illustrate my point. The feeder roots for a tree that has been established a few years would be at the drip line of the tree and beyond. For our example, let's say the trees roots occupied an area 10 X 10 feet or 100 square feet. If we want to apply an inch of water per week, which is the general recommendation, it would take 63 gallons of water to apply an inch of water over that area. But that water needs to be applied so it soaks in and not run off, so if we use a hose on a reasonable trickle, it would take at least a minute to get one gallon of water. You can check your output on what you think is a slow enough trickle from your hose that it soaks in. Set your flow and time how long it takes to fill a gallon jug. Let's say you get a minute also. That means to water this tree properly; you need to spend an hour moving the hose around this 10 X10 area to apply the proper amount of water for the tree for the week. If it is real dry, you may need to initially apply even more water. Then you go to the next plant. Now I hope this illustrates that if you are watering your landscape, I bet most of you aren't adding as much water as you should.

Now I don't expect you to spend every spare hour watering and moving a hose, so here are some ways you can speed up your watering. Focus on the newly planted trees and shrubs first. We know that to get a root ball to take up water, it needs to be added very slowly, so it soaks into the root ball and not run around it. The simplest way to do this is to get some of the five-gallon buckets they use for dry wall compound. Drill a couple of small holes in the bottom of the bucket and set the bucket on the root ball. Fill it with water and let it slowly drip into the root ball. Do this probably twice a week unless it rains or you think you are adding too much. For our 10 X 10 foot area, we would need 12 buckets that we fill at least once a week and these are spaced out over the 10 X 10 foot area. If you don't have a bucket, the large kitty litter containers probably hold two to three gallons of water.

Another way to water is to use a sprinkler system. Place flat sided containers in several places in the area you are watering. Run the sprinkler early in the day to reduce evaporation loss and to give the leaves a chance to dry before the evening. Run the system until you can measure one inch of water in your containers.