California Scientists Release Citrus Psyllid Predator

Tamarixia radiata

California scientists just released the Tamarixia radiata - a predator wasp that attacks our dreaded Asian citrus psyllid.

UC Riverside Executive Vice Chancellor Dallas Rabenstein and Mark Hoddle, the director of the Center for Invasive Species Research, released Tamarixia radiata – tiny, stingless parasitic wasps that lay eggs in ACP nymphs – in a citrus grove near the UCR Botanic Gardens. A total of 281 wasps (95 males and 186 females) were released.



Over the next several years, UCR and California Department of Agriculture Food and Agriculture (CDFA) scientists will raise thousands of Tamarixia for release throughout California. The Tamarixia larvae will eat the ACP nymphs, killing them, and emerge as adults about 12 days later. Adult female Tamarixia also eat other ACP nymphs, killing many in the process.

Read more.

Management of Asian Citrus Psyllid - IFAS

Tamarixia radiata - life cycle - Cornell

Why Are My Citrus Leaves Curling?

Oranges Bring Winter Sunshine

Citrus Tree Leaves Are Curling

Teresa:

My lemon and grapefruit leaves are curling and it looks like a snake design on the leaves.  Could you tell me what this could be.  Thank you.

Barbara

The squiggly lines and curled leaves are an indication that your citrus trees have had a visit from citrus leafminers. Now... once you see the damage, the moth has laid its eggs, the larvae have hatched and are gone and there's no reason to use a chemical. There are parasitoid biological controls in Florida.

Leafminers like new tender foliage. It doesn't hurt the citrus tree or the fruit but can be a problem for young trees trying to leaf out. As your citrus trees get new leaves, you can spray with Bayer Advanced Fruit, Citrus, and Vegetable Insect Control.  It provides from one to three months of protection from the insects. Follow the instruction label to make sure that you have the best effectiveness.

Make sure you're fertilizing your citrus on a consistant basis every three to four months with a balanced fertilizer with micro nutrients.

Leafminers can also attack ornamental plants and vegetables. Make sure that the insecticide you use is certified for home use and edible landscaping.

The Key To Great Citrus Trees

All gardeners know that fertilization is necessary for plants to be bloom, produce fruit, vegetables, and to be healthy.  Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are what plants need most, but to be the most productive and reduce susceptibility to pests and disease issue, micronutrients are vital. 

The easiest way to explain micronutrients in a way that non-gardeners can understand is to correlate them to vitamins.  We don't just take a vitamin B1 tablet or a potassium pill to be healthy; we need to take a multivitamin with the major vitamins and nutrient supplements.  It's also true for all plants, especially citrus. Yes, they need the nitrogen for foliage growth, phosphorus for flowers, fruit, and a good root system, and potassium for thicker cell walls making them less likely to succumb to stress, but they also need micronutrients, such as  boron, copper, chlorine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, and zinc.  These elements are needed less often and in smaller quantities but are just as important.

Micronutrients in growing citrus is essential yet is often overlooked by homeowners. A new product on the citrus scene may be the affordable and easy solution to fertilizing citrus in your backyard.  KeyPlex Citrus HG is a foliar nutritional supplement that allows the homeowner to provide important micronutrients to their citrus trees. KeyPlex Citrus HG is derived from alpha-keto acids, an energy compound. Alpha-keto acids are the primary element in the production of amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, and hormones. When plants are healthy and have access to micronutrients, plants are able to create thicker cell walls. Thicker cell walls allows the plant to be stronger and less susceptible to stress, which enables the plant to ward off diseases.

It seems citrus has taking a beating the last few years from canker and citrus greeening. But it wouldn't be Florida without orange and grapefruit trees. Providing micronutrients is a great way to have healthier citrus trees. I've even used it on my vegetable beds successfully. Costs for KeyPlex products range from $5.99 to $29.99 for larger garden beds. Homeowners can find KeyPlex HG and KeyPlex Citrus HG online at KeyPlexdirect.com and locally in Orlando at 1-407-459-7682.

 

KeyPlex has even chosen pink flamingos as their mascots.

Christmas Lights in a Florida Garden

What do Florida gardens look like in the winter? We usually can wear shorts on Christmas Day, so our landscapes normally look great in November and December. But this year we've been hit by fluctuating high and freezing low temperature records within the first two weeks of the month.


While my tropical November blooming Panama rose, Rondeletia leucophylla took the frost more seriously than the rest of my garden plants, the cold weather has the sycamore in its glorious fall motif while my sweetgum and other deciduous trees are bare.

When you add holiday lights to your shrubs and palms, you add heat to the surrounding plants keeping them a few degrees warmer. Here's how the Florida Botanical Gardens in Pinellas County keeps warm during this unusually chilly December. Look at everyone in their winter jackets and coats strolling along the festive pathways. You can still see the Florida Botanical Gardens holiday lights through January 2nd.

Chilly Mornings Set Records In Florida

Last night and early morning saw record lows in the 20's for Central Florida with wind chills in the teens. Despite warm La Nina predictions, we are seeing two freezes a week apart and temperatures 20 degrees below normal for this time of the year. The good news is that crabgrass will be killed.
With winter still a week away, our landscapes will have to contend with a few more freezes before March, so what should you do in your landscape to help your plants recover? The answer is: as little as possible. Turn off your sprinkler systems. Watering plants now with damaged foliage and stems will only allow disease and rot to occur in the stems and bark which could increase the plant's chances of death. Chances for rain this weekend will help water your plants naturally, if not irrigating normally on your watering day is all that is needed. For future freezes, make sure that the day before a freeze, hand water the ground around your tropical plants and fruit trees will help keep the warmth of the ground radiating at night.

The bad news is that tropical plants, palms, and fruit trees and any leftover summer annuals will also show damage. Don't remove any damaged leaves or fronds yet. Keeping them on will help insulate the plants during freezes. Optimally, you'll want to wait until the chance for freezing is over - usually at the end of February, mid-March.

Hold off on mowing turf with leaf firing (burned tips) or that has gone dormant until temperatures are back in the 60's. This also will keep the turf from further damage. There is no need for any fertilizing or pesticide treatments this time of year.

When temperatures stay below 28 degrees for more than 2 hours, citrus fruit damage will be likely. Harvest any ripe citrus as soon as possible. If the fruit is edible, the inside of the fruit will still look normal, smell good, and taste good.

If you haven't gotten frost blankets for your tropicals like scheffleras, hibiscus, crotons, allamandas,mandevillas, pygmy date and queen palms.

Summertime Finds For Your Backyard

I love new plants. Especially flowers that are one of a kind that are easy to grow and look as gorgeous as candelabras on a grand piano. I found the Candelabra clerodendron at Blodgett's Nursery on Edgewater in Orlando last Friday. Its' deep green leaves and upright white flowers took my breath away. Perfect for shade or partial sun, this clerodendron is new to the market and not easily available. In fact, when I talked to Mike Gibson, with Blodgett's, he said they only had four! I think I'm going back for more!



I can't find any research on them so I'll be taking notes and letting you know how they perform in my backyard!

Another colorful shade-loving ornamental is the Persian Shield, Strobialanthus dyerianus. Very drought-tolerant, easy care, no pest issues, and provides psychedelic colors of purple, gold, green, and many other colors depending on the light. It can grow to 5 feet tall in full sun, but in the shade it will only get to be 2 - 3 feet. In full sun they will need more water and suffer stress.

I'll be talking about citrus problems in your backyard with Charles Fedunak, Lake County's Horticultural Agent. If you have orange, grapefruit, or tangerine trees, you won't want to miss it!

In Your Backyard: Walking In The Woods

Great weekend leading twenty adventurous hikers on the 4.5 mile Land Bridge trek for Walk Across Marion County. We had perfect weather to enjoy the vista of long-leaf pines, rusty lyonia, and scrub oaks. Evident also were prescribed winter burns in the preserved Greenway Trails region and the Ocala Forest.



Recent burn on one side of Hwy 19 and the thick underbrush of saw palmettos and wire grasses directly across on the other side.

These burns are necessary maintenance to keep the undergrowth vegetation healthy, reduce the intensity of naturally-occuring fires (from lightning), and encourage new pine tree seedlings. Driving through the Forest, chickasaw plums were in full bloom, along with redbuds.



Blooming cherry laurels will be an integral food source for Florida wildlife in the summer.

On the outskirts of the Ocala National Forest, just outside Umatilla, I had to turn the car around and snap some photographs and video a bald eagle having a fresh meal of rabbit. He didn't mind the heavy passing traffic.



Citrus was the hot topic last week on "In Your Backyard." Issues such as dried out oranges, the sweetness of oranges, suckering, and huanglongbing, or more easily referred to as citrus greening, a devastating disease for the citrus industry.

Here's a great IFAS publication on citrus problems in home landscapes.

Looking forward to your gardening calls today! What's going on in your backyard?

In Your Backyard: Chilly Willy, It's Supposed To Be Florida!

Robert Carrion's reality photographs from Montverde, Florida. Temperatures definitely hit the 20's, with wind chills in the teens.





For homeowners, watering your yard two to three days BEFORE a freeze will help keep it warmer than watering it during the freeze. Wet soil will generate more heat than dry soil. It also helps hydrate plants.

Wrapping them with frost blankets and adding lights underneath the plants will also add more warmth.

But if your landscape received snow and sleet, then you're probably going to see more damage to your plants than in a normal Florida winter. Here's how to check if your plants survived:

• Delay pruning for several weeks to see what has actually died.
• You can pull off any damaged leaves.
• Scrape bark for green growth underneath the damage. If it's black, then cut back till you find green cambium.
• Mushy stems are an indication of frost-damage. Cut back to ground.
• Don't fertilize or amend soil.
• Allow for rainfall and/or if none, irrigate once every ten days. Do not overwater.
• Frozen plants may take longer than usual (months) to recover so be patient with any plants that are favorites before digging up and throwing away.

More information on cold protection for your ornamental plants.

Why do citrus growers use micro-irrigation on their groves?

Spring blooming Trees for Florida:

Saucer Magnolia

Chickasaw Plum

Dogwood

Great Spring Catalogs:

Plant Delights Nursery

Tomato Growers Supply Company

White Flower Farm

K. Van Bourgondien & Sons

We will be talking about fruit trees for Florida with Chestnut Hill Tree Farms next week! You don't want to miss the next "In Your Backyard."