ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601110136
SECTION: HOMES PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Dear John
SOURCE: JOHN ARBOGAST
Backyard peach growers shouldn't take the winter off if they want to minimize problems next spring and summer.
This is not a good time to prune peach or nectarine trees because of the potential for aggravating canker disease problems. Symptoms of plant cankers would be dead places on bark and outer layer of stems that will usually show up as discolored and either raised or sunken. However, it is important now (weather permitting, of course) to carefully inspect peach trees and remove all shriveled brown fruit that is still clinging on, thereby removing fungus vectors from the area.
Brown peaches just described are referred to as ``mummies'' because of their wrinkled, shriveled and aged appearance. The growing-season disease that affects peaches and causes them to become mummies if not removed is called brown rot. This seems to be one of the most common peach diseases brought to the Roanoke City Extension Office in past growing seasons. During the growing season, the first evidence of brown rot is a small, circular brown spot that enlarges very rapidly as the fruit approaches maturity.
It is important to remove mummies now, many weeks before the trees bloom again, they spend the winter waiting to cause a new cycle of brown-rot infection. Dr. Keith Yoder, Virginia Tech research and extension fruit pathologist, wrote this past fall that shriveled fruit is the most important source of new brown-rot infections in Virginia.
Q: I need any information you may have on starting Southern Magnolia from seed. I have had very little luck. D.D.A., Elliston
A: If you have Southern Magnolia seeds saved from this past summer or fall, they might not be good for propagating now, since allowing magnolia seeds to dry out at any time in the propagating process seems to be harmful. Here's the recommended procedure for successfully propagating Southern Magnolias from seeds:
Gather seeds in the fall as soon as possible after the fruit is ripe, which would be when the red seeds are visible all over the fruit; clean the seeds; ripe magnolia seeds will not germinate fresh from the pod; so, sow the seeds immediately in the cooling fall soil where you can protect them from rodent chewing or digging and where they will experience the natural chilling of soil temperatures during the rest of fall and winter, or stratify the seeds before spring planting by putting them in a small jar with a light amount of dry peat over them and placing them in a refrigerator at 40 degrees F. and leaving them there for three or four months; in addition to avoiding seed drying, be careful not to go to the other extreme of keeping them too wet at any time.
Send short questions about your lawn, garden, plants, or insects to Dear John, c/o The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491. We need your mail, but this column can't reply to all letters. Those of wide appeal will be answered during the weeks That the subject is timely. personal replies cannot be given. please don't send stamps, stamped envelopes, samples, or pictures.
Gardener's checklist
Jobs for early January:
Keep holiday flowering plants looking great by: providing plenty of bright natural light in a spot with temperatures in the 60s, protection from drafts and complete watering only when the soil feels just slightly damp. Browse through vegetable seed catalogs to search for varieties that are disease- and insect-resistant and drought-tolerant. Protect Roanoke's ground and stream water quality through winter reading about fertilizers for the lawn, garden and landscape.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB