Spray for Leaf Footed Plant Bug Now!

Leaf footed plant bug adults and young.

Normally homeowners do not see these insects (LFPB) until after the damage is done. By this time their numbers have exploded and they are everywhere! They will be on fruit trees, nut trees and vegetables.

Look for them overwintering on evergreen plants that they can feed upon during the winter months. LFPG feeds by thrusting its long feeding tube, much like a mosquito, into soft plant parts. They then (again like a mosquito) suck out plant juices.

Get rid of them NOW! They over winter in small numbers as adults fully capable of having young. when they start laying eggs when leaves develop it takes about 10 days for the eggs to hatch into tiny red young clustering and protected by the adults, These young will become adults in about 6 to 8 weeks fully capable of having babies of their own.

We can expect about three generations of these bugs each year and reach their peak numbers about in July. By this time you are fighting a tough battle if you plan to get rid of them.

On young nut trees this feeding can cause the nut to drop or for no seed to form inside the kernel. On young pomegrantes it can cause the fruit to fall. Their feeding can introduce disease problems to the fruit and possibly transmit diseases.

The young cause the most damage due to feeding but they are also the easiest to kill. Use insecticidal soaps on the young but the adults will need something stronger such as the natural pyrethrin products like our Take Down Garden Spray. Spray early in the morning or when the sun is setting.

If you get on them early you will not need the tougher sprays like the conventional insecticides. But if you get to that point then bring out the big guns like Sevin insecticide which we do not carry.


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Control Blight of Tomatoes Now!

Tomato early blight developing on lower leaves. Leaves first yellow, develop spots, wither die and progress through the plant.

Early Blight, sometimes just called Blight, is the most common disease of tomatoes in the arid and desert Southwest of the US. Now is the perfect weather for early blight development. Use disease control chemicals LAST after other options have been exhausted.

For disease control I follow the progression of ....Prevention, then Management, then Organic Disease Prevention and Conventional Disease Control last.

Tomato early blight developing on tomato leaves

I am seeing the yellowing of tomato foliage and the development of dark Brown or grey spots on the leaves. This is followed with leaf death, shriveling, dying and turning crispy.

Grey spots first develop on yellowing leaves

Early blight starts out with the lower leaves and stems of the tomato plant turning yellow or mottled yellow. Soon, these yellowing leaves develop grey spots on the margin or center of the leaves which cause these infected areas to die. These dead spots are now brown and commonly have concentric rings inside these brown spots.

Not all of the spots will make obvious concentric rings. But I search through all of the spots looking for these concentric rings and if I find them I can conclude it is the disease called Early Blight.

Remove infected foliage from the plants. Stop overhead watering.

If this disease is developing on your tomatoes you must get it under control immediately before it spreads.

Do this NOW!

Remove the innoculum. First, using a sharp scissors or pruners clip off all of the yellowing foliage back to the stem and remove it from the garden. This is a source of infection for new growth.

Stop spreading the disease. Second, if you are watering and spraying the foliage with water in any way, STOP DOING THAT! Wet foliage spreads the disease. Always water the soil, not the foliage or leaves. Periodic washing of the foliage is okay but do it only once in a while and make sure it is early enough in the day and the temperatures are hot enough to dry the foliage thoroughly before it cools in the evening.

Neem Oil 70% concentrate
at Viragrow for $22 a pint

Change the environment. Third, if your tomatoes are large and bushy so that sunlight cannot penetrate inside the canopy and air cannot move through the plant to dry the foliage, thin out plant foliage. This decreases the humidity, opens the canopy for more light which strengthens the plant's interior growth. This disease LOVES wet surfaces and high humidity. It stops advancing in strong sunlight, dry conditions and healthy plants that can ward off the disease.

Prevent the disease from advancing. This is where chemicals come into play. First are the organic types.

There are several organic options you can choose from for foliar sprays: Neem oil (yes, it controls some disease as well as some insects), Seaweed Extract, Compost Tea, baking soda in water are a few. If you want to go the organic route and you cannot find rates or methods of application, contact me and I will get them to you.

Viragrow has Neem Oil, Seaweed Extract and Viragrow's own Compost Tea. We have our compost available in brew bags for your own brewing or liquid tea available if you notify us 24 hours in advance. Brew Bags are are $0.50 each and will make one gallon of fresh, sprayable compost tea. Make sure you use compost tea that is fresh for best results.

Cold pressed
Seaweed Extract
at Viragrow $3.80
per pint or $28 per
gallon

Nonorganic chemical control of early blight. Fungicides are used to keep the disease from getting worse. They will not correct the disease which is already present.Nearly any of the fungicides for vegetable gardens will control this disease. Viragrow does not carry any conventional plant disease products but you can pick them up at any local nursery or garden center. Remember, these are not organic control methods and should be a last resort.

Other things you can do:

Use certified organic seed or sterilize the seed you use. This disease can be brought in to your garden from the seeds that were used when your tomatoes were grown. If you are starting your own plants from seed next planting season, place your tomato seeds in 140F water for 25 minutes. Make sure the temperature is no more or less than this. This kills the disease organism which can sometimes be on the seed itself unless the seed is certified organic.

Remove infected vines from the garden. Using infected vines as a mulch or soil amendment will make the disease problem worse. Do not compost infected vines.

Grow your tomatoes, peppers and eggplant in different areas of the garden each year. This is called "rotating" your vegetables. This disease can live in the soil. Moving your vegetables to new locations each year helps to reduce this disease problem. You can grow them in the same spot again in 3 to 4 years.

The document below is an excellent source from e-Extension on organic methods used for controlling early blight in tomato. You can access this document here or below.

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Xtremehorticulture of the Desert: Look for Plants Dying Because of Grubs

Xtremehorticulture of the Desert: Look for Plants Dying Because of Grubs: This is the time of year when grubs are feeding on the roots of plants. Many of these types of grubs are the same types that feed in compo...

Fertilize Lawns Before the Heat

At 18-3-5, Viragrow's lawn fertilizer is light in phosphorus (the number '3') which is important for established lawns. This is not a fertilizer for starting a lawn. It is formulated for established turfgrass.

Established lawns, both fescue and bermudagrass, need a high nitrogen fertilizer to darken it and push new growth in the spring. This helps turgrass in spring recovery from the winter months. Very little phosphorus is needed at this stage of a lawn's development. Adding too much phosphorus to lawns create problems. This fertilizer also contains iron for a darker green color.

Split applications are better. It is best to divide lawn fertilizer applications into more frequent applications using less fertilizer at each application.

Mowing is good. Growing and mowing helps to control lawn diseases. Leaf growth is from the bottom up. They youngest and healthiest part of the leaf blade is closest to the soil. The oldest part of the leaf blade is on the top of the blade. When mowing, the older leaf tissue (leaf surfaces in contact with
disease organisms) is removed. Fertilizing regularly helps push new growth and reduce disease problems. Mow fescue no shorter than 1 1/2 inch. As summer temperatures climb, it is best to raise your mowing height to 2 1/2 inch for a deeper root system and more tolerance to heat and drought. Bermudagrass mowing height depends on the cultivar but can range up to 1 inch in height.

Blossom End Rot Common on Tomatoes Now

The blossom end of the tomatoes or pepper fruit,
not the stem end, has a black spot on it

Blossom end rot of tomato and pepper are common problems found on developing fruit in the spring of the year. It can happen any time but it is common now. Cut the black part out and you can still enjoy the fruit but it is ugly to look at.

Blossom end rot is classified as a disease but it is not cause by a disease organism like the blights are. Instead, it is a physiological disorder that is not totally understood but thought to involve the nutrition of the plant and how it is irrigated.

The most common recommendation is to water more consistently; the plant going through periodic dry and wet soil cycles is thought to create this disorder. Applying fertilizers doesn't seem to help.

Irrigating correctly may be true but it is frustrating to have this on your tomato or pepper fruit when you believe you have done everything right.

Here are some other thoughts about this problem and what you can do about it.

Horse bedding like this is $5 for 3  cubic feet
 and goes a long way as a surface mulch
for your vegetables.

Apply a surface mulch around your vegetables. If the problem is your regular watering or the soil fluctuating from dry to wet back and forth, surface mulches help keep the soil from drying out between irrigations thus reducing the fluctuation from dry and wet, back and forth.

One of the best products we have used on our test gardens and raised beds is animal bedding. We have tried using straw in the past but it can be dirty, carry a lot of weed seeds and it really does not decompose very well when it is turned under. We have wood mulch of all types and it is great for landscape and fruit trees but not meant for vegetable gardens unless you want to remove it at the end of the growing season and put it back after you replant.

Apply a wetting agent to the soil. Soils that contain a lot of compost can become hydrophobic or, in other words, they can repel water. If you are watering raised beds by hand and flooding the soil each time you water, the dry soil down a few inches can push the surface water to the edges of the raised bed.

Wetting agent made from cold-pressed
agave extracts called saponins. It retails for $17
for one quart of the concentrate. Use 1 oz in
5 gallons of water.

Surface water will easily flow down the crack between the edge of the raised bed and the soil thus draining the bed without allowing the water to go all the way through the soil.

EZ Wet is a natural plant product derived from agave that is a wetting agent and helps soils that are hydrophobic to rehydrate and accept the water. It has other uses as well and helps foliar applied fertilizers fertilizers to get inside the leaves and work more efficiently. This product is far superior to using liquid dish detergents that contain personal care products such as hand lotions and are scented.

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