Jeeesh. So You Want to Grow Magnolia in Las Vegas. Here's How.

Q. I'm probably going to be at the mercy of the stock at the local nursery this weekend. I really liked the 24 gallon Magnolia tree they had but do you think my space of 18' x 14' will be too small for a Magnolia?



Southern magnolia growing near Decatur
and Red Rock in Las Vegas

A. As long as you understand I am not endorsing the planting of a magnolia but if that is what you want, then read the following. Magnolias can get huge and so if you want to enjoy it for a few years and yank it out when it no longer does well, then go for it. You might get ten or more years before this happens.

            Do not put it close to a hot (south or west facing) wall. BUT you must plant in a hole that is three or four feet wider than the container. Mix good compost (bagged and good stuff will be expensive) half and half with the soil you take from the hole and remove large rocks (baseball sized or larger).

            Mix a fertilizer like 16-16-16 with this backfill; about one handful for each ten gallon bucket. Mix it all together and put this modified soil back into the hole surrounding the rootball of the plant.

            As you are putting this soil back into the hole, add water from a hose so it makes it the consistency of quicksand to get rid of air pockets and the slurry flows all around the root ball.

Another Southern magnolia growing near Eastern and
Harmon. Notice the dieback beginning in the top.
Roots cannot provide enough water to the tops during
mid summer and the low tolerance of this plant to
temperature and humidity extremes.

            Plant at the same level as it was in the container. Water it deeply, three times, immediately after planting and when the soil has drained each time. It will be watered after planting best with something that can deliver a lot of water because this tree will require lots of water each time it is watered.

            The amount of water should be equivalent to filling a basin around the tree with three inches of water; if it is a 15 gallon plant then apply 15 gallons of water. You don’t have to use a basin but this basin idea should give you an idea of the amount needed.

            If you use drip emitters, then you should have initially at least three emitters for a 15 gallon tree. If it is a 24 inch boxed tree, then you should put at least at four emitters. As the tree gets larger, you will need to add more emitters and more water, perhaps one or two gallons more at each application per year of growth. Big trees use more water than little trees.

            Lastly, dig out an area around the tree that will allow you to put about four inches of wood mulch in an area covering a circle, at least eight feet in diameter, around the tree. The key with this tree is the right location, soil modification at the time of planting, adequate irrigations and wood mulch under the tree.

The Truth About Deep Root Fertilization of Trees and Shrubs

Q. Is deep root fertilization a good way to fertilize our African sumac tree, purple sage bushes and the purple plum tree?  I’ve seen advertisements from some landscapers for this process.  

Where are the roots of trees and shrubs growing
in a lawn?

A. There is nothing special or magical about deep root fertilization from landscapers or done by yourself. If done properly, and many do not, the fertilizer is injected into the soil at the depth of the roots. This is usually only a few inches beneath the surface of the soil.

            Deep root fertilizer applications have made a name for themselves mostly where trees and large shrubs are growing in a lawn. By applying it beneath the surface of the lawn, high rates of fertilizer are applied without damaging or killing the lawn or causing the lawn to have dark green spots of tall grass where the fertilizer is injected. The rates of fertilizer applied is quite high so the “saltiness” of the fertilizer (all fertilizers are salts of some sort) would normally kill the grass if that fertilizer is applied directly to the lawn.

These are the brown spots in your lawn that will occur
if you drop fertilizer on one spot or place it too shallow
under the lawn. It should be 6 to 8 inches under the surface.

            Also, lawn grasses are fertilizer “hogs”. Because of their fibrous root system they take fertilizer, nitrogen in particular, easily and quickly from the soil thus robbing it from deeper rooted trees and shrubs. By placing a complete fertilizer (one containing all three elements, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) several inches beneath the soil surface, it places the slower moving phosphorus and potassium right at where the roots are feeding.

            Commercial companies will usually use a liquid fertilizer and inject it with what is called a “soil needle” or deep root feeder. This is a probe that is connected to a tank on the back of a truck containing a fertilizer solution. A hose comes from the tank through a pump and, under high pressure, the liquid fertilizer is injected into the soil.

Granular fertilizer placed next to a bubbler in wood mulch so
the fertilizer will be moved to the roots by the water
coming from the bubbler.

            Real fancy units will allow the operator to squeeze the handle on the injector (a probe with holes in it to allow the fertilizer solution to injected into the ground) and inject a precise amount of fertilizer solution with each injection. The operator can inject the soil in dozens of places under the tree very quickly an be on his or her way.

            You will know if they are doing it correctly by how deeply they push the injector. If they push it too deeply, the fertilizer will be placed beyond the plant roots and a large amount will be wasted. If they don’t push it deep enough and it is in a lawn, then you may have burn spots in the lawn. Burn spots are usually less of a problem in the winter months.

            You can do deep root fertilize your own trees and shrubs by using tree and shrub fertilizer stakes and pounding them into the soil beneath the soil surface a few inches. You can also do it by irrigating the lawn and, while the soil is still moist, pushing a shovel into the soil in spacings about two feet apart under the canopy.

Fertilizer stake. The plastic cap is placed over the fertilizer
stake so that it does not shatter when pounded into the
wet soil under a tree near the source of water.

            The shovel is pushed into the soil all the way, pushed forward so that the slit cut by the shovel is open, and dropping some fertilizer into the open slit. You then pull the shovel out and push the slit closed with your foot. Irrigate immediately after you are finished.

            If your trees are in a desert landscape with drip irrigation then the whole idea of deep root fertilizer comes into question. When trees and shrubs are watered by drip irrigation then I would question whether deep root fertilizer applications are necessary. All the fertilizer will be “pushed” by watering from the drip emitters.

            Roots of trees and shrubs in a rock or desert landscape will not grow like they would in a lawn. Instead, with drip irrigation, roots grow profusely near the emitters and do not go “searching” for water or grow toward water. They are not psychics.

            With drip emitters is best to drop your fertilizer in slits next to the emitters or use tree fertilizer stakes at the emitters.

The Birdsnest Mushrooms in Your Mulch - Kids Will Love Them!

Reader's "pods found in the garden. All of these might nearly
fit on a quarter to give you a rough idea of their size.

Q. I figured I can't let more than three months go by without pestering you with a question! Attached are two photos of some mystery pods I found in the garden when doing some clean up. One is with the pods closed, and the second is with them open and with what appears to be small black seeds. Any idea what this is?

 

A. These are not pods at all but what is called birds nest mushrooms. These do look like tiny little pods with black seed like things inside them. Like other mushrooms or saprophytic (feed off of dead things) fungi they “feed” of off decaying organic matter in the soil. We can see these fairly commonly in compost heaps, decaying mulches or other places where organic waste is decomposing. They are interesting and kids love these little things.

Unopened or just opening "pods" of the reader

            Nothing to worry about. They feed off of DEAD plants so no harm to living plants or you. They are decomposers so they help to break down litter on or in the soil after or during a warm wet period. I attached a fact sheet from Texas A and M on this interesting form of plant life. I will post your pictures on my blog for others to see them.

 

Birdsnest and other inhabitants of wood chips and compost

Science in Action: Part II. Designer Plants

Designer Plants
Robert Ll. Morris

Genetic engineering has changed commercial plant breeding forever. In years past we always thought of obtaining new plants by simple breeding and hybridizing. But to get for instance elms resistant to elm leaf beetle or turfgrass resistant to Roundup these plants had to be permanently changed in ways that simple breeding and hybridizing had not been able to accomplish. The major limitation was that the plants had to be relatively close in their evolutionary history so that a transfer of new information from one plant to another by traditional breeding techniques could occur.

All that has changed with genetic or bioengineering. Over the last twenty years scientists have discovered that all living organisms have genetic information that is interchangeable, even between plants and animals. Unlike traditional breeding, bioengineering has made it possible to select exactly the traits desired from nearly any living organism and insert them into a plant and create a genetically modified organism (GMO).

In Part I we talked about how the bacterial disease, crown gall, played a role in bioengineering by providing a biological model for scientists to use to insert desirable genetic information permanently inside plants. It was known that the crown gall organism, a bacterium, could infect a plant and insert its own information causing the plant to do something it normally would not do. In the undesirable case of the crown gall disease, produce a tumorous swelling of plant tissue that housed and protected the disease.

More on Crown Gall Disease Organism

Scientists realized that packets of new, desirable genetic information might be inserted into plants following the same method that crown gall bacterium used. Early in the development of this technology the crown gall bacterium, modified with desirable genetic information, was used as the vehicle for transferring genetic information to plants. The crown gall model of gene insertion eventually led to the development of new more efficient technologies like “gene guns” which could “shoot” new information inside of plants.

Terms like “gene splicing”, which scientists use to recombine genetic information inside plants in an attempt to bioengineer a new organism with more desirable traits, results in “transgenic organisms”. This is a term that can be daunting at first until it is realized that it just means an organism that was altered or changed as a result of new genetic information which was purposefully inserted by some method.

More on Gene Splicing

Transgenic organisms usually have some sort of benefit passed on to it from genetic engineering resulting in an economic benefit to the horticulturist and ultimately the consumer. These might be new plant traits such as improved resistance to plant pests like viral yellows or ringspot diseases, acquired resistance to pesticides such as the Roundup Ready^® line of crops, some dwarfing characteristics in agronomic crops like wheat, the preservation of food flavors such as in Flavr Savr^©  tomato lines, and improved resistance to insect pests by inserting genes from biological organisms that produce toxins poisonous to insects such as the bacterium Bacillus thuriengensis (Bt).

Bt pesticide sprays for controlling insects have been available to commercial applicators and homeowners as a form of “natural” or “biological” pest control since the early 1960’s under a variety of different names. The first release of a Bt spray had a very narrow range of insects that it would control. Larvae of moths and butterflies with an alkaline gut pH and that fed largely on leaf surfaces were the only targets. This narrow range in pests that it controlled was both good and bad. It was good since it was very safe for humans and other animals that weren’t larvae of moths and butterflies such as beneficial insects. It was bad since it controlled such a narrow range of insects and these only in their larval stages.

We now recognize this particular strain of Bt as the variety kurstaki. Since the 1980’s there have been 50 strains of Bt developed that are specific to not only moth and butterfly larvae but larvae of other insects such as the elm leaf beetle (Bt var. tenebrionus), fungus gnats (Bt var. israelensis), and a wide range of agricultural pests including beetles. All the different Bt’s had the same basic scenario however; the susceptible juvenile insect eats plant foliage that has the bacterium on its surface, Bt spores are ingested by larvae, the spores grow and reproduce inside the insect producing toxins, toxins paralyse the digestive tract of the larvae causing it to cease eating, insect death. Death can range anywhere from a few hours to 5 days after ingestion. This depends on the amount of Bt ingested, the size and variety of the larvae and variety of Bt used for control.

Bt became popular in the past because it had some distinct advantages over other pesticides: it had a low hazard to humans; there was no waiting period from time of application before re-entering the field; different strains of Bt didn’t harm beneficial or non-target insects; insects that died from Bt were not dangerous to predators; Bt was not known to cause injury to plants on which it had been applied and was not considered harmful to the environment; and, little or no insect resistance had been reported.

More on Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt

The major problem with Bt applied as a pesticide was its lack of persistence in the environment (sunlight and rain shortened its life) and it had to be eaten by the insects to work and only the larval stages of the insect were susceptible. Multiple applications needed to be applied with just the right timing or its chances of success were limited.

            But what if the Bt toxin could be inserted into the plant? The toxin would always be present so timing was not a problem. Persistence was not a problem since the plant protected and even produced the toxin. To insert the Bt toxin gene (lets call it X gene) the scientists first identify the right Bt. Next they isolate the X gene and remove it from the Bt bacterium. They then attach a second gene, a gene that provides resistance to a toxic chemical such as an antibiotic or herbicide, to the Bt gene. Lets call the second gene the Y gene. The X gene, with the attached Y gene, is inserted into plant cells. Any plant cell that has the toxic X gene now is given resistance to an applied toxic chemical due to the presence of the Y gene.

Researchers then multiply the plant cells in the presence of the antibiotic or herbicide and kill all cells that do not have the Y gene. Because the X and Y genes are attached, the resulting cells will contain the Bt toxin. These genetically transformed plant cells are then grown into whole plants by a process called tissue culture. The modified plants produce the same lethal Bt protein produced by Bt bacteria because the plants now have the same gene.

The insertion of the toxic genes from Bt into plant lines so that plant itself becomes toxic is under quite a bit of controversy. First and foremost is that growing plants that continually have the Bt toxin present increases the chance that insects feeding on these plants may become resistant to the Bt gene.

There is some recent research that has demonstrated that this has already happened. Problems arise primarily because the Bt toxin is always present through the plants life cycle and that it is in all plant parts. Because susceptible insects must ingest the Bt toxin to be poisoned, genetically engineered cells could be directed to plant parts that only the target pest will eat or at certain times of the year. Scientists have been working on a Bt gene that will “switch on” in plant parts that are green (leaf tissue) or “switch off” in other plant parts that are not green (flowers, pollen and seed). Plants receive genes with a genetic “promoter switch” that results in production of the Bt toxin only in certain plant parts.

My article was previously published in Southwest Trees and Turf