Kim's weekly garden newsletter June 25, 2013

June 25, 2013 - Kim’s Weekly Garden Newsletter

http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-detroit/kimberley-willis

http://www.examiner.com/country-living-in-detroit/kimberley-willis

These weekly garden notes are written by Kim Willis, unless another author is noted, and the opinions expressed in these notes are her opinions and do not represent any other individual, group or organizations opinions.

Hello Gardeners

 When summer came, it really came.   I want early June back, that nice mild sunny weather.   I was outside watering last night until it started raining.  I am still glad I watered because we really haven’t had that much rain, even though it has been on and off again today.

I had another ripe tomato from the garden and more strawberries.  Peonies are just about gone but the daylilies are just about ready to open.  Roses are still going strong, I got a good bargain on a Sunny Knock Out potted rose this weekend.  It actually has a mild scent.  Keep your eyes open for good plant clearance bargains.

My apple trees are starting to sag with their load of marble size apples.  If I was ambitious I would thin them.  Some of you may have noticed lots of tiny green apples beneath your trees, don’t worry, its normal for apples to shed some fruit in June.  The trees can only support so much.  If you like nice large apples you may want to thin your trees a little more.  Just select a nice sized apple in each cluster of apples, and then remove all the other apples in that cluster by pinching them off with your fingertips.  There are chemicals that thin apples but for homeowners it’s tricky and why use chemicals if you can do without.

The cherries are beginning to ripen too.  I don’t get many cherries, the birds get them first.  My grandfather had a huge Queen Anne sweet cherry tree right by his front door.  To pick the fruit he used a pole pruner and just lopped off branches.  Then we kids picked the cherries off the fallen branches.  They usually had worms but we ate around them.  Grandpa made cherry wine every year.

Pitting cherries is the hardest part of preparing them for use.  An olive pitter can work and you can buy cherry pitters.  Or you can just use your fingers, which will get stained by the juice.  Cherries are said to relieve arthritic pain.  I like cherry juice but it’s so expensive.  Maybe I’ll just ease my pain with cherry pie!

How long has it been since you have seen a common garden toad?  I haven’t seen any in my yard in 2 years.  We do have at least 4 species of frogs around here, but the toads have vanished.  I remember when toads used to be everywhere in weather like this.  Frogs and toads are disappearing from our world at an amazing rate.  I wrote an article on some of the reasons and how you can help you can read here. http://www.examiner.com/article/how-to-help-save-frogs-and-toads

I was on a writing roll today on this steamy, rainy day.  So here goes.

Plant sex secrets revealed

Warning- the word sex is going to be used and sexual matters are about to be discussed. I have read several science articles this week on various aspects of sexual reproduction in flowering plants.  I think about this time of year all the flowers blooming put something in the air that seduces researchers into writing stories about plant sex as well as seducing little helpers like bees and butterflies into helping flowers have sex.

Abutilon flower

Going back to plant science classes or biology classes you may have had: flowering plants use various means to swap genetic material.   The sharing of genes makes for healthier offspring and allows for changes to be made to adapt to environments.   Some plants can also fertilize themselves if necessary, but they prefer a partner. 

Female plants produce ova, which will turn into seeds if they get fertilized.  Most ova are inside an ovary, attached to a placenta which nourishes them just as animal placentas nourish embryos.  Each ova consists of two cells, one will make a plant embryo if fertilized, the other makes a food supply for the embryo and a covering that encloses them both. (The seed.)  The ovary of the plant is connected to the outside world by a tube, long in some plants short in others, called the style and at the end of the style is a an area called the stigma, which will receive pollen from a male plant.

Male plants or plant parts produce pollen.  Pollen consists of 3 cells usually enclosed in some protective substance.  One cell produces a pollen tube, and the other two cells combine with the two cells of the ova if they are lucky.  The pollen of the male has to get to the stigma of the female plant at just the right time and plants use the wind, water or animals to transport the pollen to the stigma.

We have known for a long time that the pollen tube penetrates the hard style of the female and allows the two sperm cells to slide down and unite with an egg.  But until recently we haven’t been able to probe some of those plant sex secrets, like how the tube manages to find an ova, and how the female controls the sexual process so mayhem doesn’t result from the thousands of grains of pollen that typically land on a stigma.

Well it turns out that like much of the animal world hormones ,genes, and females control everything.  When pollen lands on a stigma it has to be ready to accept it, if it’s early or too late it will be rejected.  The female stigma is also able to regulate which pollen cells would be acceptable mates, and rejects those that are incompatible.  This is done through complex chemical signals.

According to new research, some pollen has a tube cell that is actually more aggressive and forces itself on the female style, trying to ensure the sperm cells accompanying it win the race.  In the long run this is detrimental to the plant because the ova may not be at the right stage to be fertilized.   But normally when the pollen landing on the stigma has been vetted by the female flower part, hormones in the plant lubricate the style and make it softer and the race of the tubes is on.

Some plants will have hundreds of tubes snaking through the style, some just one depending on how many ova are in each ovary, which varies in each plant species.  The tube is guided and elongated, we recently discovered, by something called MYB transcription factors, which are similar to substances that turn on genes in animal nervous systems that make nerves. The tube has to be in contact with the female style tissue to develop this substance, she turns it on.  The tube has to be guided to where an ova attaches to the placenta and find the tiny hole where nutrients pass into the ova from the placenta, and squeeze through that opening.

Scientists found a way to remove MYB transcription factors from tube cells and discovered that tubes without it continued to grow, curling around inside the style, never finding the hole or bursting to release sperm cells.  Once again this proves that without female help males would be lost.

Now here is where the research gets a bit kinky and just amazingly complex.  In order to fertilize the ova the pollen tube has to explode at just the right instant, and shoot the sperm into the egg.  By using microchips with tiny channels to stimulate styles and ova openings, researchers found that openings just tight enough, (the right size for that plant), promoted the explosion.  If they tightened an area as the tube pushed through the simulated style the tube exploded prematurely and since plant sperm don’t swim, those sperm will never fertilize the ova. (  I presume they were able to give the tubes MYB transcription factors.)

One researcher said “"Our findings show that a tight grip around the tube does result in sperm release.”  He said that it was proof that plants can respond to touch.   Now you have to be chuckling here.  But let’s move on.

Once the sperm hits the ova it needs to fertilize or unite with the two ova cells quickly.  If fertilization is a success the female plant will not allow any more tubes to penetrate the placenta hole.  If the sperm is a dud, the female will allow more tubes to enter until one works or the ova is too old.  How do scientists know this?  Researchers were able to find some mutant pollen where the tube cell would expand normally, burst at the right time and release the sperm, but the sperm cells were duds. 

The researchers then were able to mark normal pollen with one color and mutant pollen with another and watch under a high power microscope as the race unfolded.   Some ova would end up with numerous tubes entering them and exploding, until the right one came along.

Now when you walk in the garden today and look at the pretty flowers growing there you’ll marvel at the complex, hidden processes each flower is secretly carrying on. 

Research that the above information was based on was published in Current Biology and done at Brown University.  Additional research was done and published by Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), Portugal, and the University of Montreal and Concordia University. Some research was published in Science Express of the journal Science.

Jerry Bakers books dumped

Traffic was snarled and motorists were left fuming for more than 4 hours when a semi load of Jerry Baker books was dumped on US 23 last Monday afternoon.  The semi was traveling west on I96 from Bakers business in New Hudson, Michigan when it took the ramp to US 23 south and flipped over, spilling the books across the highway.

According to Sgt. Mark Thompson of the Michigan State Police, the driver was going too fast for the ramp.  The driver was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released.  The 52 foot trailer was filled with boxes of Baker’s gardening books.  I find it hard to believe that he had orders for that many books- maybe the trailer was headed to a composting site.

Tomatoes and slavery

I read a book this month that I highly recommend every gardener or even consumer read.   The book is called  ‘Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit’  ( only $1.99 on Amazon) and it is actually a compilation of articles written by an investigative reporter, Barry Estabrook.  If you have been following my newsletters or took a class from me you know that I am very much for seasonal, local eating and this book only enforces that.

Not only does the book touch on the lack of taste and nutrition in tomatoes grown for shipping and out of season consumption, and the environmental cost  such production creates,but the book details the horrible cost to human lives and dignity this out of season consumption causes.

Slavery in America still exists and the tomato fields of Florida are one of the hot spots for human slavery and abuse. (Other crops are also involved in human abuse and slavery cases.)  Florida actually provides most of the out of season tomatoes for the eastern half of the US.   When I say slavery I mean actual slavery - people owned by others and forced to work for no pay, locked up when not working and hunted down and beaten or killed if they try to escape.  Several large scale slavery cases have recently been prosecuted in Florida and more are being investigated.   (Slavery also exists in other occupations, such as the chain of Seven -11 stores raided last week in New York.)

Even the immigrants who are not held as actual slaves are treated in a horrible manner. They are made to live in housing owned by their bosses and for which outrageous sums are deducted from their checks.  This housing is frequently things like box trailers with rows of beds on the floor and no water or plumbing. They are taken to certain stores where they are allowed to buy food and other supplies at inflated prices, stores either owned or getting kickbacks from the bosses.  If they complain about conditions or cause any trouble they are found floating in irrigation canals.

They are forced to work in fields that are being sprayed with pesticides, or are still wet with them which is against the law, but not enforced very often.  Florida allows the use of some very toxic pesticides not approved in other states, because the tomato crop requires it.  Even pregnant woman are working in those fields and the awful birth defects their children suffer are frequently seen in hospitals that work with immigrants.  The American blacks who used to work in these fields until about the 50’s and 60’s are also coming down with an unusually high rate of strange, rare cancers.

People are forced to work while sick, (spreading those illnesses to the foods they pick), denied water until they drop from heat exhaustion, overcome, burned and blinded by pesticides.  Children as young as 9 or 10 are often found working in fields, against child labor laws.  People are routinely hit, whipped and beaten for minor infractions or not working fast enough.  All of this so people can have tomatoes in winter.

With the spotlight on immigration reform lately, reading this book will give you another perspective on the people who come here or are forced here to do the work Americans don’t want to do.

Black spot on roses

The Consumers’ Association Magazine,  put eight fungicides to the test between April and October last year to combat black spot on roses.  The products they found did the best job were Bayer Garden Systhane Fungus Fighter Concentrate, Scotts Fungus Clear Ultra, and Bayer Garden Multirose 2 Ready-to-use. 

Look at the leaf just to the right of the rose for black spot  beginning.

The test was conducted on a variety of modern rose called ‘Silver Jubilee’ which has some resistance to black spot.  Black spot was noticed in June on the roses and treatment according to label directions was begun.  Some roses were left untreated as a control.  The researchers found that any chemical product was better than no treatment, however an organic product tested,  Vitax Organic 2-in-1 Pest and Disease Control, had no effect on the disease.

Black spot is a disease caused by the fungus, Diplocarpon rosa.  It is extremely common in roses, especially older varieties of tea roses.   The fungus cause black spots on the upper surfaces of rose leaves, surrounded by a yellow area.  If the fungus is heavy the leaves may look almost totally yellow, sprinkled with black spots.  Rose flower petals may show streaking, red spots or distorted areas.  Infected leaves soon drop off the plant.  The plant struggles to put out new foliage and this weakens the plant and reduces blooming.  Infected plants may not survive the winter as well as those with mild or no infection.  And half bare, yellow leaved plants just aren’t very attractive.

Black spot overwinters on rose leaves on the soil or on the rose canes.  Rain and wind move the spores to new foliage on the roses in the spring.  When conditions are right,( warmth and humidity), usually about June, the fungus germinates and infects the rose.  If you are going to use fungicides begin spraying in June or as soon as you see even one infected leaf.  Follow label directions and keep up the schedule for best results.  The sprays don’t help already infected leaves but help new foliage stay healthy to make food for the plant.

Some modern shrub roses have pretty good resistance to black spot and rarely require treatment.  Even some tea roses have recently been bred that have  some resistance.  Older roses with resistance are the gallicas, rugosa’s and albas.  If you don’t like chemical spraying choose resistant varieties and hope for the best. 

Resistant varieties are not immune to black spot.  In really heavily infested areas and ideal conditions even resistant roses may get black spot. Some resistant varieties perform better in some geographical areas than others.  If one variety of rose always seems to get infected in your garden try another rose or at least another location in the garden.

Other ways to control black spot are to remove all rose leaves from under the plant in the fall or early spring before the plant leafs out.   Pick off any yellowed or spotted leaves and remove those that fall on the ground as soon as seen.   Don’t crowd the roses, they need good air circulation and roses against buildings or with hedges behind them may have more problems with black spot.

Water roses at the base, trying not to wet the foliage and do so early in the day so the foliage dries before evening.  Keep roses healthy by planting them in full sun and regularly fertilizing them as roses are heavy feeders.  You’ll also want to control rose insects such as rose chafers and Japanese beetles as these weaken the plant and make them more susceptible to damage from black spot.

Watch out for severe weather the next few days.

Kim

Garden as though you will live forever. William Kent

More Information

Want to learn how to spot some common weeds in the garden? Here’s a link to an article I wrote, complete with color pictures you can read.

http://www.examiner.com/list/how-to-identify-10-common-garden-weeds