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Scout's Honor: Mid-Season Monitoring for Better Harvests
32 Plays3 hours ago
Join the Hort Culture crew as they dive into the importance of mid-season scouting and monitoring for gardeners and growers as summer production ramps up. Blending their usual humor with practical advice, they discuss how regularly observing plants can help identify issues with insects, diseases, water management, nutrient deficiencies, and environmental stress before they become major problems. The conversation covers scouting techniques such as checking both the tops and undersides of leaves, monitoring field edges and interiors, recognizing abnormal plant growth, and using tools like moisture sensors, sticky traps, and extension resources to make informed management decisions. Throughout the episode, the hosts emphasize that successful plant care starts with knowing what “normal” looks like in your garden and consistently paying attention to changes, helping growers make timely, effective decisions while avoiding unnecessary treatments.
IPM Scouting Guides for Common Problems of Vegetable Crops
UK Integrated Pest Management Program
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Humorous Choices of Inanimate Objects
00:00:16
Alexis
What up, friends?
00:00:18
Jessica
Hello.
00:00:19
brett
yu up
00:00:19
Plant People
Good day one and all.
00:00:21
Alexis
All right, I've got a question for you. Are you ready? If you were an inanimate, I can't say that word, an inanimate object, an anemone, if you were an inanimate object, what would you be?
00:00:24
Plant People
I don't know.
00:00:27
Plant People
And.
00:00:28
brett
If I were an anatomy teacher...
00:00:30
Jessica
then an Aminu Mimi.
00:00:36
Plant People
Hmm.
00:00:39
Alexis
Do you want me to give you mine? Because I've had the chance to think about it.
00:00:41
Jessica
Yeah. okay Yeah.
00:00:42
Alexis
I would be a rock.
00:00:44
Plant People
Ah, I was going to say the Blarney stone, but since you took rock fine.
00:00:44
Alexis
I would be a rock.
00:00:47
Alexis
yeah ah And then, you know, if anybody steps on me, whatever, it hurts them. It's fine. I don't care. What do I care? I'm a rock. Feels like a good life. but
00:00:57
brett
what kind of what kind of rock What kind of rock are you imagining?
00:00:57
Plant People
So you're slowly, yeah.
00:00:59
Alexis
Huh?
00:01:00
Plant People
You like igneous or sedimentary or what?
00:01:00
brett
What kind of rock are you imagining?
00:01:02
Alexis
The kind that you find in your shoe.
00:01:04
Plant People
Oh, God.
00:01:04
brett
Like small, so small.
00:01:05
Plant People
Gosh.
00:01:05
Jessica
Oh, so you can travel.
00:01:07
brett
Teeny tiny.
00:01:07
Plant People
You're a stone.
00:01:07
Alexis
Yeah, I'm a traveling rock.
00:01:08
brett
More
00:01:08
Plant People
You're a traveling rock. Oh, you're a traveler.
00:01:10
Alexis
I'm traveling rock. Just launching up in your tires so that every time it spins, you hear your ear clicking sound.
00:01:11
brett
like a pebble then. Hmm.
00:01:16
Jessica
i instantly went to a kid's book that we love called Ricky the Rock who couldn't roll. All
00:01:20
Plant People
Hmm. Hmm.
00:01:22
Alexis
You could, you're in books about rock and roll. I mean, people like a rock, right?
00:01:25
Jessica
right.
00:01:27
Alexis
Rock collections.
00:01:28
Jessica
They do. They do. Well, then you got think like, would you like, you know, you could be like a gemstone. Right.
00:01:35
Plant People
Yeah.
00:01:35
brett
A righteous one.
00:01:36
Plant People
A righteous gemstone. Yeah.
00:01:38
Jessica
A righteous.
00:01:38
Alexis
A righteous person.
00:01:38
Jessica
Yes.
00:01:41
Alexis
Brett, what would you be?
00:01:45
brett
I think I would be a knife.
00:01:51
Plant People
Okay.
00:01:51
Alexis
very like That's a very Alexis answer in my opinion.
00:01:52
Plant People
Yeah. We're waiting for this to be expounded upon, Brett.
00:01:56
brett
I think it's ah it's ah it's a highly ah adaptable and usable tool, but does require some some maintenance in order to be functioning properly.
00:02:08
brett
ah Nothing too exciting, but also, you know, if if you need it it's and you have it there, it's pretty cool.
00:02:16
Alexis
So reason that's always in a survival kit.
00:02:20
brett
Me. That's the reason I'm packaged inside of a survival kit.
00:02:20
Alexis
Always having a night. I'm just out there causing problems with your survival.
00:02:26
Plant People
A rock.
00:02:27
brett
Yeah.
00:02:27
Plant People
I mean, Charlie Brown's like, I got a rock and he wasn't happy about it.
00:02:27
brett
well you can yeah
00:02:28
Alexis
Unless, unless I'm a like rock that, you know, there's a cave inside that. So, you know, then I'm providing shelter. So it's a win-win. Uh, Ray, what would you be?
00:02:38
Plant People
Oh man, this is a tough one. I don't even, i don't even know.
00:02:42
Alexis
Don't think about it too hard. You just, just.
00:02:43
brett
I think Rey could be a like a really nice vase.
00:02:43
Plant People
i know i got.
00:02:48
Plant People
Yeah.
00:02:48
Alexis
Um,
00:02:49
brett
Like ah like a stoneware vase that's very...
00:02:50
Alexis
It made. Nice.
00:02:51
Plant People
We should have picked inanimate objects for one another. That would have been far more fun. Yeah.
00:02:55
brett
And he, and you know, he's, he is beautiful in his own right, but also does a lot to enhance the beauty of others, whatever is in the vase, you know?
00:03:04
Plant People
Oh, wow. That is being generous, Brett. Thank you. Thank you.
00:03:08
brett
I think you you could play the lead or the wingman very, very effectively. Yeah.
00:03:12
Plant People
Depends on the situation. Well, let's go with Brett's answer.
00:03:13
brett
Yeah.
00:03:14
Plant People
It was far better than anything that my mind was literally b blank, Brett. So thank you very much.
The Appeal of Being a Tractor
00:03:20
Plant People
now Now we got to do Jessica though.
00:03:22
Jessica
Yeah, you might need to help me out because i
00:03:22
Plant People
Yeah, I know. je and Jessica's kind of jealous. You just gave me something amazing, Brett.
00:03:26
Jessica
I know it was really good because in my mind, I was like, I would be this.
00:03:27
Plant People
That was amazing.
00:03:29
Jessica
I'm like, no, that would break down over time.
00:03:31
Plant People
Yeah.
00:03:31
Jessica
That's made of wood. Um, no, I would be, you know, and then I had my mind because
00:03:33
Plant People
Petrified wood.
00:03:35
Alexis
I mean, everything breaks down over time.
00:03:37
brett
Yeah.
00:03:38
Jessica
Right.
00:03:38
Alexis
It's time.
00:03:38
Jessica
I was almost, I instantly, because tractors and tractors in my life are, I don't know, maybe be a tractor.
00:03:39
Alexis
I like
00:03:39
brett
All tattoos are temporary, Mom.
00:03:48
Jessica
I don't know. My kids play tractors constantly.
00:03:50
Alexis
it.
00:03:51
Jessica
i hear that word 5 million times a day.
00:03:53
Alexis
All the people in your life love tractors.
00:03:54
Jessica
thank of all, right.
00:03:55
Alexis
so that makes sense. Yeah.
00:03:57
Jessica
And they can be passed down through generations.
00:04:01
Plant People
and their value increases over time.
00:04:01
Jessica
Right.
00:04:03
brett
Yeah, it gets better they get better with age in a way i was thinking I was thinking like an old ah like square body pickup because it's like classic people who know what they're doing know what they're looking at are huge fans.
00:04:06
Jessica
Right.
00:04:06
Plant People
Yeah.
00:04:07
Jessica
I don't know. i don't know.
00:04:09
Alexis
I like it.
00:04:10
Plant People
Yeah.
00:04:10
Alexis
I like it.
00:04:22
brett
Doesn't go out of style, dependable. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
00:04:26
Plant People
And if you're mean to or she'll run you over.
00:04:27
brett
So we were in the same boat.
00:04:29
Plant People
So perfect.
00:04:29
brett
Yeah.
00:04:29
Plant People
Yeah.
00:04:30
Jessica
Perfect. Sounds perfect.
00:04:32
Alexis
I love it. But the real question is is, she a Ford or a Chevy?
00:04:34
Plant People
I feel like now you need to do Alexis, Brett.
00:04:34
Jessica
What what what ah what a question. yeah
00:04:38
brett
Oh man, Alexis.
00:04:39
Plant People
Alexis gave us hers, but we need to know what Alexis is.
00:04:41
Alexis
You don't have to. It's okay. I'm i'm fine with being rock.
00:04:43
Plant People
Dang it. Dang it. Okay.
00:04:45
brett
I think she chose herself.
00:04:45
Plant People
Okay.
00:04:46
brett
like I think that would be the most Alexis thing would be her her choosing her own destination.
00:04:46
Plant People
She did very quickly chose herself. and ah You're probably right. You're probably right. Self-determination.
00:04:57
Alexis
Well, anyways, thank you for
Gardening and Plant Monitoring
00:04:59
Alexis
indulging us. Those of you out there who are like, I thought this was like a plant podcast. It it is. um But it's also a random question and snacks podcast if you're new here.
00:05:05
Plant People
Eventually.
00:05:09
brett
Mmm.
00:05:10
Alexis
But today we are going to talk about something hopefully timely if you're listening in the, I guess it's early summer now, timeline.
00:05:11
Jessica
Yeah.
00:05:11
brett
I live.
00:05:11
Plant People
The random lead-in.
00:05:20
Plant People
Mid-June. Yeah.
00:05:21
Alexis
o but Gross to say.
00:05:23
Plant People
Hmm.
00:05:23
Alexis
I'm waiting for the heat to kick in I'm not ready. I'm not acclimated. I'm already very sweaty and it's not hot yet by Kentucky standards at least. So ah anyways, but we are talking about some scouting today um and just things you need, whether you have a vegetable garden or you're market gardening or you're in full-blown production, just some little reminders about things to be on the lookout for as well as tools to help remind you to be on the lookout because, you know, we can't keep it all in our brain.
00:05:54
Alexis
So
00:05:54
Plant People
This could go so many ways. i was thinking about this when we talked about this as a potential topic, Alexis, and the more I thought about it, the more my brain went in different directions. I mean, some of the, some of the, yeah, even more so than normal, which for me is saying a lot, you know, as a squirrel, but yeah, there's, there's a lot we could talk about here for monitoring in mid June.
00:06:04
Alexis
It's about to be go time.
00:06:15
Plant People
It's, you know, everybody switched over from that, uh, Yeah, it is go time. Things are growing. You know, the, hopefully the moisture is still there. Plants are getting bigger, which leads to a lot of additional monitoring needs as, um, you know, as far as kicking the conversation off with some basic concept, one of the biggies for me, uh, that necessitates sort of this monitoring is plants are getting bigger.
00:06:38
Plant People
They're shading. I'll pick on tomatoes.
00:06:40
Alexis
Yeah.
00:06:40
Plant People
Uh, you know, they're one that gets splites and, and leave spots and things, bacteria and fungal, but, um, Plants are getting bigger, they're shading themselves, and that's a good disease environment. So as a baseline part of the discussion, when I'm working with people that come into the office and we're talking about monitoring plans, this time of year, i don't know how you guys do it or recommend it, but at least twice a week, if you're a commercial producer, as far as in fields looking for insects and diseases this time of year, probably as a good baseline starting point.
00:07:10
Jessica
Thank you.
00:07:11
Plant People
of your eyes on, you know, things going on, not just around the edges of the field, ah which you'll see some insect problems there first, but also in the middle of the field.
00:07:22
Plant People
We talk about w patterns and B patterns of walking, you know, larger commercial fields.
00:07:22
Alexis
Exactly.
00:07:27
Plant People
But yeah, I usually start, you know, conversations like that mid-June, like we're in now, mid to late June. yeah.
00:07:33
brett
Well, I think before, like even just, I think everybody who likes plants at some point likes to go out and just walk among them and take a look at things. And I i think one of the things, even as ah just a precursor to the to the actual targeted specific specific scouting, is like,
00:07:43
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:07:54
brett
as you're walking around being paying attention to a few things here and there and just noticing things.
00:07:58
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:07:59
brett
It's, it's something that I, and I'm not, this is not anything groundbreaking, but like when I walk around with people who really know plants and know what they're doing, they'll, they'll see things and they'll notice things just from the accrued amount of time that they've spent.
00:08:12
brett
And it's something as simple as like, you see how this plant, that the color of the leaves is just slightly different from the other ones.
00:08:13
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:08:18
brett
Well, that might be an indicator that there's a problem or, See how these leaves are starting to droop a little bit and there's, you know, kind of some wilting of that going on here. Well, that might be a sign of something. Or why is this one so much shorter or taller?
00:08:29
brett
It's like just on its phase, it's like noticing differences and and a little more structure to your wandering around time amongst your plants.
00:08:33
Alexis
Yeah.
00:08:37
Plant People
Yeah, that comparative analysis is like the backbone of when we're talking about crops with a lot of the same plant in an area that does this plant look like this plant?
00:08:38
brett
um
00:08:47
Plant People
That's like the backbone of just observation.
00:08:49
brett
Yeah.
00:08:49
Plant People
um And.
00:08:50
brett
Exclude the bully and then make fun of it.
00:08:52
Plant People
Yeah, you know, and put them off to the side.
00:08:52
brett
Or exclud exclude the one with difference, be a bully, make fun of yeah.
00:08:54
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah. Give them a hard time.
00:08:57
Alexis
I always tell people, you don't have to know what you're looking for. You're just looking for something that didn't look like it either did before. if you have one plant, right? because sometimes you can't, if you're a home gardener, you might only have one tomato plant or, you know, one of house plant or whatever it is.
00:09:13
Alexis
But, you know, in a larger scenario, it's a little bit easier, but you're looking for either it looks different than the last time you saw it, or it looks different from its neighbor. That is the same variety. And you don't have to know anything else other than there's something different about it.
00:09:22
Jessica
Yep, just. Right.
00:09:26
Alexis
um And then you'd bring it to so bring it to an expert. You bring it to your county agent, say, this one is different. And you let them, you know, kind of walk you through other things to look for.
00:09:37
Jessica
Yeah, just know your normal, right? Like whether it's, you know, your normal.
00:09:39
Plant People
Yeah.
00:09:39
Alexis
know your normal.
00:09:41
Jessica
And then if anything starts to yellow or start to, you know, change color and a lot of it, sometimes it does seem like it happens overnight,
Effective Watering Techniques for Plants
00:09:50
Jessica
right? But, you know, if you're out there checking every day, my mind, i mean, I go to the...
00:09:50
Alexis
Mm
00:09:55
Jessica
disease as well, but I instantly go to insects, right? About how you should scout for them because those guys really like to hide on the undersides of leaves. That's where they like to lay a lot of their eggs.
00:10:04
Alexis
Cheers.
00:10:04
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:10:06
Jessica
um That's where they're going to start off at. Or like Ray kind of mentioned already around the outside of the fields, we'll start to see see them out there at first, because a lot of times our insects are on a lot of our weeds that we have around our garden areas.
00:10:20
Jessica
They like those. Those are like their host plants, but what they what they want to be on at first. And so then when they deplete that source, and then we have planted, you know, a nice resource for them to hop over on.
00:10:30
Plant People
Stinkbugs and Spider-Mots.
00:10:31
Alexis
yearss
00:10:32
Plant People
Yeah, all of those guys.
00:10:32
Alexis
yes
00:10:33
Jessica
Thank you, guys. Now I have a nice place to go and and feed.
00:10:37
Plant People
Yeah.
00:10:38
brett
So in, in broad strokes, Jessica, you're, you're mentioning insects, Ray's mentioned disease.
00:10:38
Jessica
But it
00:10:45
brett
I think some of the other things that you might be looking for or thinking about is nutrient plant nutrients and whether they're getting nutrients and then water.
00:10:52
Plant People
Yeah.
00:10:53
Jessica
Yep.
00:10:55
brett
Um, and I guess you could say sun in some cases, things might, it might be getting too hot for them or whatever.
00:10:55
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:10:59
Plant People
yeah
00:11:00
Alexis
Environmental impacts.
00:11:01
brett
It might be time to pull them out, but.
00:11:01
Alexis
Yeah.
00:11:03
brett
environmental stuff too. And so that's, that was kind of what i was hoping to learn from you. It's just kind of the approaches to those different things. Um, and, and maybe start, I think one thing I've always struggled with is knowing when to water versus not water and it rained, you know, recently, does that mean I don't have to water for one week, one month, one year?
00:11:23
Plant People
and
00:11:26
brett
What's the deal with that? Um, do y'all have thoughts on that?
00:11:28
Plant People
That's a, that's a really, just a tricky one, especially those that are newer to plasticulture, know, mounded, heel, covered in plastic kind of production system. If you're new to that,
00:11:41
Plant People
it can be a little bit tricky. And if you're new to a field, it can be tricky even for experienced growers. But definitely if you do the field test, if you just take your hand and fill the soil four to six inches deep, that's one thing.
00:11:54
brett
Does that mean like, you're like, how are you doing that?
00:11:54
Plant People
There's a kind of a, ah yeah, which is kind of subjective.
00:11:56
brett
Like sticking your finger in it?
00:11:59
Plant People
And I love the comment you made a long time ago, Brad, a couple of seasons ago with Alexis, when you really questioned her, you're like, what, what does that mean? What does that feel like?
00:12:08
brett
What is wet for houseplant media?
00:12:08
Plant People
Um, Yeah, we were we had this whole discussion.
00:12:10
brett
Yeah.
00:12:12
Plant People
Well, there is a lot of subject subjectivity to that. That's why we have devices like tensiometers and, watermark sensors and things like that. We do have devices that were very accurately, as long as they're maintained, you know, measure.
00:12:26
Plant People
Yeah. you know, different aspects of soil moisture availability. ah But there is, you know, you have to have some method of gauging that. You just can't go out there and set your irrigation and just let it go because you have to pay attention to the environment, natural rainfall. Now, even with me saying that, and Jessica, I know you can appreciate this. If you're irrigating, it seems crazy, but if you're fertigating, running your fertilizer through the lines, you may have to irrigate even if the ground's wet. It's kind of weird.
00:12:57
Plant People
So there are some fringe cases there, but Brett, that's a good point.
00:12:57
Jessica
Right, right.
00:13:00
Plant People
You have to have some way of getting a handle on what moisture is available for the crop that you're growing. And there's some very good devices for that.
00:13:07
Alexis
And it depends on the size of the plant too, you know, like if it was, if it's a transplant versus a seed and, you know, we could, we could spend an entire episode just talking on water and the different sizes, but you know, if you've got a tomato plant, that's four, you know, three foot tall, you know, and it just rained two days ago, you may still have to water.
00:13:09
Plant People
yeah Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:13:13
Plant People
Yeah.
00:13:16
Plant People
um
00:13:19
Plant People
Yeah.
00:13:26
Alexis
But if that same scenario rained two days ago and that transplant is six inches tall, it's not going to have the water load, right.
00:13:27
Plant People
Yeah.
00:13:33
Jessica
Right.
00:13:34
Alexis
That a three foot plant would move.
00:13:34
Jessica
And a lot of it too, just depends on after these rain events that we have, does it stay cooler and maybe it's kind of cloudy, right?
00:13:42
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:13:43
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:13:44
Jessica
So it's just paying attention to that too, because you can see where you have plants that they have been like so completely saturated, right? And then it just turns hot like the next day and they are already like kind of wilted, right?
00:13:56
Plant People
They will. Yeah.
00:13:58
Jessica
um So it's a lot of paying attention to that too, just your environment. around you, um it all ties into the scouting, right?
00:14:03
brett
Yeah. So, yeah. And i so soil type too, you know, there's some soils that drain really, really fast, which is good when it's raining a ton, but when you want to hold onto some soil moisture is not so good.
00:14:09
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:14:09
Plant People
Yeah.
00:14:15
brett
And then other ones that will hold onto water like a sponge and just stay wet. And so when you're looking and trying to get into a field in the spring and it just will not dry out, you're mad.
00:14:21
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:14:24
brett
But then later on and when it holds onto that stuff. So I think I kind of what I'm hearing from you all is that the more that we can evaluate the actual soil moisture conditions directly, the better.
00:14:35
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:14:36
brett
um And so I've used a couple of different things in the home gardening sphere and they they work okay.
00:14:37
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:14:38
Plant People
Yeah.
00:14:43
brett
I think they work as a part of a data triangulation process where you take multiple points of information and Know when it rained, know when last I irrigated, maybe use the tool, maybe use your finger to, you know, feel around that.
00:14:56
brett
But I've used these ones. They look like a long meat thermometer kind of, and you can take and push them in and take an instant read.
00:15:00
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:00
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:15:03
brett
A couple of years ago, the UK extension was in the horticulture specifically was really pushing tensiometers, which are these, um they look, they, what do they look like?
00:15:13
Jessica
Thank you.
00:15:14
brett
They kind of look like a, a pipe with a gauge on it.
00:15:16
Plant People
Kind like a, yeah.
00:15:18
brett
That's, that has a tip, a little perfect, like tip that looks like almost like ceramic-y and you soak it in water and then you take and make a hole and you jam it down in the soil and then it, yeah.
00:15:19
Alexis
yeah
00:15:23
Plant People
It is ceramic, yeah. That's like the gold standard is the tensiometers. That's what you're going to most commonly find, yeah.
00:15:34
brett
And what it does is it actually like once it seals up as things dry out, it like pulls the water out of the tensiometer, which creates pressure, which translates to a little gauge that shows.
00:15:41
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:15:45
brett
So you can buy these there between 80 and 150 bucks, I think for the decent ones. Um, The ones that I was talking about that look like the meat thermometer are significantly cheaper, like 10 to 15 and up from there.
00:15:59
brett
But um like the old school, especially for home gardeners, the old school kind of stick your finger down about as deep as it'll go.
00:16:04
Jessica
Thank you.
00:16:06
brett
See if it feels moist, if it feels clumpy. You can also dig dig some soil and see if you can squeeze it and if it sticks together, that sort of assessment.
00:16:13
Plant People
Yeah.
00:16:14
brett
But
00:16:14
Plant People
The stain test. Yeah.
00:16:16
brett
I think I have a theory that ah people fall into either the category of overwaterers or underwaterers.
00:16:17
Alexis
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:16:24
brett
And it tells me everything I need to know about your whole personality. So don't ever let me know what you are. But I know I am an overwaterer. And so I know if I'm hesitant, I'm probably like if I'm like, it might need some water.
00:16:34
Jessica
you
00:16:38
brett
I'm probably good. if I'm like, oh man, these things really need water, then I should listen to that ah as, as I develop my feel across time. But what do you all think about that?
00:16:48
Alexis
Yeah. If you want to technically feel like after you've had a good risk, what, as I call it a respectable rain, AKA a rain that just didn't, you know, come in really fast and deliver four inches of water, you know, in an hour type of thing, like ah boy right a good soaking rain, as we would call it a respectable rain, go out and
00:17:02
brett
Flash flood. Yeah.
00:17:10
Alexis
you know, take a shovel down into your soil or stick your finger, you know, into your garden bed or whatever, you know, however you want to be able to measure it and see what the soil feels like fully saturated and like get a, get an understanding of that.
00:17:20
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:17:22
Alexis
And you'll, you'll know as you move forward, you know, if if you're one of those people who are useless, just like I, they're saying words and those words do not compute, then go out and actually, actually try it.
00:17:32
Jessica
Yeah, same applies like when you're just watering, right?
00:17:32
Alexis
And once you know what that feels like.
00:17:36
Jessica
Because we were in a really, really dry period and you could put your water hose like over to like water the garden on the ground.
00:17:36
Alexis
Yeah. Or just when you water them, yeah.
00:17:43
Jessica
The top of the soil looks completely saturated. But if you like just dug down a little bit with your finger, you realize like, wow, it's not saturated at all.
00:17:46
Alexis
silence
00:17:50
Alexis
Didn't percolate.
00:17:50
Jessica
Right.
00:17:51
Alexis
Yeah.
00:17:51
Jessica
So then you can kind of try to figure out how long do I need to hold that water hose over that plant, you know, during that time based on like your pressure and like whatever nozzle you have and
00:17:58
Plant People
Yeah.
00:18:01
Alexis
in for drification Yeah.
00:18:04
Plant People
And home gardeners, ah they can use a indicator crops is what I ah stress to new gardeners or home gardeners is, you know, look to your cucurbits that tend to collapse first.
00:18:04
Alexis
If you're in a new...
00:18:10
Alexis
Hmm.
00:18:14
Plant People
Some of that's a function of temperature and, you know, the way the plant works botanically, but they're the ones, they're the first ones. It's a large plant, binding plant that has a very small root system comparatively.
00:18:24
Plant People
So I use those indicator plants. ah
00:18:27
Alexis
Not smart.
00:18:28
Plant People
When I start to see those start to wilt, that's my standard for home gardeners. I'm just, just watch your cucurbits. some of your cucumbers and squashes. And when they, the leaves, the ends of the leaves start to go down, it's time to water.
00:18:39
Plant People
It's pretty good indicator um because your peppers and tomatoes are still in decent shape, but those crops will tell you when it's time to water the garden.
00:18:46
Alexis
I'm not showing signs of stress yet, but they they are approaching stress.
00:18:47
Plant People
Yeah.
00:18:47
Jessica
Thank you.
00:18:48
Plant People
Yeah.
00:18:49
brett
on
00:18:49
Plant People
But now.
00:18:49
Alexis
Yeah.
00:18:50
brett
On that exact front, you know we don't want our plants to wilt. Wilt is a sign of stress. Stress is going to make other, like when you get stressed, you're not as good at your job. ah But wilting also is not, it doesn't mean the thing is dead.
00:18:59
Alexis
You're sick.
00:19:04
brett
um
00:19:04
Alexis
okay
00:19:05
brett
people Especially people who are new to plants, they will see things that are wilted. And they think, oh, all hope is lost.
00:19:10
Jessica
that
00:19:11
brett
I just went through this. um We had some transplants that we put in and it got very, very hot, so hot that we could almost not keep up with the water. And they were looking a little sad. And Annie was really like, she's like, I think I killed them all. And I was like,
00:19:25
brett
No, no, no, no, no.
00:19:25
Jessica
Thank you.
00:19:26
brett
We're, we're, you know, they may not grow as fast as they would have, but they're going to be fine.
00:19:30
Alexis
Yeah.
00:19:30
brett
and You water them sure enough next morning you come out and they're perky and looking ready to grow again. um
00:19:35
Alexis
Hello.
00:19:36
brett
Last thing I'll say about water ah was it's a in general general, the vegetable crop thing is about an inch of water per week during the growing season is the ballpark thing. Now what that means is if you were to, you know, have a one inch deep, you know,
00:19:53
brett
ah container that was the full spread of whatever you have planted. if that thing was full up to one inch across that whole area.
00:19:58
Alexis
Mm.
00:20:01
Alexis
For full canopy spread, you're saying?
00:20:03
brett
Yeah. And so, yeah, so across your whole garden wherever the, you know, and so in other words, you don't have to put down an inch of water across that whole area if you don't need to, if you could just put it where the plants are, but imagine a little box that's, you know, 12 by 12 around your plant or 24 by 20, 24.
00:20:07
Jessica
Thank you.
00:20:21
brett
And you're trying to kind of fill that up to over the course of a week, about an inch worth of rain. and Or if you're watching heavy weather gauge or you're watching the Mesonet or any of that stuff. So the more that you can monitor at the soil level, the better.
00:20:33
brett
And over time, you will get better at reading and knowing when if and when things need water.
00:20:36
Plant People
Yeah.
00:20:38
brett
Yeah.
00:20:38
Plant People
And, uh, mentioned that gold standard, Brett, talked a little bit about tensiometers pay very close attention. It's one of my most frustrating things i ever did when i was first growing commercial tomatoes was trying to get that thing set up properly, you know, follow whatever system you're using a watermark or a tensiometer.
00:20:47
Jessica
Thank you.
00:20:51
brett
yeah
00:20:53
Alexis
Thank you.
00:20:55
Plant People
If you're a commercial producer using one of those or another system, read the instructions very carefully because they have to be set up and they have to be, um, I know like watermark sensors, you can leave those in the whole season, but, tensiometers, which are a little bit more low tech.
00:21:09
Plant People
They take a little bit more maintenance. They have to have a good seal with the soil.
00:21:12
brett
Yeah, no electricity.
00:21:12
Plant People
pay Yeah, but no electricity. Pay attention to those things and, ah you know, follow the instructions on those. Really, really, really important.
00:21:22
Jessica
Thanks to Brett for sharing the price tag on those because it explains why when I was in college and I worked out at the research farm and when we broke a couple of those, the manager got really mad.
00:21:32
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:33
Jessica
um Didn't realize they cost that much.
00:21:34
Plant People
Wait a minute. How did you break a tensiometer? I mean, were you like, just, were you not boring the hole?
00:21:38
Jessica
but They had them in buckets.
00:21:40
Plant People
You're just jamming them
00:21:42
Jessica
There were so many of them, but still they were not very happy.
00:21:42
brett
Yeah, they had so many of them.
00:21:44
Plant People
Oh, but they this must be cheap.
00:21:46
Jessica
we were like, hey, we accidentally broke these.
00:21:46
Plant People
This must be cheap.
00:21:49
Jessica
Oh, it makes sense now.
00:21:50
Plant People
You broke a tensiometer.
00:21:50
brett
Yeah, well, there was probably probably some grant and they bought 200 of them and they set them up across the state and then people were like, wow these things are kind of finicky.
00:21:51
Jessica
yeah
00:21:51
Alexis
like
00:21:52
Jessica
that Probably.
00:21:59
brett
and i
00:21:59
Plant People
yeah
00:22:00
brett
um But they they do when they're working great when they're working right, they're they're great.
00:22:04
Jessica
That was probably what it was.
00:22:04
Plant People
Thank you, Brad.
00:22:04
brett
and and now
00:22:04
Alexis
You can connect, you can connect some of those to like your irrigation, right?
00:22:05
Plant People
When they're working right, yeah, yeah. you
00:22:09
Alexis
for like automation, like when it hits a certain level, your irrigation kicks on.
00:22:09
Plant People
You can.
00:22:10
Jessica
You can.
00:22:11
Plant People
On a larger scale, yeah.
00:22:11
Jessica
Yep.
00:22:13
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:22:14
Jessica
Yeah.
00:22:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:22:14
brett
Yeah. And I'll just, one other thing about water is you overwatering can be as bad as underwatering in certain circumstances, especially if you're in containers, because the roots don't have enough oxygen to function and they start to rot and die and that causes all kinds of problems.
00:22:14
Jessica
That was...
00:22:26
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:22:27
Jessica
Breathe.
00:22:29
brett
So it's not just a matter of if in doubt water, there is ah a balance, like most things in life that are good. There's a balance to be struck.
00:22:36
Plant People
And Jessica mentioned, she mentioned a very important concept.
00:22:37
Jessica
Yeah.
00:22:39
Plant People
Just because it wilts and the soil seems to have plenty of moisture, sometimes that's normal just because of temperature.
00:22:45
brett
Yeah.
00:22:45
Plant People
ah The plant starts losing pressure, so don't don't forget that.
00:22:46
brett
Yes.
00:22:49
Plant People
Just don't go keep throwing water at it or there could be some other root issue. But if all of your plants look good and they're uniformly kind of wilting, it's a really, really hot day, just know that for certain types of plants that may be normal.
00:23:02
Plant People
So be careful about overwatering that Brett mentioned. Yeah.
00:23:05
brett
Yeah. So what about insects?
00:23:05
Jessica
I'm oh oh I was oh I had another one I had a segue too about cultural issues look at us who me Lexus
00:23:08
brett
ah where we would Sorry, what were you going to say, Jess?
00:23:08
Alexis
I had a beautiful segue there.
00:23:10
brett
Oh, sorry. Sorry.
00:23:11
Plant People
That was it.
00:23:11
brett
Sorry.
00:23:11
Plant People
She's
00:23:12
brett
Okay, I will little rewind it back.
00:23:15
Alexis
going to say that leads beautifully into disease.
00:23:15
brett
And now it's over to you.
00:23:19
Plant People
like, what?
00:23:22
Alexis
ah you know If the soil is wet and you have the the difference between what Ray is talking about, where if you have you know some slight will in some plants, even sometimes it's kind of more than slight, it's little more dramatic.
00:23:35
Alexis
and the ground is wet, but it's uniform, so 90% of your planting is all doing the same thing, then you don't need to worry about that.
00:23:35
Plant People
Yeah.
00:23:42
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:23:44
Alexis
That's like an environmental issue. The plants will come back once the heat goes down. But if you're seeing a couple plants, one plant, you know maybe two or three all in the same area doing this, and the rest of the planting looks healthy, that could be a sign of root rot problems.
00:24:01
Alexis
It could be a sign of a couple of different things like nematode issues on the roots. It could also, but more likely it's a disease problem. And so you've got pythium or some sort of what we call water molds affecting the root system.
00:24:14
Alexis
And then those roots aren't able to take up water. They just don't exist anymore. So you can actually, got sacrifice one of those plants sometimes, pull it up and look at the roots and see, number one, are there any?
00:24:27
Alexis
So there probably should be if they, you know, do you see really big nodule looking things in the roots? um You know, are they looking, we say they so kind of slough off, like you touch them and they just kind of
00:24:37
brett
Black and slimy.
00:24:37
Alexis
It's great slimy, but sometimes they'll look like brown and they should, you know, instead of like a nice white color, there'll be a brown tan and they just kind of slough off.
00:24:38
brett
yeah
00:24:44
brett
Yeah.
00:24:47
Alexis
So that outer root will slough from the root cortex and that's a sign of disease problems. So that's my segue.
00:24:55
brett
But if you pull it up and the roots look good, you just killed it anyway. So good job, fool.
00:24:58
Plant People
Yeah, so death by extraction, so no big deal.
00:24:59
Alexis
You can replant it, it's fine.
00:25:00
Jessica
Yeah, replant it.
00:25:02
Alexis
And, you know, it's better to rip up one and it be nothing and you feel better.
00:25:02
brett
No. Totally.
00:25:06
Alexis
and you know, then you missed it and you should have been treating or something like that.
00:25:07
Jessica
Great.
00:25:11
Alexis
So.
00:25:11
brett
Well, I think it's also, if you're, if you're going to grow this stuff in the future, learning about it, you know, you don't have to, there's no pressure to produce a perfect garden year one. And if you're having some problems, pull it up, take a look, see, you know, learn something from the process rather than just sort of watching it decline and not knowing what happens.
00:25:21
Alexis
Right.
00:25:28
Plant People
That's a huge keystone of scouting is thresholds.
00:25:31
brett
Hmm.
00:25:31
Plant People
You know, and that applies to diseases and insects, especially insects, but it also applies to diseases.
00:25:32
Jessica
Yeah.
00:25:38
Plant People
This ah thought of, you know, especially larger plantings, you're not going to have perfection, but you're not also not going to treat like go into, you know, 10 out of 10 mode.
00:25:49
Plant People
When you see ah maybe a minor insect at insect infestation in one section of the field, you may have to, you know, Kind of observe thresholds and see what those thresholds are.
00:25:58
Jessica
Right. I have a good example of that with potatoes we're growing in our backyard right now.
00:26:00
Plant People
so
00:26:03
Jessica
Um, I thankfully knock on wood, have not seen any Colorado potato beetles yet. Like I had like prepared myself for them.
00:26:11
Plant People
Oh, just wait.
00:26:12
Jessica
Uh, but have quite quite a few flea beetles, right?
00:26:16
Plant People
Oh, this has been a bad, bad spring for flea beetles so far.
00:26:16
Jessica
There are lots of flea beetles, but,
00:26:16
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:26:19
brett
I have such bad, it's very PTSD on flea beetles on eggplant.
00:26:19
Plant People
Yeah.
00:26:20
Alexis
The ribs.
00:26:24
Plant People
Oh, yeah.
00:26:24
Jessica
uh, yeah, they are terrible on eggplant.
00:26:25
Plant People
Oh, yeah.
00:26:25
Jessica
Um,
00:26:26
Plant People
The worst.
00:26:27
Jessica
But they're really not – they're causing damage, but they're not doing anything that's like –
00:26:32
Alexis
Irreversible.
00:26:32
Jessica
they're hurting. Yeah. Hurting things. Right. So I'm just letting them be right.
00:26:34
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:26:35
Jessica
I haven't reached that threshold. These are just for us in the backyard. Haven't reached that economic threshold level. We talk about of where it's like, Hey, like, is it worth the time and money to spray, you know, cause eventually even with all good IPM systems and I love talking about IPM.
00:26:46
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:26:52
Jessica
If you go through all the steps in the end, it's basically like, okay, do we spray if we use an organic or non-organic, you know, tactic to control an insect population or disease before it takes off out of, or, you know, out of control.
00:27:05
brett
So IPM is integrated pest management for those who it's a, it's a, the newer more, and there's some people who say that we should go beyond that even, but this newer approach, that's not just kill baby kill.
00:27:05
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:27:06
Jessica
So with. Yes. Yes.
00:27:17
Jessica
Right. We're going to do a lot of other things first before we kill things.
00:27:21
Plant People
Yeah.
00:27:21
Jessica
um Yeah. But like, however, on the other end of this, if I start to see some Colorado potato beetle eggs and I start to see maybe a few larvae and maybe if they're all like on one plant and I, and I might think to myself, oh, I'll just squish these right on this one plant. But knowing they're probably on all the plants if I find them on one, because that's just how that, that insect operates and You know, that's one I'm definitely going to just go ahead and start. OK, if I see them on more than two plants, I need to take action.
00:27:52
Jessica
Right.
00:27:52
Alexis
Yeah.
00:27:53
Jessica
um So that's.
00:27:53
Plant People
often
00:27:54
Alexis
It's not a coincidence at that point, right?
00:27:56
Jessica
Exactly.
00:27:56
Alexis
It's pattern.
00:27:56
Plant People
Yeah, it's a pattern.
00:27:57
Jessica
And.
00:27:57
Plant People
Yeah.
00:27:58
brett
So, so let's, let's say in this example, you're not Jessica Besson entomologist and plant wizard extraordinaire.
Pest Identification and Monitoring Tools
00:28:06
brett
You find the Colorado potato beetles, you identify what they are.
00:28:06
Jessica
thank you.
00:28:10
Jessica
That's so important.
00:28:10
brett
What, what steps would you, or maybe be starting with identification, what, what steps would you take from there?
00:28:11
Jessica
FYI.
00:28:15
Jessica
Right.
00:28:16
brett
how would you find what you needed to do to take care of them? What, et cetera.
00:28:20
Jessica
First thing, i would make sure to get it properly identified because sometimes I have an example of just last week. Somebody told me that Alexis knows this because I told her ladybugs were eating their tomato plants.
00:28:33
Jessica
And I was like, there's no way. i was like, you have something else.
00:28:36
Alexis
Ladybugs don't eat plants.
00:28:36
Jessica
ah I'm like, you have something else on there.
00:28:38
Alexis
Okay.
00:28:39
Jessica
You know, are they eating aphids and took a look at them and they were Colorado potato beetle larvae on on the.
00:28:45
brett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:47
Jessica
So first thing's really important.
00:28:48
brett
We defended that Lowe's ladies honor. Good job, Jessica.
00:28:50
Jessica
I did Thank you. um Figure out what it is. So either, you know, there's a lot of great resources out there. There's a lot of great, i think, identification apps or use your local extension office.
00:29:03
Jessica
And one of us can help you, you know, figure out what's what kind of pest it is. And if it's not one of us, it's
00:29:07
brett
So is that like take an iPhone picture and email it to you?
00:29:11
Jessica
Yes, that works.
00:29:11
Plant People
That's a good spot a good place to start.
00:29:12
Jessica
ah good
00:29:13
Alexis
We'll bring it in.
00:29:13
Plant People
Yeah.
00:29:14
Jessica
Or bring it in. Please don't bring anything that is squished or send really blurry photos because you cannot tell what things are.
00:29:15
brett
carry it. Mm-hmm.
00:29:21
Alexis
Yeah.
00:29:22
Jessica
um And then also, what is it feeding on is very important because certain insects only feed on certain plants. ah And then once you figure that out, if you're taking it to the extension office, they can most likely make a recommendation of what can be used on that pest.
00:29:38
Jessica
And my way of going about this is I usually go, okay, what organic options are least toxic to user can I recommend first? Right. um But there are certain pests like our Colorado potato beetle.
00:29:52
Jessica
It's in that's one that you can put stuff on and it'll laugh at you and say, give me another and keep, me keep going on.
00:29:53
Plant People
pretty tough.
00:29:58
brett
Yeah, it's hard as the Rockies.
00:29:59
Jessica
Right. So, right.
00:30:01
Alexis
More please, sir.
00:30:02
Jessica
More, please. So that's where I, you know, start with it. And then again, i always tell everybody, if you're using a chemical, no matter what it is, read the label, read the label, follow the steps.
00:30:14
brett
The label is the law.
00:30:15
Jessica
It is the law.
00:30:17
Alexis
I want a shirt that says that.
00:30:17
Jessica
Oh,
00:30:18
Alexis
Maybe that should be one of our hort culture shirts and one day when we do it.
00:30:20
Jessica
oh that's a good idea.
00:30:21
Alexis
The label is the law.
00:30:22
Plant People
like it.
00:30:23
Alexis
I'm writing it down.
00:30:24
Plant People
Jessica, how about, ah before I forget, um since we're talking about insect monitoring, you've already mentioned a couple big concepts, you know, looking at the outside of the field and the inside of the field, looking on the upper side of the leaves, the lower side of the leaves.
00:30:37
Plant People
But how about the role of like, you know, sticky cards and things, especially for, you know, commercial producers.
00:30:43
Jessica
Yeah.
00:30:45
Plant People
And when we we're thinking about things like spotted wing drossula and some of these other things, how how can that help with monitoring and scouting?
00:30:49
Jessica
yeah
00:30:52
Plant People
I mean, there's all sorts of sticky cards in there.
00:30:54
Jessica
Yeah. So I'm glad you used the words monitoring, right? Because we're not using those sometimes, um not so much with growers, but maybe someone in between being like a a homeowner and in between.
00:31:05
Jessica
They think you can use those as trapping to control these pest populations, like sticky cards.
00:31:07
Plant People
Oh, you're talking like the yeah the Japanese beetle pheromone traps?
00:31:10
Jessica
Well, no, even like yellow sticky cards, right?
00:31:11
Plant People
or Oh, gotcha.
00:31:13
brett
Yeah.
00:31:14
Jessica
Putting them out.
00:31:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:31:14
Alexis
No. The
00:31:15
Jessica
um But those are, yeah.
00:31:15
Plant People
Yeah.
00:31:15
brett
Put out a billboard-sized sticky card and see what happens.
00:31:18
Alexis
evil.
00:31:19
Jessica
And if you accidentally touch one of those, it's not coming off of you.
00:31:19
Plant People
See what we catch. Got to catch them all.
00:31:23
Jessica
Yeah.
00:31:23
Alexis
now
00:31:23
Plant People
No.
00:31:24
Jessica
Yeah.
00:31:25
Plant People
Vegetable oil is the only way.
00:31:26
Jessica
yeah
00:31:27
Plant People
That is the way. Yeah.
00:31:28
Jessica
But those are great tools to monitor things, right? To see what our pest population numbers are, especially for the ones that are really small, like thrips and aphids.
00:31:36
Plant People
yeah
00:31:37
Jessica
They're attracted to certain colors.
00:31:37
brett
doing...
00:31:39
Jessica
um
00:31:39
Alexis
e
00:31:40
Jessica
Yeah. ah Especially in greenhouses, high tunnels, that's a great way ah to monitor some of these smaller pests. When you even get up into like the fruit fruit trees, putting out pheromone traps, that lure in males and then the growers can, you know, look at those traps, count how many they're seeing.
00:31:54
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:31:59
Jessica
And once they get past a certain threshold and we actually have data that shows like, Hey, if you have more than 10, right, you're trapping, it's time to you need to spray, right.
00:32:07
Alexis
Thank you.
00:32:09
Jessica
Or you need to take some sort of action.
00:32:11
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:32:12
Jessica
um But those are great for monitoring, but not control of pest.
00:32:14
Plant People
Huge tool, yeah. No, that's just to know for more for timing.
00:32:17
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:32:20
Plant People
if it's like spotted wing drossula, we're pretty sure it's going to be here at a certain time, but for timing of spray.
00:32:21
Jessica
Right.
00:32:25
Jessica
Right. And that they like apple cider vinegar.
00:32:27
Plant People
Yeah. You can, and some of these things I noticed ah Jessica, and you mentioned in the past, you can like make your own traps and UK, the university has um instructions for making like the homemade spotted wing drossula, you know, monitoring devices and things, don't they?
00:32:41
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:32:42
Plant People
Yeah.
00:32:42
Jessica
Yeah.
00:32:42
Plant People
and And, or you can buy them prepared, whichever.
00:32:46
brett
Something else that I would say it's it's a little bit on the front end or it's a little bit the opposite end of the spectrum from what Jessica has been talking about, kind of like monitoring what's there and keeping your eye on it. The other piece of it.
00:32:58
brett
is you know I like to think of myself as a pretty unique individual guy. like my my life experience has never happened to anyone before. and i you know if there's go to be some i' The thing is, when you're gardening with a plant, ah the things that are going to get at it are, with the exception of some novel pests that come in, for the most part, they're the exact same things that we're going to get at your grandma's tomato plants.
00:33:22
brett
back when she was growing them. In other words, we know really well that there are a specific you know handful of a few pests and diseases that are very, very typical on plants and the vast majority fall into that.
00:33:24
Alexis
Yeah.
00:33:35
brett
It's just like you know different symptoms for certain diseases and you think, oh no, I've got some kind of lung contusion, blah, blah, blah. No, you have a cold, you're cough you've been coughing a lot, your throat and and and lungs are sore.
00:33:48
brett
That's what's happening. So a lot of times it's like, if you don't know if you haven't, and I didn't, so I had to do some background homework on this. If you don't know that aphids can be a typical problem on tomatoes,
00:33:58
Plant People
Mm.
00:33:58
brett
especially in a high tunnel, then you wouldn't even know to look for those things. And to know that if you're looking for for those, you're looking for this, you can look for this sticky residue stuff that they call honeydew. That's a sign that they've been feeding. Or for instance, the Colorado potato beetle. I mean, it's right in the name potato, but we do get those here.
00:34:16
brett
And now you know to look on the on the underside of those leaves. Because I think when it's like, When you're first starting with scouting, it's kind of overwhelming because it's like there are an infinite number of diseases and pests that could be on this and it's my job to find them and see what they are.
00:34:25
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:34:31
brett
But in reality, you're your list of things that are probably on there is relatively short. And the more that you know what the signs are, you can be looking for per crop.
00:34:37
Plant People
Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:41
brett
And that that's another thing too, if you're not aware of that, that Different insects and and diseases affect different crops. There's things that I'm not even paying any attention to on a, pi on a pepper plant that I'm looking closely for on a cucumber plant and vice versa.
00:34:48
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:34:54
brett
And so um those are a couple of things just from the beginner who had to get up to speed side of things is like, it's not an infinite world of information out there. There's actually and a narrow set of things you can focus on.
00:35:05
Plant People
And sometimes you don't even see the insect. If it's like at a hornworm, you can see the evidence, the poop of the hornworm. um you can You may not see the lack of leaves overnight.
00:35:12
Alexis
The lack of leaves on your tomato plant.
00:35:16
brett
yeah
00:35:16
Plant People
It's skeletonized. Or if you're looking for something like a squash vine borer, you may be looking at the bottom 12 inches of the plant above the soil. But it's a great point, Brett. And knowing where to look is more than... more than half the battle because sometimes you're looking strictly on the underside of the leaves, sometimes on the upper side, sometimes both. And other times, you know, you're looking at soil level or other places on the plant. So, yeah, that's a great point.
00:35:40
brett
And there it is just ah it's a known thing. These aren't things that are... They have to be decoded.
00:35:45
Jessica
you
00:35:46
brett
Like this is stuff that we, you just know that, and and Ray, you mentioned earlier, and this is something I maybe wanted to bring up too, is we have different different diseases and insects that come in at known certain times of year, generally speaking.
00:35:47
Plant People
Yeah.
00:36:00
Plant People
Yeah, we have some great resources for that at the university. One of my favorite, and if we could talk for just a second about kind of real-time tracking tools and then just general websites, ah one of my favorite timely tools – you know, for my whole time and that I've been in Extension, I use it personally and I recommend it to people.
00:36:16
Jessica
Thank
00:36:19
Plant People
That's Kentucky Pest News. And I really like this um this resource because it's very timely.
00:36:23
brett
Thank you.
00:36:26
Plant People
When we expect to see problems or when we are seeing problems at the university, ah there'll be articles on that that are, you know, very much up to date. So I really like Kentucky Pest News.
00:36:37
Plant People
I can't recommend that one enough. And as the episode got started and just before it got started, we talked a little bit about, you know, monitoring tools like the you know ag UK Ag weather Weather Data Center has lots of models that you can look at that pertain to scouting, monitoring, disease projection models, and some of that relates to insects too.
00:36:51
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:37:00
Plant People
But Kentucky pe Pest News, the Weather Center website, and there's some really great apps out there. One of my absolute favorites is MyIPM.
00:37:11
Plant People
ah It's mostly diseases. I think it has some insect information, but you download the base app and then you download individual crops that pertains to your um your operation. And it's just amazing. the The pictures are top notch and it helps you diagnose and then give some recommendations on, um you know, the next steps. Once a problem, one of you guys mentioned, you know, you need to identify the problem. But that's some of the resources that I use a lot.
00:37:42
Plant People
And UK also has what's called the Veggie Scout website.
00:37:46
Jessica
Uh-huh.
00:37:46
Plant People
And then we'll put that link in the show notes. And that's really good. It's an accumulation of scouting guides for Kentucky. And they're they're they're really, really, really good.
00:37:56
Plant People
But that's a good one.
00:37:57
Alexis
I love those scouting guides. I'm glad you brought those up because well, and app you know, apps can be really great, but sometimes you just want
00:37:58
Plant People
Yeah, I use those all the time. Yeah.
00:38:06
Plant People
I want the picture sometimes.
00:38:07
Alexis
Like stuff right in front.
00:38:08
Plant People
Yeah, a high quality picture.
00:38:08
Alexis
Yeah. the So that's what I love about those is, yeah, they're crop specific. And so not only do they have pictures of, and so it's insect and disease and, and, um, environmental issues, cultural.
00:38:11
Plant People
Yeah.
00:38:16
Plant People
Yep.
00:38:17
Jessica
Cultural, yeah.
00:38:18
Alexis
Yeah. So, you know, or for tomato, for whatever, but it's not only photos of like the insect or the, you know, the actual disease, but it could be signs that you're seeing or, um, symptoms that were signs and symptoms.
00:38:19
Plant People
You get hard copies of those from the all local offices.
00:38:29
Plant People
m Those scouting guides are excellent.
00:38:33
Alexis
Um, yeah, So yeah, I really love those nice colored photos.
00:38:33
Jessica
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:38:37
Alexis
And those are all free online. ah youre If you're in Kentucky, your extension office can also get you a copy of those.
00:38:43
Plant People
slick copies. Yeah.
00:38:44
Alexis
Yeah, yeah. So if you're growing any of these on ah even a semi-large scale, you might want some of those.
00:38:50
Plant People
You'll want those. Yeah.
00:38:52
Alexis
Yeah, I really like them.
00:38:52
Jessica
Yeah.
00:38:53
Plant People
And that really incorporates everything we're talking about today as far as scouting and a lot of monitoring stuff as a result.
00:38:53
brett
Peace.
00:39:00
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:39:00
Plant People
But all the scouting stuff is going to be in those guides per crop, like Alexis said. And they're the they're the best that I know of.
00:39:05
Alexis
Okay. Okay.
00:39:07
Plant People
They're really, really good for conducting.
00:39:08
Jessica
They're really nice, especially circling all the back around when Brett at the beginning mentioned like other things besides disease and insect cultural issues. ah That's like one of my favorite things to talk about when I do a tomato class because it blows people's minds how many times they think there are issues with their tomatoes.
00:39:26
Jessica
The actual fruiting part is a disease or an insect and it's really cultural stuff. And those IPM guides have all of that in there that shows what
00:39:35
brett
what does What does cultural mean?
00:39:37
Jessica
So stuff that's been affected by like the environment, right? So um like an example with a tomato that has cat facing on it.
00:39:47
Alexis
A
00:39:47
Jessica
One, it could be the variety. Some of them just do that. And that's where your tomatoes look like really gnarly. um Almost kind of like split apart in a way.
00:39:54
Alexis
lot of the heirlooms do it.
00:39:55
Plant People
Looking at you, heirlooms.
00:39:55
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:56
Plant People
Yeah.
00:39:57
brett
Like the whiskers of a cat going out in all directions.
00:39:57
Jessica
But yes, yes.
00:40:00
Alexis
Yeah. Or zipper they zippering is another one.
00:40:00
brett
Yeah.
00:40:01
Jessica
Zippering.
00:40:02
Alexis
It looks exactly like a zipper.
00:40:03
Plant People
yeah
00:40:03
Jessica
that But it could be caused by thrips feeding on the flower or it could have been caused by temperature change when they were in bloom can cause it. um But there's a lot of things that, you know, we want to blame on nutrient deficiency.
00:40:21
Jessica
We want to blame on you know, insects, disease, and it's really just more of our environment or ourselves from all time back to the beginning because we didn't water them enough or or we watered them too much.
00:40:28
brett
Yeah.
00:40:31
Plant People
Yeah.
00:40:31
Alexis
Yeah.
00:40:33
brett
Yeah.
00:40:34
Plant People
With tomatoes, it could be anything.
00:40:34
brett
so
00:40:35
Plant People
Temperature, yeah, whatever. You name it, it could be at any one time, yeah.
00:40:37
Jessica
Yeah.
00:40:37
brett
so wait Oh man, we had to chase down a, one of our trials had to chase down some pesticide drift one time and it was really hard cause it wasn't roundup.
00:40:38
Alexis
Your neighbor from five streets away sprayed Roundup somewhere.
00:40:42
Jessica
Oh, 2-4-D. Yeah.
00:40:50
brett
It was something it wasn't, and I don't know. Maybe it was two four d I can't remember, but it was, it was, it was tricky to, so um as far as fungal diseases, you know, I I've always known about the, um the, the,
00:40:53
Plant People
Dicamba, the worst. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:04
brett
not i'd Not always known. I learned once upon a time about the downy plot, downy mildew sentinel plots that they'll, because downy mildew, as far as I understand it, sort of blows in seasonally.
00:41:06
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:41:14
brett
It doesn't overwinter here. And so it's literally like a migratory bird map for fungus.
00:41:19
Jessica
It's a snowbird.
00:41:20
brett
um Yeah. that And so there's ways to monitor that. ah A lot of the fungal diseases in particular, as far as I understand it, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of our protection against those are more preventative than they are curative.
00:41:37
brett
And so in that case,
00:41:37
Alexis
Yeah, if you've been around this podcast, you've heard us say it. Yeah.
00:41:40
Plant People
Yeah.
00:41:41
brett
Yeah. and And so in that case, um you know, if you're going to do some sort of a spray ah approach, whether that be copper or ah some other kind of um or organic product or something a little more conventional, you're typically going to do that.
00:41:54
Alexis
Chlorothalonel. Yeah.
00:41:59
brett
are you Are you determining when and how to do that through watching the weather? Is there alerts from from Kentucky Pest News? What's the deal with that?
00:42:08
Jessica
Yeah. I know. Um, I watched it closely with, i got a couple of pumpkin growers in my County. So, ah you know, pumpkin growers want it to be, they want it rain now earlier in the summer.
00:42:20
Jessica
And then as we get closer to the fall, you know, August, they want, they're happy with it when it stops raining. Cause they won't, they don't want that spread of disease.
00:42:26
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:42:28
Jessica
Uh, but the, the, The pest alerts that UK has um for this disease and we've mentioned that downy, you know, goes south for the winter and they track it as it comes back up.
00:42:32
Plant People
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:42:38
Jessica
So a lot of these growers might be doing a preventative spray of copper or something like that through the season for just that downy, for that powdery mildew and those other kind of fungal things. But that downy is so, can be so detrimental to pumpkin growers late in the season.
00:42:55
Jessica
We start to get those alerts of like, hey, they found it in Tennessee. Hey, it's in Western Kentucky.
00:43:00
Alexis
Right.
00:43:01
Jessica
Hey, it's getting closer up this way. So that allows us as agents the opportunity to reach out to those growers or if you're, you know, you growers can sign up for this you know this information themselves um that hey it's time that you need to switch up that fungicide spray to something that can withstand that downy so we're not going to be spraying that chemical all season um we're only going to use it as needed because we want things not to become resistant you know to keep the efficacy right it and that's the other thing a lot of these chemicals are very expensive when it comes down to it the um
00:43:11
brett
Right.
00:43:16
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:43:28
Alexis
It's also expensive. Right.
00:43:36
Jessica
ones they're spraying to keep downy off late in the season.
00:43:40
Alexis
But there are like temperatures too. So, you know, even if you're a home grow and you're like, I don't really need, you know, alert set up, although anyone can sign up, you know, like um the models, which sounds scary, but I guess is technically what they are that Ray was talking about at UK ag weather. Um,
00:43:58
Alexis
Model is a scary word for me for some reason, but you can go on there. So fire blights of, you know, apples, pears, things like that.
00:44:04
Plant People
Mm-hmm. Power blood's a good one, yeah.
00:44:06
Alexis
um You can see on here, you know, and though it's it's not like a scary model. it's just but It's just really simple information, kind of bulleted, easy to read. And, you know, they'll they'll say you can put in your date and in Kentucky, you can put in your county and your date.
00:44:20
Alexis
And it actually pulls weather information from the past four days or so.
00:44:20
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:44:23
Plant People
Really good.
00:44:24
Alexis
And it says, hey, your um environment is good for, you know, disease spread and infection. So you need to be spraying.
00:44:34
brett
at high risk you're in a high risk environment you know situation
00:44:34
Alexis
And so that can be
00:44:35
Jessica
Thank you.
00:44:35
Plant People
Yeah.
00:44:37
Alexis
You're in high risk environment, right? Because for disease, we need we need the actual um you know disease to be present. We also need the proper environment and we need the proper host. And so you know you can have fire blight sitting right there on your plant on the you know on your apple, but if it's 90 degrees outside, infection can occur.
00:44:55
Alexis
So um you know that way you don't you're not spraying for no reason. So there are those quote unquote models. I know that's what it technically is, right? But it's just for some reason sounds intimidating and it's really not.
00:45:05
Plant People
It sounds like it's heavily data driven, which it is.
00:45:08
Alexis
Yeah, it sounds like I'm like coding my MySpace again or something like this is.
00:45:10
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:11
brett
yeah
00:45:12
Plant People
Dancing bears everywhere. Yeah. But no, it's very approachable.
00:45:14
Alexis
Mm
00:45:15
Jessica
Thank you.
00:45:16
Plant People
And like like Alexa said, it's totally customizable locally, which I love down to your zip code, down to your county.
00:45:21
Alexis
hmm. Mm
00:45:23
Plant People
It's all a lot of that is Mesonet driven, which is to say very local.
00:45:28
Alexis
hmm. Mm
00:45:29
Plant People
localized weather conditions so it's awesome so if you've never checked that out and that also includes things like growing degree days
Nutrient Management and Record-Keeping
00:45:35
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:45:35
Alexis
hmm.
00:45:35
Plant People
soil temperature all of that is on there it's an incredible resource that if you've never checked it out you definitely as a grower especially if you're a commercial grower need to go check that website out i mean lumens i mean the amount of quantity of light i found that on there one day it's just a really cool really really cool website but to One you guys making a a not so subtle segue into before, you know, we get off the show today.
00:45:44
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:46:02
Plant People
ah Brett, was a you that just started talking about like ah soil as, you know, aspect of monitoring, but soil nutrient levels. We don't want to forget that in our scouting and monitoring because I break soil down into and nutrients, I guess, not just soil, but nutrient levels.
00:46:11
Jessica
Thank
00:46:21
Plant People
down two different ways, especially when it comes to commercial operations. One is sort of the soil test that you're taking every year, every other year as a commercial operator. The second part of nutrient management is managing any kind of tissue nutrient monitoring that you do during the growing year.
00:46:37
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:46:38
Plant People
And is it you, Brett, that has some experience with using like cardiometers there on the farm? I know some of you guys or maybe all of you guys,
00:46:45
brett
I do have some experience. I have cardiometered a time or two.
00:46:49
Plant People
Cardi-metered. I mean, and that's something some producers use.
00:46:52
brett
Yeah.
00:46:52
Plant People
And, you know, you can get lab services for that, too, that are a little bit more extensive. But, Brett, you want to tell us about your experience with using cardi-meters as far as nutrient analysis and using that kind of in conjunction with soil test?
00:47:05
brett
Yeah. So, I mean, one of the things we, I, we always thought about, um, with nutrients is, you know, you don't eat, you know, to be able to meal prepping, right?
00:47:17
brett
You prep your food for the whole week, but you don't eat all of your food on Sunday night and then expect to make it through the rest of the week. And so a lot of times when we do managing nutrients, there's this typical thing of kind of like, let's put all the fertilizer that they might need over the course of the season out all at once, right at the beginning of the season, and then hope things go well.
00:47:24
Plant People
I don't know mine
00:47:24
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:47:35
brett
Well, typically we would recommend things more like fertigation schedule or some sort of addition of nutrients across time. But the flip side of that is monitoring it.
00:47:46
brett
We want to make sure that the plants have enough nutrients, but not too much of it. And monitoring that throughout the course of the season can be kind of tricky because you don't necessarily, mean, you could take a soil test and that will give you some information, but you can actually test the ah the soil the plant tissue itself to see how much of some nutrients are in it.
00:48:08
brett
the The other reason this is important, and I'll talk about the cardiomy in a second, but the reason this is important is that some diseases and insects kind of look like these abiotic issues, these ah like nutrient issues.
00:48:17
Plant People
Yeah.
00:48:18
Alexis
Yeah.
00:48:19
Plant People
yeah
00:48:19
brett
A nutrient deficiency can look like early powdery mildew, or it can look like a zinc deficiency can look like whatever.
00:48:19
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:48:25
brett
So um that's one of the cool things about that IPM guide is that there's several several pictures in there where they have like, this is the actual disease. And and right next to it is a picture of this is what a you know nutrient ah deficiency looks like in this plant. And you can tell there's subtle differences, but if you only saw one of them, you would maybe get them confused. And so um that's where they talk in the extension office and kind of having a team of a team and and a set of information to be able to go off of is good. But the cardiometer is pretty simple.
00:48:54
brett
um You pull a specific part of the plant off, it's a petiole, which, and I think it's on the most mature leaves, been a while since I did it, but you can pull that off and then you can crush it like in a garlic press or something like that and you create this sap, this leaf petiole sap.
00:49:12
brett
and you have this little thing, this little machine that you feed it into, ah and it can give you a reading.
00:49:13
Alexis
Juiced. jes
00:49:19
brett
you know the The better the machine you get and the better you are at the process, the more accurate your readings are going to be. But it's a way to do some instant testing in the field to see if you need to push a little more nitrogen or um you know if you need to make some adjustments to your to your plan.
00:49:34
brett
But in general, I think thinking about your nutrient management plan ahead of time and having some plant fertigation is another one of those words that kind of sounds scary, but it's literally just mixing fertilizer into your irrigation water in some way.
00:49:46
brett
And there are DIY versions of that. There are expensive injector versions of that and everything in between.
00:49:51
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:49:53
brett
Um, but what that again allows you to do is to feed your nutrients out to your plants more gradually, of course, across the course of the, uh, season rather than have them all go at once.
00:49:59
Plant People
Yeah.
00:50:02
brett
Or if you get a big rainfall event it all washes out and then you have to add more later, but, uh, Yeah, you mentioned tissue sampling. You can take and, you know, pull a leaf or a branch or whatever off, depending on what the sampling protocol is. And you can send those off to labs. um And ah you can you want to do that in like different parts, either any of these like different parts of your field, any of this sampling stuff. You don't just want to go to one section and be like, OK, everything looks good and be done.
00:50:25
brett
ah kind of popping around and taking a look at it. But that that it comes back to, i think, you know, whether it's, ah whether it's nutrients, whether it's disease, whether it's insects, whether it's just to having a bad, the plant just having bad, um
00:50:38
Alexis
there's Weather is weather.
00:50:39
Plant People
Yeah.
00:50:41
brett
A lot of it comes back to that initial, like just acknowledging that there is a difference that could be a problem and then putting yourself a position to
00:50:49
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:50:51
brett
know what maybe the problems, the common problems are and how to identify them or how to ask someone who can help you identify them. I think that's the real, it's, it's not, it's like not very sexy, but to me, maintenance of a crop is what takes people from like casual gardener to like slightly less, you know, it,
00:51:09
Alexis
Oh yeah.
00:51:10
Plant People
And you're going to get excited over this one, Brett. And it's and my number one thing I tell people is keep records. And if you're if you're a data nerd and you love tables, ah you can put that information into Excel or you know the the data cruncher of your choice. But the main thing is keep records of ah one of you guys mentioned You know, these things, a lot of these pests and diseases happen at sort of semi-regular cycles during the year, and you'll start to notice those patterns.
00:51:38
Plant People
And that's really going to help you when you notice, you know, an insect problem here, a disease problem there, or dip in your calcium in a certain crop here or a nutrient. um But keep notes on all of these things, and that includes the weather.
00:51:52
Plant People
Now, the weather, you can look up historical weather, you know, from year to year on, you know, like UK Ag Weather site or whatever. But the more information you keep locally on what you're observing, what you're seeing, and at what time you're seeing it, the better.
00:52:01
Jessica
Thank you.
00:52:05
brett
Yeah. And I think, you know, you mentioned two two times a week for like official scouting, like if you sort of have a management plan and you've got a bunch of other things to do. But if you have a garden or even just a, you know, large, large, really large garden,
00:52:18
brett
um the more that you can spend time with those plants, even like every day or multiple times a day, and it can be fun.
00:52:23
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:52:26
brett
you could just be walking around, looking at them, watching the bees, whatever you, it's amazing how much more attuned your eyes and your feet, your fingers and will become as far as,
00:52:38
brett
seeing those like I have trees where now I can tell like a day or two into something being wrong with them. There is something ah and these are like pine trees or junipers that move really slow but just because there's this slight gradient difference of color.
00:52:53
brett
And I'm like, oh, I need to keep an eye on that or and need to do whatever. And I never would have had that before. And it's literally just from spending out time out there, hanging with them and observing them with People, animals, the same way, kind of, you just you just get to know them.
00:52:59
Plant People
Yeah.
00:53:06
brett
um and it's pretty it's pretty fun if he makes you feel like a magician because other people don't have that. And like, how could you even tell that there was, like, well, it's a.
00:53:13
Plant People
I find that new producers are hypervigilant with all of this stuff.
00:53:14
Alexis
It's kind of magic.
00:53:16
Plant People
They they observe everything. They may not have the overview, but especially with if someone's a newer or they're leveling up producer going to the next level, they'll notice physiological leaf row on tomato or something that like maybe nobody would notice, but it's kind of cool to see when people are like hypervigilant, they notice everything and their eyes are just seeing things they're not used to seeing.
00:53:20
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:53:33
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:53:40
Plant People
It's pretty cool when you're vigilant like that and you're just kind of being a good observer.
00:53:44
brett
There's a kind of famous speech from David Foster Wallace, author of books that people read to in order to make themselves better than you, a nerd guy.
00:53:55
brett
but he
00:53:55
Plant People
Better than your books, yeah.
00:53:56
brett
But he did ah he had this this famous speech to a commencement audience. and He talked about how the true intelligence is about learning how you how to choose what you pay attention to.
00:54:09
brett
And that there's so many things in our world that you can choose to to pay attention to.
00:54:09
Alexis
Mm.
00:54:13
brett
And I think that's the case with this too, where you you just know, you start to know what to pay attention to and what to not pay attention to.
00:54:19
Plant People
Yeah.
00:54:20
brett
And in that not to pay attention to you lose that, like you let go of that choice paralysis overwhelming and you're just focused and a little more calm as opposed to trying to take everything in all at once.
00:54:31
brett
And the world becomes a little more legible, a little more calm. um And so, yeah, that's that's, that's the enhancing your skills with plants and and paying attention to them, I think is it's really rewarding in addition to being good for growing a garden.
00:54:45
Alexis
Do it.
00:54:45
brett
up garden
00:54:48
Alexis
It's fun. Trust us. wait Would we steer you wrong?
00:54:53
Jessica
Of course not.
00:54:54
brett
join us true leaves.
00:54:56
Alexis
Join us, True Leaves. Yeah. Well, um if you are True Leaves who are on Instagram, you can follow us at Hort Culture Podcast. ah See some of the posts we've got up there.
00:55:07
Alexis
You can also message us on there if you are so inclined to say anything. You can also say if you want to know. If you've got questions, you can shoot us an email.
00:55:17
Alexis
You can find that in the show notes. You can also tell us how much you love this episode by giving us five stars and telling us how great it was or any episodes that you would like to hear. We're always looking for ideas and we want to do stuff that you actually want to listen to because this is just coming up out of our weird brains and you never know which direction that's going to go.
00:55:37
Alexis
So feel free to always reach out if you've got questions, comments, thoughts.
00:55:37
Plant People
All directions.
00:55:41
Alexis
We'd love to hear from you. But we hope that you had a good time today You got some garden stuff done. You're going to go pet all your plants outside. And we hope that you'll join us next time. Have a great one.