This week in Master Gardener I worked in the Plant Clinic, which was FASCINATING! I got to work with a more experienced master gardener mentor to help solve plant problems from people in the community, and provide science-backed advice.
So, here are some of the problems people brought to us in the Plant Clinic today: 🧵
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1/ Jeff brought in samples from his Gala and Honeycrisp apples. The samples from the gala were completely dead with a burnt look, which is a pretty clear sign of fireblight. He said he had fireblight on the same tree last year, had pruned it out and sprayed it with copper fungicide, but it had come back.
Fireblight is a big problem here and gala is prone to it, so we told him he should keep at it (pruning the dead parts out) but the tree might need to come out. 😞
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2/ The honeycrisp samples just had a few dry leaves and did not look like fireblight to me; more like the tree was just stressed. He had fertilized it earlier in the spring with 13-13-13, and a lot of it, and we raised eyebrows at that but that was probably not the core problem. Could have been frost or drought. No diagnosis. We told him to keep an eye on it.
(The Master Gardeners encourage organic methods but we do not judge if people go conventional.)
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3/ Marion brought in a trap with two enormous dead yellowjackets in it. She was surprised how big they were. I had also been trapping huge yellowjackets at home so this was a question I wanted to know the answer to!
We did some research into yellowjacket varieties and these were plain old western yellowjackets. My theory is that these are queens, and it's good to nab the queens early so they don't make nests (and many more yellowjackets). She hoped that was the case.
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4/ Marisa sent us an email with photos of her apples and peaches and asked about the problems the was having. The apple photos all looked like more fireblight. 😞
The peach leaf photos had raised orange blisters on them, which is a sure sign of peach leaf curl, a fungal disease. If it's just one or two leaves you can just cut them off. The tree will need to be sprayed with a fungicide (sulfur is organic) in the winter and spring but now spraying won't help.
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5/ Ellen brought in some samples from a rhododendron that were covered in what looked like black soot. We looked closer and found mealybugs, which secrete a sticky waste called honeydew. Given that rhodies are often grown in shade the black soot is a mold from the honeydew.
Fortunately this is an easy fix, remove the mealybugs and the mold will go away. You can just wash off the mealybugs with water from a hose or use insecticidal soap (organic, safe).
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laura lemay
Jef Poskanzer