Transcript
Alexis: Wasn't that the outro?
Brett: Yeah, inverse.
Plant People: It could be, i could be living in reverse. I mean, they're very close together and I looked away right as I clicked. So you dear listeners that are, that listen so consistently, don't, don't turn us off now because we indeed, yeah we still have an old episode.
Brett: Maybe it's opposite day.
Alexis: We still have a whole episode.
Brett: So here's a question based on the Freaky Friday intro outro thing that just happened.
Plant People: Yes.
Brett: Who do you think, well, two questions within the podcast, who are the two main, so me, ah Ray, Alexis, and Jessica Besson, who we miss, but we'll see, we will see soon.
Plant People: um Okay. Okay.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Yes.
Brett: Who do you think if they freaky Friday'd would be the, people would be the least likely to notice and who would be the most likely to notice?
Plant People: Hmm. Gee. I don't even know. a
Brett: Freaky Friday, a reference to your personalities and within the body's switch.
Plant People: don't even know.
Brett: So for instance, if Alexis and I were a Freaky Friday, alexa I would be have Alexis's...
Plant People: Would anyone notice?
Brett: ah My personality would be inside of Alexis's body.
Alexis: I
Brett: Alexis's personality would be inside my body.
Alexis: ah
Brett: I feel like Alexis and Ray would be the most jarring.
Alexis: o
Plant People: Gosh.
Plant People: ah Which, which role is which? I want to hear this. Why would it be so jarring, Brett, not to put you right on the spot?
Brett: Um, well, I think Alexis, I think Alexis would be, it would be like, uh, people would be like, are you okay?
Plant People: Alexis is like, I'm waiting.
Alexis: i know I'm like
Brett: Like you're, you're just like more, a little more chill, like a little more, i don't know what, like you just seem, yeah.
Alexis: You don't seem as angry as you usually do.
Brett: And with Ray, it'd be like, are you okay? Yeah.
Plant People: Are you okay? You seem a bit more edgy than lately.
Brett: well You see you have some fire in your, fire in your belly there.
Alexis: and Things seem to be bothering you that normally don't.
Plant People: a little vim and vigor to the stew today.
Alexis: i think maybe I'm just Ray's internal monologue and I would be letting it out.
Plant People: o yin and yang, you think?
Alexis: as
Brett: Ooh.
Alexis: i think now I think that you are
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah, you you're just Ray, no filter.
Alexis: Yeah, just Ray no filter, i think. Because Ray and I ray i yeah get get up to things when the two of us are are together. We find trouble.
Brett: So you're saying this is a front from Ray.
Plant People: It's bad. it's not It's not a cancellation effect.
Brett: Ray,
Plant People: It's a magnification effect, and I don't i can't explain that.
Alexis: Yeah. Yeah.
Plant People: um I can't explain that.
Alexis: Well, mostly because you're a bad influence and I have can be rateed baited into anything. so
Plant People: Ray-baited. i love it.
Alexis: Right.
Plant People: You've been ray-baited.
Brett: rap baby.
Plant People: Not rage-baited. You've been ray-baited. I was in school a bit of an instigator.
Alexis: There he's like, go fight him. You want to fight him? You know you do.
Plant People: I never approached problems even in elementary school head on because I would always whisper in three different ears to accomplish the goal and ended up having the, the, the, yeah.
Alexis: The puppet master. Evil.
Plant People: and
Brett: Oh, wow.
Plant People: And I was over there going, can I help you or you know with the erasers or can I, you know, help you teacher? you know, it was like, o yeah, so I could see that.
Brett: Does Reed have any of that?
Alexis: evil
Plant People: Brett, what are, what's that? Yeah.
Brett: Does Reed have any of that? Your son Reed?
Plant People: Yeah, he's got it bad and I'm in so much trouble because my energy level is waning and his power is waxing. So ah it is.
Brett: I could definitely see him as as like a a coalition builder against whatever he's, you know, sort of charming people.
Plant People: Oh,
Plant People: man.
Alexis: Bedtime, you know.
Brett: Oh,
Plant People: Yeah, he uses our words against us. I mean, did you have any of that in you, Brett? Like who would but who would behoo'd Brett match up with?
Brett: yes.
Plant People: I need to know this, Alexis. What are you thinking for the Freaky Friday switch over with Brett?
Brett: And I will say within the podcast is fun, but also outside the podcast can also be fun.
Plant People: Yes. We can play different roles someday. Yeah.
Alexis: Yeah, I think Jessica and Brett could switch and be like,
Plant People: o
Alexis: like could fly under the radar if they wanted to.
Brett: yeah
Alexis: Like they they would be actively saying, you know, i I know what I'm doing here, but I think they could both fly under the radar.
Plant People: o
Alexis: I don't think Ray and I could hide ourselves.
Brett: Yeah,
Plant People: Yeah. that That's an interesting combo that the Jessica and Brett, which they can both have extremely righteous indignation in a very good way. but it would fly under the radar if you did not know them well.
Brett: yeah.
Alexis: Okay.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: So, hmm, interesting.
Alexis: I feel like they're able they're both able to like sit in a room with ragey people and just be like, well, that's a thought. um Maybe we just move past that now.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Now let's talk sensibly.
Brett: I think we do have we do have some peacekeeper peacekeeper
Alexis: but Let's...
Alexis: Vibes.
Brett: tendencies.
Brett: But also defense the mama bear thing is very, ah obviously that's the thing with Jessica, but I have that kind of as well.
Alexis: Or just...
Plant People: Yes.
Alexis: You do. You do. Don't mess with ah Brett's team, man. hill
Plant People: Team Brett, come get you.
Alexis: He comes out. the the The Virgo in him comes out.
Plant People: Takes all kinds of cons, folks. It does. It does indeed.
Alexis: Well, you know what else it takes all kinds of kinds of? ah Pesticides to keep our tomatoes from getting blight every summer.
Plant People: Okay. Okay.
Alexis: So there you go.
Plant People: it is It is gardening season in Kentucky, and we all kind of had a feeling. We kind of knew that was such a historically wet period in Kentucky this spring.
Alexis: And cool.
Plant People: um
Alexis: Relatively cool.
Plant People: Relatively cool. We had relatively cool spans. Apparently there was a warm spell that you know went on record, but then it got really cool and wet. And that, as far as triangles go, is a perfect quad.
Plant People: It's a perfect disease triangle. And now that everybody's, so you mentioned tomatoes, Alexis, everyone's tomatoes are up.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: You know, some people have pretty good sized tomatoes now, as far as plants go.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And yeah, they're starting to cover and shade themselves and all of that just, ah yeah, leads into your discussion you opened with, Alexis, with pesticides, specifically disease controls.
Alexis: Yeah. First of all, I want to say pesticides.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Alexis: If you're new here, this is for you. I think a lot of our our listeners know this. Pesticide is not a bad word. It also includes organic things.
Plant People: yeah
Alexis: Organic things are considered a pesticide. So we're not saying, you know, we're we're not flirting with either side of the fence here. We're just calling it one big thing. I just want to make sure everybody knows we are friends of or organic and conventional, like,
Brett: Well, yeah, i mean, it just...
Alexis: I just feel like sometimes the word pesticide could be ugly.
Brett: touchdgingly Etymologically, pesticide carries some cultural ways some cultural baggage now.
Plant People: I mean,
Plant People: no
Alexis: Yes.
Brett: You know, pesticide-free, anti-pesticide, whatever.
Alexis: Yes.
Brett: And I think that there are some definitely valid critiques and concerns to have about prevalence of pesticide.
Alexis: Sure.
Brett: But I mean, if you're just breaking it down, it's just pest... And that you want to decide it, you know, killing a person is homicide, killing a pest is pesticide.
Plant People: I mean, in this, yeah.
Brett: And so I guess if you are a pass a total pacifist, like at a very like a like a like a Buddhist, like core self, maybe you might have some objections of pesticides.
Alexis: If you use... Yeah.
Plant People: Thank you.
Alexis: Yes.
Brett: But conceptually, most people are fine to have the stink bug die rather than ruin their tomato or have the cucumber beetle die rather than give the bacterial wilt to their cucumbers.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: we We're getting a lot of questions on all, we're going to get a lot of questions on all those things, but yeah, this wet year has, i mean, it's been on our minds as far as, and and again, you know, ah pesticide is never our first line of defense.
Alexis: Which...
Plant People: We've talked a lot about on the show, ah integrated pest management. It's part of an overall control strategy. to manage damage ah to a ah an acceptable level.
Plant People: Let's just put it that way. So with that being said, you know, we talk about pesticides, but that's part of a larger control strategy.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: It's not stage one. It may be state consideration or stage three or four, but with this wet year, I mean, it's, it's a concern.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Yeah, you might go but you might go back to back to previous IPM episodes that we've done.
Plant People: Yeah. go
Brett: i think, yeah, you all might have already just mentioned that.
Alexis: Cultural controls, stuff like that.
Brett: but and and And so like some quick examples of what that would be.
Alexis: Yeah, for sure.
Plant People: Yeah. I, ah
Brett: um
Plant People: Well, look, o
Brett: if you're If you're going to be pruning or if you're going to be doing any kind of like that kind of intervention, clean your tools in between uses or in between areas where there's problems or...
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: yeah, or spacing of tomatoes to allow greater airflow and light penetration down into them. And on that same line of thought, if you have a ah peach tree that you're doing correct pruning, ah that lets light get down into the interior canopy and it dries the foliage quicker.
Plant People: and therefore reduces disease pressure. All of those are things that ah do not involve pesticides, but in the strictest sense, I mean, if we're talking about pesticides, sunlight is a pesticide because, you know, it helps to destroy pathogens.
Alexis: Uh-huh.
Plant People: So, you know, we could go down that hole, but we're doing kind of cultural practices you guys just mentioned. And there's lots of those. And that's usually what I think about first is things like variety selection and cultural practices before I ever think personally and professionally, before I think about ah pesticides.
Plant People: And in these wet years, we know that we're going to have what guys, I mean, what's cropping up now.
Alexis: disease, pounder, mildew, arthritis, blight, all of them.
Plant People: Yeah. Yes. Lawn landscape and gardens and flowers, you name it.
Alexis: yeah
Brett: trees
Plant People: This ah yeah. Trees, lots of anthracnose cause.
Alexis: Yeah.
Brett: i i saw uh it was annie my my wife annie she i don't know if it's that she focuses on the positive i don't know what but she tends not to notice like really obvious disease things or like that that type of stuff she's more focused on the flower than the you know the
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: But she noticed and and and pointed out, I think it was like a maple anthracnose that I, on like silver maples, things that are normally like almost bulletproof, at least in our neighborhood.
Alexis: moving
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And it was this black, like malformation, gross, fungal body on the but fungal, right?
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: Tar spot.
Alexis: Yeah, yeah.
Brett: Yeah, on on the the leaves of the of the maple trees.
Plant People: Yeah, mostly. Yeah.
Brett: And I was like, yeah, that that is an indication of just how wet and disease disease friendly our early year, ah first half of the year has been.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah, I guess that's one thing we can talk about.
Alexis: yeah
Plant People: I mean, we tend to gloss over it. ah We've never, I don't think, explicitly talked about and we don't talk want to talk about it a lot here. but We talk a lot about the disease triangle. That informs all of our decisions, and that's, you know, you've got a a host that's susceptible and ah to some level and disease pressure, then the environment, and there's a lot of different ways you can look at that. But all that being said is the conditions have been just right on the disease triangle, at least early on for early heavy disease development. And now we're dealing with the fallout of that, as Brett said, on trees, lots of maple calls this year. And we're going to get that on gardens because, ah you know, it's just it's just been really ah good conditions for that early disease. And it's and it's starting to show now.
Plant People: People are starting to notice that.
Alexis: So, yeah, well, i was going to the work what quote like questions that start to come in, um I think as things start to heat up, um you know, when you say fallout, I think some of that is because the amount of time since infection occurred.
Brett: So one thing
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: And so, then we're getting that. But also um because the heat will put stress on the plant, right?
Plant People: who
Alexis: So we know like actually, even though we have all these warm weather plants, you know, tomatoes, we always think, oh, it's hot weather. ah But they don't really like it much above like what, 80 to 85?
Plant People: Yeah, lots of garden plants don't.
Alexis: I mean, if it's hotter than that, then they're, even though they don't like the cold either, they're like me.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: They're just like middle of the road type of plants. But
Plant People: We use big words like physiological, like, you know, issues, tomato white flecking or just, you know, heavy tissue, callusine of the tomato if it gets too hot and you don't have good
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: shoulder coverage, good vine coverage of the tomato. But on either end, that affects a lot of crops. And I always worry about the heat because we've seen extended, um not warm spells, but extended heat spells here in Kentucky the last few years.
Plant People: It seems like we'll get a week or two of that.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And if it happens during something like green beans, you'll have blossom abortion that will also happen and happen on things like cucumbers and pumpkins, depending on the variety. Some varieties are a little bit better about it, but yeah, Alexis, that's a great point.
Plant People: I mean, we're talking about diseases now, but I mean, the zoom out a little bit.
Brett: Well, I think even, but part of what you were, I thought part of what you were saying, Alexis, was that, you know, those fungal spores and things, or that even the bacterial stuff might be there, but then this heat causes stress, which opens, it's sort of like, you know, how you never know, you ever notice how when you're really stressed out about work or family or whatever, you tend to get sick.
Alexis: Well,
Plant People: we'll talk about weather.
Plant People: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's susceptibility.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: It's because it's, you're weakened.
Alexis: yeah, right.
Brett: You're, you're not as strong as you once were. I assume that, is that kind of what you were getting at, Alexis?
Alexis: Yeah, exactly.
Plant People: Even on the disease side.
Alexis: Exactly.
Plant People: Yeah, sure.
Alexis: Yeah. So one thing that, uh, we, I feel like as someone who like has a love of pathology, um
Plant People: Gotcha. Gotcha.
Alexis: that it it it's hard to talk to people about is that most of the time with your diseases, whether they're fungal or bacterial um or viral, when you start to notice something is wrong, it's too late to do much about it in the plant world. um You know, there's... there's ah Something that defies that logic, but that is majority of what we talk about is fungal, bacterial, viral. All of that is prevention. Some of that isn't just like having healthy plants and, you know, doing all the proper pruning and all those cultural things we talk about.
Alexis: But some of that is, um, different than when we talk about insects, it is that you have to basically pre-treat. You have to protect them. you have to put on like a, you know, a protective barrier to prevent the infection from happening.
Alexis: And so that's really hard for people who have a beautiful garden. They said, it was beautiful all spring. And then it gets in the 80s and up there and the plant starts to get a little bit more stressed out. ah we start to see these ah signs and these symptoms ah come out from this earlier infection.
Alexis: And you want to do something about it right now. And the answer often, not always, but often is there's not much you can do other than just help that plant stay as healthy as possible and let it limp through the season.
Alexis: um Otherwise, you're just kind of ripping it out. And, you know, so long tomato crop 2025.
Brett: Yeah, with the fungal with the fungal stuff, especially, it's almost like ah it would be almost like putting sunscreen on a sunburn.
Alexis: Yes.
Brett: It's like the the damage is already done.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And, and so so part of it, I think, and and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, part of that means if that, as you learn as a gardener, you are as a, you know, landscape person or a lawn person or whatever,
Alexis: Right.
Brett: you start to realize like, okay, yes, there are strange things. Like this was a very, very wet year, but Kentucky's not exactly a dry place ever.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And so each year there's, your tomatoes are probably going to get disease of some sort because they're not exactly the most robust and resistant to all diseases and that you're growing them in a pretty steamy place and steamy and sometimes cool place.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: So you're, you're kind playing almost planning to apply some amount of fungicide to certain plants. Is that, i mean, is that um accurate?
Plant People: Yeah, a lot of that you know I've ran into over the years, and it's interesting that's a very interesting question because it all depends on, I think, scale. We've talked a lot about scale on this podcast recently, but if you're a home gardener, you can ah your decision making is going to be different. If you have, let's say, 10 tomato plants and you want to be as low input as possible, so you do cultural practices such as you select a cultivar that's fairly resistant,
Plant People: ah to some of these common diseases and root issues, and you space them out and you put them in a windy place with lots of airflow. Now, if you're a commercial person, you are big enough to wear.
Plant People: You're probably going to pre-treat by anticipating weather patterns and disease movement and when the disease is typically present and stage of growth.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: So a homeowner may be able to get by with, ah you know, on a limited scale, of uh waiting hoping not spraying a whole lot of cover sprays but that's not the decision making typically a line of reasoning of a commercial producer they're going to do what you just mentioned brett they're going to do a lot of preemptive things because one of you guys made the comment earlier that you know usually especially homeowner chemicals they're uh They're more preventative rather than curative.
Plant People: It's going to slow disease progression in a lot of cases, but it won't cure what's already affected.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And that principle is extremely important, even on a commercial scale. So different scenarios require different decision making, and it all goes back to risk. And can you tolerate losing the crop or not? And still, to you know, not be impacted too much financially.
Plant People: ah different Different ways of making handling the same situation, sensely essentially, I guess. If that makes sense at all, my rambling.
Brett: And I'll i'll say you know, as a, I would consider myself a somewhat serious home grower now who maybe transitioned out of some research and things where the, um the plants were supposed to stay alive, you know, and you weren't supposed to lose them and you're supposed to be able to know how much came out.
Plant People: Rambling.
Alexis: was pretty important. Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: um i I did. and And I do actually with my trees, my bonsai trees, I actually do some fungal prevention sprays.
Plant People: Do you? Yeah.
Brett: Um, And, and, and so maybe like, you know, so some people you may, it may be the other, the other thing that's interesting is depends on how long into the summer you actually want to pick your tomatoes.
Brett: For instance, there's some people who they love, they get that first flush off and they're like, you know what, after this, I'm kind of cool.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Done.
Brett: Let the blight take it with the, whatever happens, happens.
Plant People: and
Brett: Other people want it to keep going.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: We...
Brett: I think that's a, that's a little, being honest with yourself.
Plant People: We've got some great research on that. Yeah. And there's some excellent research on that, even on a commercial scale, that it's no longer economically feasible on an economic scale to spray past a certain point because you have all the leaves to make all the fruit, in in this case, tomatoes, where you don't need to protect it any longer because it's going to get disease and decline at a given rate.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And so you that juxtaposition, you stop spraying because you save money by stopping spraying and you don't have to worry about, you know,
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: harvest restrictions and things like that. But yeah, that's a great point, Brad.
Alexis: There's something similar in flowers because a lot of flowers, zinnias are a great example. If you've ever grown a zinnia and anywhere in the South, ah you've gotten powdery mildew on them, I can just guarantee it.
Plant People: Every year, every year. every year
Alexis: and ah But they're so fast and the first ah flush, first few flushes of them, just because the plant is not tired, um are always the best anyways that you know we do successions of those.
Plant People: yeah
Alexis: And so you know if you're
Plant People: Hmm.
Alexis: got the market for them and all all of that stuff we talk about all the time, the, you can sow those every four weeks. And so then as one flush is going out and then you never bother to spray, spray them because you know, you've got fresh coming on, they're going to be higher quality regardless.
Alexis: And then you just, you're pulling out those other things. And so that's, that's one way fly. And you know, with flowers, especially because ah you've got pollinators visiting them and
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: Granted, fungicides are not something that's going to affect your pollinators because they are going after fungal bodies. and That is one thing that people, I think, sometimes forget that ah that's what happens.
Alexis: But, ah you know, you just you don't have to worry about about that. And just no spray when you're dealing with flowers is always ideal.
Plant People: the The similar concept applies to like even vegetable crops, Alexis. ah One that comes to mind would be what's that squash?
Alexis: Squash.
Plant People: Yes, you do.
Alexis: I would say like cucurbits in general most of the time.
Plant People: six Yes. Yeah.
Alexis: Squash though.
Plant People: Is that kind of similar to what you're saying on the cut flower where you're trying to avoid squash vine borer specifically is you do succession plantings because after a certain point, you' those late plantings aren't going to get hit nearly as hard by it.
Alexis: Yeah. who
Alexis: Yeah. yeah
Plant People: But yeah, that when you said that, that's interesting.
Alexis: and
Plant People: I didn't realize that on the zinnias. That's how growers, you know, on on a bigger scale grew those. That's pretty cool that that's what you're doing.
Alexis: yeah
Plant People: You're just accepting that loss. But what are my zinnia beds right now? You know, ah we just do it here at home. A pretty good sized bed. Those have some kind of leaf. I've not really looked at it. Jennifer said she noticed it, but some kind of leaf spot.
Plant People: I'll have to consult with you later on that.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: It looks, I don't know if it's anthracnose or what.
Alexis: Anthracnose, it's right ah ah along. yeah
Plant People: Yeah. But plants that usually don't get that.
Alexis: that Yep, yep. and so in some plans yeah some plant And some plants get it um but grow out of it.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: So sometimes that anthracnose, or like anthracnose in Xenias, I see every year, a lot of time they'll it'll affect the older leaves and the newer leaves it won't affect because of the temperature.
Plant People: and
Alexis: So going back to that triangle we talk about.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: so It has to be the right environment, the right host, and the pathogen. So in this case, with the Xenia early in the season, it's a little bit cooler when they're little. You've got the host, you've got good environment, good temps, and you've got the disease present.
Alexis: Then it warms up and we lose that environment. And so basically that anthracnose, it's still there, but it's and essentially dormant. And in a lot of cases. And so it just waits, the plant grows, the plant who does fine.
Alexis: And then if it cools down again, and that plant's still in, you get the you get the environment piece back to your triangle, right? And then it it launches off.
Plant People: that is a That's the difference between knowledge of wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that it's anthracnose and wisdom is knowing that you're not typically going to have to treat for it because the plant's going to outgrow and have no tremendous impact.
Plant People: So, yeah.
Alexis: Right, right. It's just going to, something's going to come up, whether it's at the environment or the host change or whatever that is.
Plant People: Cool.
Alexis: um And I think that's one thing about like disease that I, it ah it shocked me when I learned it was that a lot of diseases, and granted, we're talking specifically about the ones we see in, you know, Kentucky and this general area at basically any state that touches Kentucky, I would feel confident in saying this, but most of them thrive in those areas.
Alexis: lower temps, like just like the tomatoes, right?
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Alexis: Like it makes sense for the um pest to thrive at the same temperatures that the ah host thrives on, right?
Plant People: yeah
Alexis: And so they shut down when it gets above about 80 degrees and they have to have the right humidity. They they have to have all the right things too. And so, you know, often you can just, again, back to that wisdom part of it.
Alexis: If I know it's going to get hot, I'm not going to bother treating something because I know it's going to shut down. um And that's where it can be hard. And that's where, you know, going to your local extension office, taking them a sample, knowing exactly what you're dealing with is so important and not just like, oh, it's a spa.
Alexis: It's probably, you know, fungal. Well, bacteria acts very different than fungus acts and virus acts very different than those two acts.
Plant People: yeah
Alexis: So really knowing what you're dealing with is what's important to whether or not you're going to treat and how you're going to treat it.
Plant People: Well, and that's a common thing, because and one of you guys said it just a few minutes ago. You said ah by the time you see it, it may be too late to treat um you know this year or on this planting.
Plant People: And you know things like a lot of our floral crops, and especially like home gardens or even commercial
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: ah plantings, they're annuals, right? So the first question I want to do is, you yes, you want to identify the pathogen, but the reason I want to do that is how persistent is it going to be for following crops?
Alexis: yeah
Plant People: So that's a big consideration. Is it soil borne on water splash or it some other way? And how persistent is it going to be? Is it going to be a like, you know, is it going to be like rhizactonium or pythium?
Plant People: That's going be three to five years.
Alexis: Yeah, how does it spread? Yeah, that's a big one.
Plant People: Yeah. Like, yeah.
Alexis: Especially the virus. I mean, if it's spread in underground nematodes, like, you know, what are you doing?
Plant People: Oh, viruses like, yeah. Rosette.
Plant People: This is, a we're not we're not so much caring about, i mean, we care about this year's crop when someone comes into our offices. We try to ah help with as much as possible about that. But the more valuable information is, how is that going to impact your planting next year?
Plant People: Are you going to have to rotate into a different class of plants?
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And that's that's a big consideration. When we take, you know, all of these disease costs, because we're looking at this year, but we're also looking down the road oftentimes,
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: and you know make our decisions based on that. That's real important concept. It's not just this year, but following years.
Brett: Well, I have an example from my bonsai that kind of gives ah it rep is an example of what both of you all were just talking about.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: So, you know, as a perennial, ideally, if it as long as it survives a perennial crop, there will be like but on a pine tree, for instance, there's going to be needles from last year on the tree as needles from this year come out.
Plant People: Long perennial, yeah.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: And so I have trees that got some needle cast issues last year And I was able to stop the spread of that, but they're there're pretty infected. And um as the new new needles emerge this year,
Brett: I'm trying to protect them from in that cool time of year ah from becoming inoculated by the needles from last year.
Brett: And so ideally next year I'll have healthy needles that didn't get inoculated.
Plant People: oh
Brett: And so I'll still be vigilant, but um it's ah it's an interesting, because it's it's almost like two crops on the same plant, basically two rounds of foliage on the same plant.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: And as Alexis pointed out, um what what ends up happening with a lot of those, with ah some of the specific ones that I have on on some of these that affect these trees is that they actually get inoculated and to a certain extent infected in the spring, but as it heats up, the fungal bodies go dormant and then they don't show back up again until the fall.
Brett: And so you think that it got infected in the fall, but it actually got infected in the spring.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And so you're like chasing your tail only to realize there was this six week window when the needles were emerging in the spring before those needles had hardened off before they had formed a really hard cuticle to protect them from those fungal things.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: If you treat during there and prevent the spread, then that's kind of your, your window to not have ugly needles a year and a half from now, which is kind of crazy, of a crazy longer term disease cycle thing to think about.
Alexis: yeah mm-hmm
Brett: Um, But i I wanted to, I think when I, when I, at the home garden scale, one of the the things that I got a little bit lost on or a little bit overwhelmed with, I guess, was, okay, so I've gone through all my cultural practices. I've done all the things that I can, and I'm just coming to terms with the fact that I live in humid Kentucky with some crazy cool springs sometimes.
Brett: And I'm probably, I'm going to have to spray and in in the case of what I'm doing, the density that I'm at, et cetera. So for a while there, I bought the like pre-made, ah like the almost like ah kitchen cleaner type spray bottles.
Alexis: And a spray bottle.
Brett: The thing about those is that it's really hard to get good coverage on more than like one plant or two plants and your hand gets tired and everything else. I was just curious, like other options. It's also kind of expensive because you're buying a lot of water in there.
Brett: um
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: I've kind of figured out some stuff, but I'm curious, you know, if people come in and and talk with you all, is there, you know, has there been, is there any kind of discussion of that small scale equipment up even to larger scale?
Plant People: sure Yeah, that's one of the first questions I ask. i yeah I'll usually start with that. i mean, ah how many plants do you have? What's the scale of what you're spraying?
Plant People: And then we start to have discussions like if you have no sprayer at all, is it something that's appropriate with a hose in mixer sprayer kind of thing? Like the the classic example is the dial and spray type sprayers.
Plant People: that have the big red ah knob on them. ah But then I start to ask about things like backpack sprayers, you know, just some kind of sprayer that's appropriate for the number of plants that they're spraying and the height and general size of those plants.
Plant People: Really important.
Alexis: I love me just like a little, I mean, I've got backpack sprayers, I've got like larger things, but those can be expensive. And yeah the thing I tend to go to the most often um is just my little hand pump sprayer. That's like two gallons.
Alexis: um I'm going to use that a lot. Ideally, this is because, um you know, a lot of the time I'm using it for like hot spots type area like I've seen, oh, this plant's not quite looking right.
Alexis: um You know, I'm going to make sure I'm protecting it and everybody around it so that it's not, so nothing is spreading, um you know, or the, just the amount of preventative I'm doing. And the beauty of that is even if you wanted to buy um you know we i always tell people the more for your money is going to be like a concentrate, right?
Alexis: but just like Just like when you're buying you know apple juice.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: um you know you If you buy an apple juice concentrate and mix it up yourself versus you buy in a you know thing of juice, right you're going to get more. ah But like you said, it can be expensive if you're new to um gardening or, you know, you're just not sure if you want your tomatoes to last all season or whatever that's like. And you want to stick with buying the small amount of pre-made. Maybe you're really bad at math.
Alexis: I also get that. Sometimes I'm just like, I just want the pre-made and I'm supposed to know how to do all this stuff. But
Plant People: And sometimes the pre-made may be the best if you have one rose bush or just like a...
Alexis: yeah, or... Or you just can't find it, you know? Like, we you know we talk about where in areas of Kentucky, there's areas in Kentucky where the only place to buy a pesticide is going to be at, like, the Dollar General, right?
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: And that's no fault of anybody's, but that's just what's available, and so you've got to go with that. So anyways... Even if you're just buying that, I do agree with Brett. For most of your, you know, a lot of your pesticides, fungicides, you know, even your insecticides, especially at the homeowner level because of what that active ingredient is, the most important thing you could do is get good coverage.
Alexis: ah For a lot of them, it's like until, so you know, you get drips coming off the leaf.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: Yeah. Always read the directions. The label is the law. don't say that. I feel like Rick Besson will haunt my dreams. um But always follow the label.
Plant People: It's gotta be in there.
Alexis: But usually coverage is the best. And with fungicides especially, we remember that barrier.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: If you miss a spot with your sunscreen, you're going to sunburned. And so you need to create that good even barrier. And so buying that small pump spray that you can wash and reuse as many times as you know you want if you take care of it um is just going to help you get more coverage. So even if you dump your like little spray bottle into that thing that has a finer mist.
Alexis: ah You can spray more at one time because you're just pumping it with your hand occasionally. ah That is a really big upgrade, even if you're still using the same at-home products.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: So um that would be, um you'll see a huge difference with how effective you are. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And I found over.
Brett: Yeah, you could adjust you could adjust the spray tip to give you bigger mit a bigger versus a finer mist, depending on what you're doing.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: But I think sometimes like you get your hand gets tired when you're squeezing the the spray bottle, like the manual spray bottle, and you're like, ah, that's good enough.
Alexis: Yeah.
Brett: And honestly, if you don't get great if you don't get great coverage, you might as well almost not even apply it at all, ah depending on what it is that you're applying.
Alexis: Yeah, it's just a waste time and money.
Brett: another Another thing I would say is if you ah if you do decide to go the route of the concentrates and you do decide to mix your own, do not operate by the logic that my dad used to operate operate on, which was the more if a tablespoon is good, then a quarter cup is going to really knock that stuff back.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: You know, that that may be the case with servings of vegetables when you're eating at dinnertime, know, an extra a little bit might be good.
Plant People: Peaches, we're looking at you.
Alexis: Or cake.
Brett: But with pesticides, there's some very, very smart people who have done some very, very hard math and chemistry to formulate and figure and test. And they they recommend the dose that they recommend because that's how it's effective and that's how it's safe for people and plants and animals.
Brett: And that's how it's safe for the plant. Like you can actually and up harming or killing your plant if you over apply certain pesticides in the process.
Alexis: Right.
Brett: So so follow that the labels are written and the label is the law.
Alexis: And like.
Alexis: Right.
Brett: Follow the label instructions. They have very good, very clear instructions about what size, you know, if if you're doing for what type of crop you're doing it for. And, and just just follow that.
Brett: And I would agree with you. I think that one to two gallon sprayer is like the sweet spot for most
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: like and And even at a decent scale when you're managing stuff more on, like you said, a spot spray or you're kind of just doing as needed, sometimes it's just faster.
Alexis: Yeah.
Brett: Even if you have to do two or three rounds of the two gallon, it's still faster and less...
Alexis: Yep.
Alexis: Like space? Yeah.
Brett: yeah
Alexis: Like if you're in a tight garden space, I mean, and like for me, if I'm in the high tunnel, um I can do, you know, a full row in my high tunnel and I have to fill up my little two gallon spray twice, but I'm not, I don't have this heavy backpack on.
Alexis: When it's it's either really hot or really cold because I can never do it on a day that makes makes sense weather-wise.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: But also it's tight in there. And so, you know, this heavy thing, I'm lugging it around. I'd rather just have this small thing than I can whip that out. And like you said, it's faster. um From the label perspective, I can feel some of you being rebels when you're like, I mean, that's great.
Alexis: And yeah, but I've done this before. You know, I'm not going to burn my plant. The other thing is... It just might not work. So, right, these are chemical interactions.
Alexis: And so if it says it takes a whole gallon of water per one tablespoon of pesticide and you put more, then that stuff might just be floating around and is not used.
Alexis: like And so you're just wasting it. So I can feel some of you rebels going, meh. well, but no, really, like it it might not actually work because you've not mixed it with enough stuff.
Alexis: You know, it's like your powdered um cheese in your macaroni and cheese box. You know, if you don't put it the right amount of water with it, you get a paste.
Plant People: I don't know.
Brett: put like <unk> six packs in one serving of my cough dust.
Plant People: More is more in in chi mac and cheese. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexis: I don't I don't want to paste. I want the cheese to coat all of my noodles. OK, so I have to put the right amount of water per powdered powdered cheese.
Brett: That's right.
Brett: That is a very, that is a very powerful metaphor.
Plant People: oh we're talking about water. I thought we were talking about cheese. i was like, more cheese is better though. That's not a good example.
Alexis: and No, no, I'm talking powdered cheese to water ratio.
Brett: Powdered cheese in like a Kraft mac and cheese box.
Plant People: Well,
Alexis: and you
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: And I know we're talking about diseases, but I mean, if we look at other horticulture enterprises, such as like turf management, I know I'm saying the T word turf.
Alexis: It's okay.
Plant People: it's ah We talked some about that on the ah podcast, but there's just straight up some selective ah plant management um herbicides there that if you go off dosage and mix too much, you'll just straight kill both the intended target and like the turf.
Alexis: It's okay.
Alexis: o
Plant People: So yeah.
Alexis: Do you remember the pine tree 240 thing of like the 2010s?
Plant People: The Strombolin class of chemicals. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexis: Yeah, they um sprayed for broadleaf herbicide, sprayed a broadleaf herbicide and a lot of turf and um ah when the temps were too high.
Plant People: Hmm.
Plant People: It killed trees. Yeah.
Alexis: And it smoked trees because it all, um what's the word I'm looking for when it like evaporates off?
Brett: volatilized.
Alexis: It volatilized. It was a 240 that volatilized and it just smoked.
Brett: Oh, wow.
Alexis: I mean, there were companies getting sued left and right for stuff.
Brett: Up in what kind of what kind of pine trees?
Plant People: Oh, yeah.
Alexis: Yeah, we had a bunch of people.
Plant People: There's a, yeah,
Alexis: pine Well, it was all trees, but like um white pines seemed to get hit. I mean, they're white pines, but like white pines got smoked.
Brett: Wow.
Plant People: there's multiple issues. Yeah.
Alexis: Any tree that was like, had turf sprayed,
Brett: Huh.
Alexis: relatively below it got smoked by 240.
Brett: In and around it. Wow.
Plant People: mean, it's ah just really important. I mean because you're going to find stuff like this on the labels. You're going to find, you know, first thing I look for, I mean, you want to read the entire label. And most labels, I have to say, have gotten better over time, especially for homeowners. the All the information is important. The most important information is highlighted just a little bit more on most of the major brands.
Plant People: And I'm very glad of that trend. That's gotten better, I think, over time. ah But look for things like harvest intervals and based on the specific crop. You can't just look at the harvest interval on a disease control for green beans and apply that to cucumbers, even though cucumber and green beans are both on there, they may have different harvest restrictions. Not only that, but the maximum number of applications per season, total amount of active ingredient, all of that stuff is just eminently important for when we're talking about disease control or otherwise, as Alexa said, the label kind of is the law. You absolutely have to go by that.
Plant People: And it's been crafted over time. Lots of research dollars have went into that ah to formulate, you know, a product that is, has tested out to be safe. So just always keep that in mind.
Brett: Yeah. And even if we have, and if we have some folks who are skeptical of some of the ah safety and other recommendations that come out from chemical companies, from the EPA and all that kind of stuff, even putting that aside, I don't care.
Plant People: Bye.
Brett: Even the really quote unquote, innocuous stuff following the label is the
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: best way to do that, because they have, I mean, it's not just the chemists, chemists and agronomists that look over this stuff, their lawyers look over it too. And they're making sure that this is the safest way possible that you can apply this stuff. And so I think, you know, um one thing I just wanted to talk about before we before we wrap up was that, if you are in more of the large garden moving into some you know commercial or larger scale or anything like that, um there are trainings available from ah offered through the extension service for certified pesticide applicators.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And I won't talk too much about that because so I haven't I haven't had a need to, but I was once a certified pesticide applicator back when I was applying pesticides at a scale other than tiny trees. And one of the interesting things i remember, I still remember this from that and I sing it. I don't really sing it to myself, but it's a cute image to think of me singing it to myself.
Brett: is the ah the whales order of mixing acronym.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: Do you all remember this? That I'm not gonna sing. I'm just gonna, that water goes in first, water and wettable powders and water dispersible granules.
Brett: And then A is agitation. So trying to maintain movement and agitation even in the tank in some way, if that's manually with kind of moving around or whatever.
Brett: L's is your liquid flowables. ah And yeah, some other stuff with air. E are your emulsifiable concentrates.
Brett: And then S are your solutions or soluble liquids. And I think it's just, um what that means is like, that's the order in which you're mixing stuff in the tank. And that's an example of something I learned through the certified pesticide applicator training.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: many moons ago. And that's like, there's, you know, just basic chemistry there that you don't want to add your very, very concentrated stuff and then add water to that. Because as that those first few drops of water hit that it just becomes like really powerful and potentially volatile, volatile, volatile, volatilizes right in your face.
Brett: um But it's just there there is some method to the madness there.
Alexis: Been there.
Brett: ah What when do those typically happen? what does that typically look like? Is there a cost? I know you all have done these trainings.
Plant People: and In most counties, um the majority of those will happen in very early spring, late winter, very early spring, Because as a commercial applicator, um that allows you to brought buy restricted use chemicals for use only on your own operation, or you can trade for some services.
Plant People: There's some allowances there, but most of those trainings for producers happen in the springtime of the year. So if you're curious about those trainings to get more information on that, call the offices beginning, I would say in November or December,
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: so that you can kind of get a schedule of those trainings coming up. and And for most offices, there are no charges that I know of for the private pesticide applicator license.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Now, when you get into the commercial license, those involve testing and study materials, and those are administered directly through the Kentucky Department of Ag. So there's some fees associated with those.
Plant People: But on the private pesticide applicator training program that the extension office administers, there are no fees typically associated with those. And I think those are still good for three years once you're certified ah through a local county program.
Plant People: that That certification lasts for three calendar years.
Brett: Yeah, I have a little bit of I would say almost like a non US viewpoint or or sensibility or sensitivity around pesticide stuff like it's kind of crazy to me.
Brett: that I can just like order mankazeb just to my house. That's kind of crazy.
Alexis: Yeah.
Brett: And like to a European, I think listening, they'd be like, what, what, this is wild.
Alexis: yeah
Brett: Like, and there must be some sort of something. And so I just think like pesticides, I don't have the, you know, anti viewpoint. I think I have a very, just like with, ah with firearms and with,
Brett: ah fire for that matter, I have a healthy respect for the power of it, and the potential dangers associated with it. And so i just want people to be safe, but also use these tools that are really cool and effective and can help ah to manage some of these sticky things.
Plant People: and And you made a really good point earlier, Brett, that goes for inorganic and organic labeled products. Because if you look at some of the organic labeled products, i'm you know just for example, like some of the nicotine-based products, you have to be very careful on following the label on all products.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: But even the organic products, you have to be very careful to follow the label exactly because some of those things are highly toxic and they're organic. ah So you always look at the label, just don't assume because it may have an organic label that it may be safer.
Plant People: Um, I mean, from any standpoint, it's not. That's why we never go off label because some of these things are, remember, they're pesticides. They're designed to ah dispatch things, to kill things.
Plant People: And always keep that in mind. I tell people that kind of jokingly, but not really.
Alexis: They're designed to side things.
Plant People: Yeah, it's the side thing, the death part of the equation. It's designed to control, you know, pathogens or other higher order pests. always keep that in mind with the side things, the pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, whatever.
Brett: So to maybe to leave folks on ah on an actionable note here. So if you have issues with your plants, ah you can obviously call your extension office.
Brett: You can go and check out some of the publications that are available from our friends in plant pathology who are the real experts in this stuff.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: If you get access or sorry, if you get in contact with the agent and they're able to either come out for a site visit or analyze your pictures or whatever, They may tell you, this is what I think this is.
Brett: They may tell you, let's send in a sample and they'll kind of walk you through that process. We have a whole pathology lab where people can, you can send in samples and see what, you know, confirm that this is powdery mildew or downy mildew or whatever.
Brett: And then from there, they they can also and help to guide you to other controls that might be a good fit. Is that, is that right?
Alexis: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Just number one, get identified by someone that is an actual person, I would say also, because I know sometimes um those apps can be really helpful in getting it into the general maybe area of what it could be.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah.
Alexis: But, um you know, there are lots of fungal things that look very similar and without looking at them under a microscope or seeing how they
Plant People: speak
Brett: yeah
Alexis: like literally how the you know bacteria streams out of the veins of the plant, um you can get that you know confused. So i I would say I'm all for technology, but when it comes to identifying a pathogen, ah make sure you have a human do it for you.
Plant People: Well, and the good thing about that coming to a county office, I'll give it a little plug there, is that we see things seeking seasonally in magnitude.
Alexis: Yeah.
Alexis: o
Plant People: Like if we see tar spot on a maple or you know we see some disease or some insect damage, the odds are we've seen that 40 other times and we can put that together and play the odds and get a little bit of a jump on identification and management.
Alexis: Yeah.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Because the odds are that, you know, as agents, we cover entire counties and especially you guys that are on a state scale. You even have a broader scope than us based on a county level.
Plant People: um That does help a lot. That gives us a real jump on trends that are happening in counties.
Alexis: who
Plant People: And that overview, let that work for you. You know, go visit your local county offices.
Alexis: You can also, um so we've had ah and a whole episode on weather with Matt Dixon, if you've not heard that, who is with UK Ag Weather, and he has a really great app.
Alexis: And often on that app, when there are diseases, and it's meant for like bigger growers, but even if you have a couple apple trees in your backyard, yeah um he'll put alerts out when it's ah prime time for sprays.
Alexis: So the weather is right. You know, we've got winds coming out of the south bringing the disease in. And so they'll post on there, hey, you need to be you need to be spraying for XYZ.
Alexis: And so another benefit of that really great free app that has no ads, I'm just saying.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: It's a good one.
Brett: Big plug, big Matt, big Matt Dixon.
Plant People: It's a good one.
Brett: And I think like with disease and, and insects, both, uh, you know, I would go and talk to the agent.
Alexis: takes it.
Brett: I think taking a little time to do a little research and scouting and have your best guess and be open to being wrong, but you're learning in the process too. That's, that's definitely like, there's some, it's nice to go and take it to somebody and they're like, yeah, you know, this is what it is.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: And, and, but experience, you know, you gain experience over time, then you start to realize, okay, this is when powdery mildew tends to hit these things. And then you also are like, this is not powdery mildew. I've never seen anything like this before.
Brett: And then you start to get to the point like, ah like ah Alexis, where you and the pathologists are really down this rabbit hole where they're like, kind of excited when the plant gets sick, because it's like something weird.
Brett: and, you know, unique and like, Oh, i haven't seen this this year at all, or I haven't seen this in 10 years.
Plant People: Something novel or different, yeah.
Brett: And you're like, okay. I mean, so yeah, I think that like that learning process for identifying diseases and how to intervene and all that stuff is, is an important part of being a horticulturist and being a gardener and just a curious person.
Alexis: Plant lover, a plant person, a true leaf one might say
Brett: So yeah, you got it.
Plant People: Keeping things happy and healthy.
Brett: Well, I think we, I think we did a, I think we did a pretty good, Pretty good app here.
Alexis: Well, yeah, we hope you guys liked it. If you have any other questions or maybe you want to know about some of the publications that, you know, we've kind of referenced that can be helpful. We've got some really great, I love our like IPM guides on tomatoes. So it's like all the different things with colored pictures.
Alexis: And if it looks sort of like this, it's probably this and can help you do a little bit of that investigation, um being the the garden detective before you head to the agent to hopefully confirm your suspicions. If not, definitely teach you something new.
Alexis: So we are so glad you guys were here with us today. ah So reminder, we have a new email address. So that's hortculturepodcast at gmail.com.
Alexis: And so that's hopefully to keep us in the loop with the emails a little bit better because our normal emails get cluttered. So we are hoping to make sure we're not missing anything.
Alexis: You can also follow us on Instagram at the same ah handle at horde culture podcast. And we'd love for to hear from you. Any ideas? Was this helpful? Do you have specific questions? Definitely let us know. But we hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us and that you have a great one.
Alexis: See ya.
