Pop quiz answer

Today’s post is a follow-up to yesterday’s quiz on foliar fertilization.  I asked our blog readers to match the needle nitrogen content of Nordmann fir trees with the fertilizer treatments they had received.


Nutrient deficient Nordmann fir

The correct order is:

1)      control: no fertilizer 0.98%
2)      soil applied controlled release fertilizer 1.70%
3)      foliar nitrogen fertilizer 1.14%
4)      soil applied fertilizer + foliar feed 1.91%

While the foliar fert had a small effect, it’s important to note that, from a statistical standpoint, foliar fertilization did not significantly increase needle nitrogen concentration. … Continue reading this article “Pop quiz answer”

Podcast #8 – Water Works

We’ve finally gotten our summer here in the Pacific NW and it’s been pretty hot for a few weeks. The plants weren’t really prepared for this, so we’ve had to irrigate quite a bit to keep all that lush foliage happy. So the topic of this podcast is Water Works – focusing on how water moves in the soil and through plants.

One of the more interesting tidbits I found this week is a recent USDA study on growing more potatoes with less water.… Continue reading this article “Podcast #8 – Water Works”

Don’t be snookered

Just a short (but irritated) note about the latest fawning over compost tea. Please, people, as Jeff pointed out nearly two years ago on this blog, just because Harvard (and now Berkeley) buy snake oil it’s not transmogrified into science. Middle America would be better served by using compost as a mulch and letting nature make the tea.

Pop quiz time!

It’s the start of new semester.  Best way to get student’s attention is with a pop quiz right off the bat!  So in that vein, we’ll cross things up and give a quiz on Monday instead Friday.  Relax; to make things a little easier we’ll make this one a matching exercise.

 

Here goes.  At our recent Christmas tree conference in Austria, a colleague of mine at Oregon State University, Chal Landgren, presented the results of a study to look at the effectiveness of foliar fertilization on Nordmann fir.  … Continue reading this article “Pop quiz time!”

Bambara

This past summer I had the chance to talk with an old friend of mine, Hamado Tapsoba, who I hadn’t seen in 15 years.  We had gone to graduate school together, but after graduation he headed back to Burkina Faso, and I headed up to Minnesota.  Anyway, while we were talking I told him that we were growing peanuts at the University (yes, I tell everybody — peanut news needs to be shared!).  When I told him some of the problems that we had with shorter seasons he asked why we weren’t growing Bambara groundnuts. … Continue reading this article “Bambara”

Podcast #7 – Better Red Than Dead

This week’s podcast is dedicated to anthocyanins – those pigments that give plants red, blue, and purple colors. Anthocyanins are also powerful antioxidants, important visual signals for pollinators, and often deadly to insect pests. The myth of the week explains why red leaves aren’t usually a sign of phosphorus deficiency, but instead an indicator that anthocyanins can help plants survive many environmental stresses.

My interview this week is with Cass Turnbull, founder of PlantAmnesty, a Seattle organization dedicated to “ending the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs.” … Continue reading this article “Podcast #7 – Better Red Than Dead”

You guessed it…

The glorious Allium ‘Globemaster.’

Michelle and Laura B. nailed it, and Jennie had the correct genus.

A little taxonomic correction – it is NOT A. giganteum, as many catalogs and articles suggest, but rather a hybrid between A. macleanii and A. christophii; described by the breeder himself – Jan Bijl – in a 1990 issue of The Plantsman (vol. 12 pp 152-156).  Unless I’ve totally messed up and this is ‘Gladiator,’ not ‘Globemaster.’ They’re quite similar.… Continue reading this article “You guessed it…”

“What the hey?!” Friday

There was a flurry of great posts this week; no way I’m competing with Linda’s trip to the fabulous garden of The Riz. So I’ll put up a quiz pic.  Hopefully it will take you longer than 30 seconds to figure it out:

Eh? Eh? Family may be obvious, but…

Odds and Ends and Scrapple

School starts next week and so time is short, but I have a few quick thoughts to share with you before I get back to setting up class for next semester:

1.  A class called Plant Production appears to be more attractive to students than a class called Nursery Management and Production — even though the concepts taught are essentially the same.

2.  One of the greatest movies of all time, Caddyshack, includes a scene with milorganite. … Continue reading this article “Odds and Ends and Scrapple”

Podcast #6 – Garden Hocus Pocus

Forgive my tardy posting – I spent yesterday traveling from Indianapolis back to Seattle.  I was in Indianapolis for the Garden Writers Association annual meeting and gave a talk on “evidence based garden information.”  It was encouraging to see how many garden writers DO want reliable sources of good gardening science.  And I got to meet Joseph Tychonievich, a frequent commenter on this blog and a PhD student at Michigan State.

Anyway, on to this week’s podcast.… Continue reading this article “Podcast #6 – Garden Hocus Pocus”