 So good evening, everybody. Welcome. Thanks for coming and tonight I hope I can provide some new information for you and on tea on tree problems tree pest problems We can't cover everything. It's kind of funny that I get this topic and of course we could go for Days if not weeks on this topic, so we'll cover what we can I want to hit the high points a few things you can expect to see especially in the spring And perhaps a couple of big things later in the summer but the things we expect to see especially this spring and The first thing I want to point out is is winter injury and winter damage Depending where you are in North Dakota spring has sprung or it hasn't Some places where it's still awfully cold There's some places where they've already planted wheat, so it's it's kind of all over the place but let's talk about Winter injury and winter injury on conifers is a very generic term There's a bunch of things that can cause winter injury But what we see is some level of this some level of needles Turning brown and dying or in this case kind of low almost an orange gold This is actually in my own yard outside of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota that was 2014 a ponderosa pine and so that was a long time ago, but then In 2019 five years later saw the same thing on the tree trees going great 18 inches a year if not more so trees can take some damage and Last year what I saw was this quite a bit It tended to be on one side on the I think it's the south side. Yeah south general side and Needles were turning brown Or orange in this case and some of them were kind of speckled and We see this on pine trees. We see it on spruce trees. It could be it could be a cold Really extremely cold day for certain tree species that they couldn't handle it It could be that we had a few warm days and then it got cold again It could be just we had a very sunny dry day with a lot of wind So there's a bunch of different potential causes, but I want to point out that There's a picture from August Trees growing fine. Yes, there is some damage. It's not perfect But the tree is surviving and actually thriving. It's doing very well And you'll probably see some variations on this now these pictures were sent to me back in 2009 Dr. Sam Markel who's in our plant pathology department was walking around his neighborhood in Fargo and saw these two trees and Which I could ask you what do you notice in these photos what I notice is on the right the one that one There's no needles that are green or almost no needles. There might be a few It's really hard to tell on the left side. Well needles that were low but maybe in the foot of the ground are green and Maybe a few scattered around but that's mostly brown and Sam also got a close-up and It's interesting. These are mostly on the bottom of the branch that are that are dead or dying and This spruce tree is another one that he took a photo of and you notice some of those interior needles Turn brown the spruce tree isn't looking good in general But there's just another issue that this tree has to deal with So you might see this on your pines you might see it on your spruces You could see it on juniper's even or arbor varieties, but the table message here is how much damage was there? You know trees can take a loss of up to about a quarter of their foliage Their needles in this case or in the summer leaves With without even feeling it, you know without even being stressed trees are pretty redundant that way and pretty resilient. So Before you get really worried See how much is damaged the other thing I want to point out. I forgot to point out. I'm gonna go back here is In this example on this pine If you look at those buds The buds are pretty unaffected Those buds are very likely to survive. So the tree will probably send out a flush of new growth Without any problems and that will certainly help the tree recover So as long as the buds didn't didn't get any damage or were killed the tree is likely to survive and in this case thrive so That's the first thing you can expect this winter after winter and the other thing is we see this every year Rabbit damage, vole damage, sometimes deer All these are butters these were some nice crab apple trees newly planted outside a place in West Fargo several years ago and Well, at least they let these little critters left some fertilizer there But boy, they just nailed this and they removed all the bark and what's gonna happen to this tree Let's treat gonna die There's there's no doubt about it that much bark on all the way around the stem This tree is gonna die However, it will probably the roots and in this case the lower stem will send up sprouts And that's the tree's way of trying to survive The roots need to survive they need the top as much as the top needs the roots So that's what it's gonna do to try to save itself The next example, this is actually an apple tree in my own yard again You know what a friend who I'm gonna given a site here at a friend who once said oh you you probably have the best trees in the neighborhood in your yard Nope Nope, I I just let them out there and if they survive great and if they don't man, I'll plant a new one They got to be tough with me in this case this apple tree was wounded. It was wounded actually not by rabbits This one was actually bird sap suckers and they nearly girdled it At about mid-height there where I have the word wound in the arrow And what the tree did is it sent up suckers or sprouts from the roots and from along the base of the stem To get new leaf tissue new branches out there in order to create do photosynthesis and create sugar create energy to survive and This tree is still there but Slowly recovering my friend Jim wall. I tried a technique called bridge grafting on it and It's tough it worked maybe we're still trying to figure it out so Those sprouts are not a bad thing. That's what I'm trying to say here. Those sprouts are helping the tree survive So you might want to keep them you might want to train one of them into a new leader In retrospect, maybe I should have done that with this tree trained one of those sprouts into a new leader But in it, but I didn't so live with what I got So that's the first thing you're to expect the next thing I want to point out our canker worms We have these two pests. They're called spring canker worm and fall canker worm and they're both Spring defoliators. They they come out at about the same time. They're little caterpillars and And I can't remember which one this is whether it's spring or fall I always get the two mixed up But it really doesn't matter a whole lot because they come out at the same time they feed on the same types of trees and they cause the same type of damage and This is what they do. They defoliate they eat the leaves or In between the veins and this is where it starts, you know, it's nice and simple like this but this is where it ends they can defoliate a tree quickly and Unfortunately, what happens is we often We often don't notice the damage till it's too late. These insects are easily controlled when they're small or young But they're hard to notice when they're small or young. So that's a bit of a challenge and we'll talk a little more about that Here a bunch of different deciduous trees or hosts I just want I have hackberry highlighted because that's what's in the photo what I've often seen them on our box elders and The lindens and the maples and ash as well But they'll they'll hit a bunch of trees and we saw this throughout North Dakota Last year in 2018 two years ago. It was a light infestation Okay, they were starting to get a little bad in central North Dakota, especially Last year it was pretty heavy throughout North Dakota even in the east here but especially bad in central part of the state and I personally expect that 2020 here is going to be really bad for Canker worms. There's some control measures. We'll talk about in a sec I also expect that next summer the population might crash back in I want to say 2007 2008 and 9 there was a build-up like this and it was about three years of build-up and then the population crashed and they were just at a very low level So you often see these types of bands on trees and The the trunk banding they use a product called tangle foot. It's I Don't know. It's just real goopy gluey stuff And what happens is the the moths the female moths of these canker worms they crawl up the stem and They try to lay their eggs near the top of the tree the spring canker worm does it in the spring Fall canker doesn't the fall and this trunk band really doesn't control the insects so much as tell us When those insects are out so that helps us Figure out when we should try control measures But on both of these species the larvae the caterpillars the timing is about the same so If you're if you've ever raised corn if you're familiar with the growing degree-day model Growing degree days you need a certain temperature of above a base in this case the base is 50 and for every day Where the average temperatures above 50? You add what the temperature is actually I'm not going to go into it I'm not going to I'm not describing it. Well look up growing degree days if you want to learn more and When we get to about 148 just under 150 growing degree days That's when we can start Treating these insects. That's when they're they're starting to come out and be vulnerable to insecticides and I want to say control when they're small or young. Usually we don't notice the damage till it's too late so Here are a few Products that could be used chemical insecticides, you know these insects when they're young They're actually very susceptible to a number of chemical insecticides. You can use a Biorational insecticide like BT that would work as well, but again the timing is really important You notice I have carburel or seven in parentheses. They actually changed their Formulation a couple years ago. I think a lot of people have seven in their garage that is probably the carburel formulation Now the new formulation is this Zeta cypermethrin Okay One thing we saw quite a bit this last year. I got about five more minutes One thing we saw quite a bit last year is fire blight fire blight is a bacterial problem It's plants in the rose family. It can hit roses. They can hit strawberries even I've never seen it on those, but I'm a forester What I've often seen it on are apples and crab apples Mountain that mountain ash Hawthorne, Juneberry Cotoniaster pairs I can get hit by fire blight. I still know that I've seen it much There's these other hosts. I see it more often and it's called fire blight because It looks like the ends of the branches have been hit by a fire The leaves turn crispy brown and a very tip of the branch will droop over they they call that a shepherd's crook It oh, I'm gonna go back. I call that the shepherd's crook and what we often see there is Sometimes it enters through wounds Say there's a hail storm or a high windstorm and there's some broken branches or damaged branches That's when we often see That's when we often see fire blight hitting the trees It can sometimes enter through flowers and I've seen that a couple times and that just blows me away when it does that and that's That's really hard hard to control and What you'll see if you look really close You'll see a canker again. This is a bacterial problem, but you'll see a canker where There's a sharp margin sharp edge between the live tissue and the dead tissue and You could see in this picture The to the right of the canker margin. There's some you that's not quite gray yet not quite dead It's dying. It's on its way out How do you control fire blight fire blights a challenge? It's you can try preventative treatments in the spring and in the early season the the most common ones are Streptomycin which is an antibacterial and actually copper based fungicides That's just kind of interesting that they can be effective against a bacteria. So These are preventative and I say sort of Especially after wounds or damage. So keep that in mind All right, and in dry weather If there are cankers if they're fungal fungal cankers you can prune them out But it's a it's a process to get them all out and I get them all out properly so You need to do this in dry weather prune out go At least a foot below that canker margin Some sources say 8 to 12 inches some say 12 to 18 inches Go back below that To prune out the branch, but leave a stub and they call it ugly stub pruning and What you do is you leave that stub and you leave it until the winter, you know, mostly we say no stubs Don't don't leave stubs on trees This is one case where we say leave them For half a season, you know until winter and then you in the winter you remove that ugly stuff Look it up. You'll find some interesting information out. There's a lot of good information on this type of pruning Clean your pruning tools between cuts. You don't want to spread this bacteria I think I got a couple more minutes a few more slides here so I know this isn't much there's a lot of Pests they can hit trees But as far as treatments go I want to say this treatment timing is critical you can spray all the Fungicide or insecticide you want and if it's at the wrong time It's a waste it might make you feel better, but it doesn't do anything for the tree It doesn't kill any of the pests so a timing is critical So you got to do some homework here learn the biology of the pest and do some scouting check it out I look for those pests and see where when they're around Like I said earlier, this is too late This is too late to treat because the insect is already gone This is too late to treat the damage. These are a mite that causes this problem. This is maple bladder gall And then these are called area fide mites and there's a bunch of them bunch of different types the damage to this Leaf occurred months earlier the other thing Not all damage needs treatment or not all damage needs chemical treatment the first thing I often hear is what can I spray and Thing is not always the answer the example one example I give is On this ash this little leaflet here those dots on the right those little tiny dots there's speckles that's That's wounds feeding wounds from the ash plant bug and Damage is minimal. There's so little damage to that leaf But I'm not really worried about it and the next thing is How do the rest of the leaves look are they about the same? Are they healthier? Or are they not healthier? Check out check out the whole tree and an individual leaf or branch that's dying or are damaged is not much of a big deal This Example here Larry. I hope this answers your question. This is called Volsa canker of spruce We used to be called Cytosper. It got renamed a couple years ago. Anyway In this type of this is a fungal canker in this type of fungus It's real interesting. It's very closely related with drought stress. If a tree gets drought stressed a spruce tree gets drought stressed It's very susceptible to this fungal Fungal pathogen the fungus actually lives within the tree and it's just waiting for the tree to let its defenses down If the trees are properly watered not over watered not under watered blue spruce is kind of in between that way It's a little sensitive on either end If it's properly watered it can fight off Cytosper canker The other thing about this disease is if you see branches like this, there's nothing to spray There's no chemical treatment. All you can do is remove the branches and dispose of them I have some resources. I'd recommend that you take a look at We have a brand new publication. Dr. Jan Kanotl to lead that one anchor worms E 999 if you look these up online, you can certainly find these just type NDSU extension and then the number spruce diagnosis in general f 1818 the needle cast diseases. We just updated that one. Oh I think within the past few months Flooding we looked at that one recently as well and of course iron chlorosis. Those are the the biggest main problems and It's funny I see all kinds of questions starting to come in and with that I Will finish it up and we'll go to questions and Tom. How do you want to do this? Oh, you know You're such an expert here on Blackbird collaborate ultra that you know you see the question So maybe you can just you you can read the questions and then answer them And then maybe if if I see a skip one or two, then I can I can throw that in and ask at the end That work or what? I'll start it out and Then I hand that that one about Apple Mac gets off to you in a sec it Larry's question you asked about site hospital a canker and Just answered that one Risosphere needle cast we actually have two needle casts diseases of spruce trees in North Dakota both risosphere and stigmina and I would look that up a F 1680 here. There's a lot of information in that publication Controlling it is very difficult controlling the stigmina especially. It's very difficult a number of spray treatments have to be Applied over several years just to keep it under control Otherwise culturally thin out the trees and let air flow go through the trees and That's about it for that one See Amy full damage about six inches from the ground Can you save this tree Amy? It really depends on how much damage there is if the tree is completely girdled Then it's very unlikely if It's really a lot of it depends on how far around the circumference of the tree around the circumference of the stem is damaged It's funny the the books say The books say Well, the experts say if it's it can take 50% damage and it'll be fine and I don't necessarily agree with that I personally I think up to a third of the circumference It can survive no problem when it starts to get to be up to a half It's that's hard on a tree when it gets more than a half boy that that's very unlikely the tree is going to survive I'm not gonna say it won't just saying it's unlikely My own apple tree is an example the tree survived and it's doing okay, so I Wish I had good answer Wish I had a positive answer for that But it's it's hard Hard to save those tree those trees Okay, Lori Sharma's question about apple maggots Tom, that's your area. I want to can you take that one? Sure Okay, Lori to do it the way to deal with that is keep in mind that right now the apple maggots are Sleeping and they're gonna keep sleeping in the ground until around the 4th of July. That's when they wake up So for now what I would do the most important thing is that I would get all the debris from underneath the tree any possible debris that could have sheltered the apple maggots and I Recommend that you put up some apple maggot traps they're available from garden centers and major garden catalogs and Hang up the stick they use that tangle foot that sticky material on a red ball you hang it in the Apple trees hang a few of them in your apple tree and the apple maggot flies will be very attracted to those rabbit those red balls if they're if the maggot flies are around and if you do start seeing those apple maggot flies and they kind of look like a housefly with striped wings But when you start noticing them That's when you have to consider your approach that you know You got to pass and now you can take action if you want to protect your fruits So usually a couple or three sprays of an insecticide at about a 10 to 14 day interval will get the job done Nice thing about those monitor Balls and the tree is that if you don't see the apple maggot flies that means they're not there So you don't have to spray your tree for them That's what I would do Joe. Okay, great. Thank you Tom A question there about two Madura junipers planted Outside the house get full sun adequately watered last fall one looks fine. The other is modeled brown and Do you wait and see? Yeah, wait and see Hope for the best but expect the worst if there's more than 25 percent of it is brown right now especially on those conifers it it might survive, but It's hard to say and if you planted them last summer boy, it's it's so hard for those to get Established that first winter can be really tough on the trees Right now. It's just sitting wait. Yeah, I wish I had a better answer for you I Want to talk about this this bottom question here? Rabbits clipping all the branches off of young shrubs including the tops. You know what? On shrubs Deciduous shrubs, you know, they're amazing. They sprout back like crazy. Yes, the You've lost the tops of those but quite frankly, they'll send up sprouts. They should end up sprouts without any problems I'm actually Planning on cutting down my one of my Lilacs, maybe tomorrow or Saturday even at this time of year even this late I'm gonna cut it down and it should sprout just fine should sprout from the roots or those little stubs Shrubs are amazing. They really can come back from a lot of damage Tom you want to take that one on cherry trees? Okay First of all, we have to figure out what type of pest it is if it's chair if it's a sour cherry I suspect this is what we call spotted wing drosophila it's a it's a major pest on cherries in our state right now and It's a summertime past so This is a hard one to deal with And I would refer you to we've got NDSU has a publication that Jan and Astor wrote that's Outstanding and it has detailed information on dealing with it. I think that we're not sure about if it's passed over winters I think most most of the science now points that most of these past these these It's like a fruit fly or vinegar fly technically it flies in on the winds from the south and And so that's where the past comes from so you just have to do a good job monitoring and Then you just it's kind of a heart you have to use insecticide to control it There are very fine meshes that can serve as barriers, but I just don't think that's very practical With cherry trees even a small prairie cherry tree so I think look in the spotted wing drosophila and Those maggots are edible by the way if you don't want to be sprained, you know What is it joke is extra protein, but look at that publication it has some specific insect sites for you to do That's about all you can do because it the past flies in Joe Okay, well, thank you Actually, I don't see any more questions here. So, you know, this is the is your chance everybody You got the tree doctor right here. If anybody has any questions of a sick tree. Here's your You're It's too early Joe just wait till those big worms come out you scared them all it's like Godzilla or something coming after your treat this One thing I I'm gonna put this in the chat box The North Dakota You can hear me typing maybe agricultural weather network and gone And on if you go there you can find information about of course weather you can also find out about these Shoot these models these mathematical models predict certain stages of growth in this case their corn one actually fits For for kanker worms and I looked on there this morning and we're not even close to a hundred and fifty Growing degree days yet even in the Southwest where it's fairly warm in the Northeast where it's zero. So Yeah, so we've got some time so check it out Learn about growing degree days. There's some really good really interesting information out there Laura are there ways to prevent or inhibit ash tree ash seeds? pretty much no other than Making sure the tree is a male and I know that's I don't mean to sound like a smart out Alec here But ash trees are either male or female and if you have one that has seeds then obviously it's a female and What I recommend people beforehand is try to find one that are males There are certain cultivars that are male but otherwise not realistically there is a oh There are some chemicals Plant growth regulators almost like plant hormones or artificial plant hormones that sometimes control seeds Sorry or fruit fruit inhibitors I Don't know if they've ever been used on ash trees, but if you look up Florelle and What's the other one Tom? I don't know. There's shoot. There's a couple of them Florelle or just look up fruit inhibitor There there are some chemicals out there that will help to do that. I Haven't heard that ever being used successfully on an ash tree. I don't even know if it's Joe Is it a license for that? I'm not sure, you know, actually, I don't know I don't know you'd have to check that out and see if they're even liberal for that. Yeah, usually it's I believe mostly apples and Sweet gum in the southern US they use them a lot on that and Joe There's no way you can tell if you have a male or a female when it's young, right? You just you can't you just got to wait unless you Right, so that's why it's wise to buy Cultivar you know a male seedless type Yeah, and they do the seeds really cause much harm to the big They just they don't they're not kind of more of a nuisance kind of weaken the tree a little bit But they're not quite as full in their shade, but a female tree is okay, right Joe female ash It's natural and there's nothing you could do about it That's just the way it is. That's nature as ash trees are dioecious That's the the term when you have separate male and female trees Box elders are like that cotton woods are like that as well. That's why cotton woods We have such a hard time with sometimes There might be a few other species, but those are the main ones Yeah, all right. Well, okay, Joe. Thank you very much We learned a lot today and we're gonna get prepared for the onset of spring and looking for those pests So thank you Joe for your contribution tonight