Back to List of YULE TIDINGS Issues
PRESIDENT'S COMMENTS
Shirt Contest
2001 Media Award
Road Sign Committee Report
UPDATE ON SPHAEROPSIS BLIGHT OF PINES
LEYLAND CYPRESS NUTRIENT REQUIREMENTS

PRESIDENT'S COMMENTS by Jackie Merket

In closing, I would like to say thank you for letting me serve you this past year and good luck, Ken! Now I've got to go shear some wooly trees.....

Everybody enjoyed the hat contest in Houston last year, so don't come to Tyler without your shirt. This year, we will be honoring the all-important "work shirt." All entries must have been (noticeably) used during the planting, care, and/or sales of your Christmas trees.

The catagories will remain the same:

1. Best Color-Enhanced

2. Coolest

3. Cutest

4. "I Can't Believe You're Still Wearing That!!"

Last year the girls took home all the glory with their hats, so guys, bring us the shirt off your back! (Please launder first, just for the smell.)

Complete contest rules will be included in the convention registration brochure Top of Page

2001 Media Award

by Marge Gunia

I would like to get more articles to judge for this years media award so I am extending the deadline to July 1, 2002. Some of you have told me you have articles but just didn't get a chance to send them in yet or you thought that the article did not meet all the criteria. The committee will take care of that. Remember this is free publicity for our farms and a chance to promote Texas Grown Christmas Trees.

Please clip and send to me any 2001 articles on Texas Christmas trees.

To make judging easier please follow the criteria below in submitting your 2001 news article.

PLACE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON A 5 X 7 CARD OR PAPER:

1. Name, address and circulation number (how many readers--paper will have this number) of the newspaper

2. Daily, weekly or monthly publication

3. Name and address of news reporter or person responsible at the paper for placing the article or articles

4. Date article/articles appeared in the paper

5. Your name, address and phone

News articles sent must be original, not photo copies of the original and they must be received by July 1, 2002.

Send articles to:

Marge Gunia

13202 Lakecrest Drive

Cypress, Texas 77429

I have also had requests for judging videos that TV stations have done. Send me your videos about your farm from the 2001 season. These cannot be paid advertisements. If I get enough entries we can have a judging at the convention in Tyler.

Place the following on a 5 x 7 card:

1. Name, address and telephone number of the TV station.

2. Name, address and telephone number of the news reporter or person responsible at the TV station for producing the video.

3. Date the production was televised.

4. Your name, address and phone.

Deadline is July 1, 2002.

Road Sign Committee Report

Beth Walterscheidt and Dennis Gunia

Very few Christmas tree farms in Texas have those big, brown and beautiful TDOT signs showing the way to the farm.

Beth and I will be exploring the problems and make another attempt to get TDOT to relax the rules and hopefully get a few more farms with these road signs. We will also be pproaching other agriculture organizations and try to build the pressure for TDOT to change. If this fails, we may even consider trying legislative action to make the changes TDOT does not want to make.

However, we do need your help.

We need to know why your farm did not get the TDOT sign and especially if you wanted the sign and it was not allowed. Just send you comments to us.

Beth's email is mbwalter@totalaccess.net. Denny's email is

millhollo@aol.com.

If TDOT lets us down, we will be asking you to go to your state representative and ask for support for our efforts. (Who knows; you may get a customer to your farm.)

If you do want to help in this effort, please let us know. If you have a friend, relative or co-worker who is a state representa-tive, we definitely want you involved.

Subject: Article for Tidings

CHOOSE AND LIST

While you are watching TV, reading the newspaper, or listening to the radio, choose and list your favorites in your area, with their addresses. Or, just list all of the ones in your area, with addresses. Bring that list to the convention in Tyler and the marketing committee will have interesting cards prepared for you to sign and send, telling them about Real Christmas Trees in Texas, with you being the contact person in your area. We have found that these hand signed cards generated a lot of interest and telephone calls since we started sending them out two years ago. Lannie Dreesen is going to be the designated spokesperson for the TCTGA and when he receives calls from media in your area, he will refer them to your farm. You also need to be sure your listing on the website is up to date because the card will also refer them to the website.

Cards will be prepared to be sent to all the media across the state, and if you are not there to sign the ones in your area, someone else will be signing them.

The board of directors decided that there will be no printed brochure because all media personnel are using the internet because of its quick and easy access.

Remember, choose and list—and bring with you to the convention. This is one of the best ways to reach the media for your farm The Marketing Committee

UPDATE ON SPHAEROPSIS BLIGHT OF PINES (formerly Pine Diplodia)

Sphaeropsis blight, once known as Diplodia tipblight or dieback, is a major disease of pines, particularly of 2- and 3-needle pines, from the East Coast to the Great Plains and on to the western states, Canada and Hawaii. The disease is common in temperate, evergreen-growing regions around the world from 30-50 degrees north and south latitudes. It is mainly a disfiguring disease of trees growing under stress, with trees showing numerous brown, dead branch tips. Except for pine seedlings, Sphaeropsis blight rarely kills the plant because only current-season needles and shoots (or candles) and seed cones are infected and killed. Where new candles have been killed several years in succession, however, entire branches or trees may die.

No species of pine is immune, but many have some resistance. The most susceptible pines include Austrian, red, ponderosa, Scots, mugo, Jack, Japanese black, Mexican yellow, maritime, and Monterey. Hosts of the fungus include many other pines and evergreens. The Sphaeropsis fungus should be considered likely to infect and colonize any pine and many other conifers that are growing under unfavorable conditions or among diseased, highly susceptible species.

The disease is caused by the fungus Sphaeropsis sapinea (synonyms S. ellisii and Diplodia pinea) which normally infects young, healthy, unwounded buds, needles, and elongating shoots of new candles. However, twigs of trees weakened by environmental stresses, such as drought, water excess or shortage, poor soil conditions, nutrient imbalances (especially high nitrogen), hot windy weather, root restriction or injury, excessive shade, and wounds caused by hail, frost, snow, ice, shearing, or insects [pine spittlebug (Aphrophora parallela), caterpillars, scales, weevils, and bark beetles] or other diseases are also infected. Seedlings, and young trees become diseased if they grow near older infected trees or are under stress. Seedlings are usually killed when the fungus girdles the stem at or near the soil line. Infected germinating pine seeds are killed by a decay of the radicle as it emerges.

(Some helpful definitions:

a. Pycnidia-a tendril-like fungal structure containing conidia

b. Conidia-a type of spore which germinates much like plant seeds

c. Mycelium-root-like structures of fungi)

The disease results in a variety of symptoms including:

-Shoot tip blight on new candle growth which may wilt,

-Dieback of twigs, branches or leaders,

-Bleeding, resinous cankers (especially on lower branches and trunk),

-Deformed branches,

-Misshapen or dead tops (top-kill, stag-head, red top),

-Seed rot, damping-off and seedling blight,

-Collar and root rot of seedlings,

-Root rot (in South China),

-Death of cones, and

-Brown or gray to blue-black staining in sapwood.

The most noticeable symptom of Sphaeropsis blight is a browning, stunting, and twisting of the new shoots and needle growth called shoot tip blight. Usually the lower branches of a tree are the first and most seriously affected. Sometimes infection is concentrated over a small area or on one side of a tree. In long, wet springs, branches over an entire tree may show brown tips.

A gray then yellow and finally brown discoloration first appears near the base of the needles and then progresses toward their tips. Infected needles usually die when they reach one-half to three-fourths their normal length. Generally, all needles developing on an infected shoot die.

Candles growing from infected buds are generally short, bent, and soon die. Candles already developed from healthy buds stop elongating and become curled and twisted after infection. As stem tissue dies back, the whole candle droops. Resinous cankers commonly appear on infected stems at the youngest branch whorls and often at the bases of stunted and blighted needles. Death of the candle stimulates the formation of new lateral shoots in healthy stem tissue below. These shoots eventually may become blighted, turning shades of yellow-green to a straw-tan color.

Infected twigs commonly 'bleed' resin droplets, resulting in clusters of stunted, dead needles sticking to the twigs. Black, speck-sized fungus fruiting bodies, called pycnidia, form near the base of infected needles, mainly under the fascicle sheaths, in the bark of infected succulent twigs, and on the scales of infected second-year cones. Pycnidia start to erupt late in the spring of the year of infection and continues to the next spring. In older twigs that have been killed, the bark is dark brown and the sapwood is stained gray or blue-black.

You might mistake Sphaeropsis blight with symptoms caused by (1) low temperature injury, (2) drought, (3) winter drying, and (4) insect injury such as from Nantucket pine shoot moth (Rhyacionia frustrana). These problems can be distinguished from Sphaeropsis blight because the dead tissues lack the pinpoint black pycnidia. You can also distinguish twigs infected by pine shoot moth by the presence of frass and the hollow piths that are eaten out by the moth larvae; shoots killed by Sphaeropsis blight, in comparison, are solid and infiltrated with resin.

The Sphaeropsis fungus overwinters as minute black pycnidia in the bark of woody stems, dead needles, fascicle sheaths, scales of seed cones, and the outer bud scales. The fungus persists from year to year in infected needles, twigs and cones on the tree and on the ground. In wet weather, from late winter into late autumn, microscopic, mostly one-celled, yellowish brown to dark brown spores (conidia) ooze out of mature pycnidia in wet weather and are disseminated by wind and splashing rain, birds, insects, shearing tools, and in fluid secreted by the spittlebug. The fungus can also be disseminated as mycelium on pine seeds and in pine seedlings that superficially appear healthy.

The conidia are capable of germinating within a few hours of 100% humidity and temperatures between 53 and 96 degrees F. A wet period of 10 to 12 hours is sufficient for spore germination and infection to occur. In warm weather, the first symptoms may appear on needles in 3 to 4 days after infection.

Germinating conidia invade new buds or young needle growth by stomatal, or direct, penetration and sometimes through wounds. Penetration of elongating shoots occurs through the intact epidermis and wounds caused by shearing, hail, insects, etc. Most infections occur in late winter to midspring. Young shoots are highly susceptible during the short period from bud swell to when the needles are half-grown.

The Sphaeropsis fungus grows quickly and extensively through needle tissue, then into the stem, and finally into adjacent needles. Dieback symptoms appear several weeks or more after infection. Later in the season, erumpent, black pycnidia appear soon after infected tissues die. The pycnidia are clearly visible with a 10X hand lens. Mature needles or stems from previous years' growth are NOT infected by the fungus.

Research reports from South China state that the Sphaeropsis fungus survived more than 150 days in infected roots of slash pine under natural conditions and for over 120 days in natural soil at different water contents. Conidia survived in soil for more than 120 days in soil with water contents between 5 and 50%. Low soil water contents were found to be conducive to root infection by the fungus and such water contents for 20 days increased the susceptibility of seedlings to infection. Other research has shown that infected seedlings stored at near 100% humidity and 32-40 degrees F for two months are killed.

(c) Cleary 3336-F

(e) Fungo Flo

*Or label amount recommended by manufacturer.

Scientific Name Common Name

Pinus clausa Sand pine

Pinus clausa var. clausa

Pinus clausa var. immuginata

Pinus echinata Long-tag, shortleaf or

yellow pine

Pinus edulis Pinyon or two-leaved nut

pine

Pinus eldarica Afghan pine

Pinus elliottii Slash pine

Pinus glabra Cedar or spruce pine

Pinus halepensis Aleppo or Jerusalem pine

Pinus mugo Swiss mountain or mugo

pine

Pinus palustris Georgia, longleaf or

southern yellow pine

Pinus pinea Italian stone or umbrella

pine

Pinus ponderosa Ponderosa or western

yellow pine

Pinus serotina Pond pine

Pinus x sondereggii Longleaf x loblolly pine

hybrid

Pinus taeda Frankincense, loblolly or

old-field pine

Pinus thunbergiana Japanese black pine

Araucaria heterophylla Norfolk Island, Australian

or house pine

Cupressus macrocarpa Monterey cypress

Juniperus virginiana Eastern red or red cedar

Thuja orientalis Oriental or eastern

arborvitae or northern white

cedar

*This is a list of species that might be found growing in Texas. (Editor-selected from world-wide list.)

______________________________

By Lanny Dreesen, Texas Agricultural Extension Service, Conroe, 1998

At the convention in Marshall, Texas in 1998, Dr. George Kessler, Extension Specialist, from South Carolina gave a most informative presentation on Leyland Cypress culture. Part of his discussion dealt with nutrient requirements of the species. My notes from his talk follow.

Soil Nutrient Levels:

pH 6.0-6.5

Phosphorous 160 lbs/Acre

Potassium 240 lbs/Acre

Calcium 1,100 lbs/Acre

Magnesium 182 lbs/Acre

Zinc 2 lbs/Acre

Manganese 25 lbs/Acre

Foliar Nutrient Levels:

Nitrogen 1.5-2.0%

Phosphorous 0.2%

Potassium 0.6%

Calcium 0.6%

Magnesium 0.1%

Sulfur 0.08%

Zinc 25 ppm (parts per million)

Copper 5 ppm

Manganese 50 ppm

Iron 45 ppm

Boron 20 ppm

Dr. Kessler stated that it is most workable if all nutrient deficiencies are best corrected before planting, with the exception of nitrogen. It is best corrected after planting. The reason is that some minerals are immobile in the soil. Three good examples are phosphorous, calcium and magnesium. Even pH is easier to correct before the field is filled with tree roots. Many nutrients need to be incorporated in the soil and that is difficult after planting, without damaging crop plants. Fertilizing is best done two times per year-- April and early fall. Do not fertilize with nitrogen late in the fall on trees to be sold, unless there is a color problem, he said.

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