Yesterday a good friend of mine who works for a well respected tree company in town asked me whether I would be willing to talk about tree conservation as it relates to the emerald ash borer. Specifically he wanted me to make people aware of a statement produced by a group called the Coalition for Urban Ash Tree Conservation which you can find here which was produced by a number of well respected industry people and academics. … Continue reading this article “Scrambling for Answers”
Author: jeffgillman003
Porsche 911 or Toyota Camry
Earlier today I was in a meeting with some other professionals from across Minnesota (and a few from Wisconsin and other areas) to discuss the disease problems of conifers. Our discussion quickly became focused on the use, and overuse, of Colorado blue spruce, a tree that just doesn’t do well in Minnesota — Or Michigan from what Bert has written! Everyone in the meeting was yammering on about how we need to educate nurseries and consumers about how terrible the Colorado blue spruce is in our environment — you’re lucky if you can get 10-15 years out of the thing before it succumbs to one disease or another. … Continue reading this article “Porsche 911 or Toyota Camry”
Where to Draw The Line on Home Remedies
On Tuesday Holly posted an extremely interesting article about how Bounce could help control fungus gnats. Then one of our frequent commenters (and all around great guy) Ray Eckhart pointed out that he has a problem with promulgating an off-label use of a product. And that got me to thinking. What household products is it OK for us to suggest that a consumer use for a non-labeled purpose, and what products shouldn’t we suggest? This is a question that has haunted me for a long time, so with this post I want to give you my line of thinking – I’m not trying to tell you what’s right or wrong – just trying to let you know my thoughts on the topic.… Continue reading this article “Where to Draw The Line on Home Remedies”
One To Go!
Just one more little holiday to go over holiday week (A week during which faculty at UMN were put on furlough — in other words unpaid vacation), but for many of you I’m sure it’s a big one: New Years. I’ve never been one for New Years resolutions. It’s always just seemed kind of artificial to me. Still, some people find real motivation with the passing of a new year. What about you? Any great New Year’s resolutions out there related to gardening?
Unintended consequences
Unintended consequences. When doing one thing causes something you didn’t expect. Many unintended consequence stories in biology start with introduced species. I’m going to skip those here. I’ve been thinking about unintended consequences recently while trying to figure out what to do about my hops. You see, hops have a nasty habit of getting powdery mildew. That’s one reason why you don’t see a whole lot of hops growing outside the relatively arid Yakima Valley (75% of US production).… Continue reading this article “Unintended consequences”
Bees and Pesticides
I had the opportunity to read a disturbing post over at Garden Rant the other day about the insecticide clothianidin and how the EPA required its producer, Bayer, to run tests on the safety of using plants grown from seeds treated with clothianidin for bees. Tests which were, apparently, never carried out appropriately. This post sent me over to another site, AlterNet, which explained the problem in detail. In a nutshell what happened is that the EPA asked Bayer to run some tests on how its new pesticide might affect bees.… Continue reading this article “Bees and Pesticides”
Of Worms and Fertilizers
Today I’m going to write about fertilizers and worms. The purpose of this post is not to encourage you to use fertilizers. I agree wholeheartedly with Linda’s post – we don’t need many of the fertilizers which we’re using. Still, it’s important to know the facts about anything that you’re doing (or not doing) to and for your garden, and to do them (or not do them) for the right reasons. With that in mind, I’ve been reading about worms and fertilizers for the last few days and wanted to let all of you know the basics of what I’ve been reading, because it is somewhat contrary to what many gardeners believe.… Continue reading this article “Of Worms and Fertilizers”
Balanced fertilizers are usually out of balance
I’m in the midst of grading papers for my nursery management class, and something that I’m running across is an incredible number of papers where the students are recommending balanced fertilizers. Why are they doing that? Or maybe an even better question is, what is a balanced fertilizer? A balanced fertilizer is a fertilizer which has three numbers which are about the same, like a 10-10-10. The problem with balanced fertilizers is that they are much higher in phosphorus than what most plants need — at least in relation to the amount of nitrogen and potassium which plants need. … Continue reading this article “Balanced fertilizers are usually out of balance”
DMSO
A few months ago I was interviewed for an article where they asked me whether I thought that a deer repellant which was taken up into a tree would be a good idea. I said sure, great idea. It would last a long time — something that most repellants currently don’t. Well, I just saw the article and I must say that I’m not so sure that it’s a great idea any more.
It seems that the repellant that they’re talking about is basically a combination of hot peppers and DMSO. … Continue reading this article “DMSO”
Pesticides and Wildlife
If you follow this blog then you know that I write a lot about pesticides. They’re something that I enjoy reading about and studying. For whatever reason, I find them fascinating. That said, they can be some of the worst things for wildlife. But there are pesticides that are more “wildlife compatible” than others, so today I’m going to cover some of the worst pesticides that you can use in terms of wildlife, and some of the pesticides that might be more acceptable (though far from perfect).… Continue reading this article “Pesticides and Wildlife”