Aerating and Inoculating for Health

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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hr7X7dompIo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
SO does someone sell the 'Aqua cannon'?

I could see using that for my ongoing work on an old oak that was compromised by building works.
 
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  • #5
NickfromWI said:
I use one for washing my car. Got it for $20 at target. Didn't realize it was premium tree care tool!!
love
nick
Click to expand...

I bought mine at the state fair. If glue is not strategically applied, they tend to fall apart. The method is the message; any tool will do. Wrecking bar does Zero root damage if wiggled first and poked cautiously. I also use it in advance of my X-HFA Air/Water Knife, to get deep action with a lot less mess and splashing. Is an air tool more efficient? not if you don't own one, or don't have your compressor handy. For small jobs, manual methods work great.

Armillaria is often a weak pathogen ime that gets waaay too much respect. You gotta try drying the site out before giving up.
Diseases of Trees and Shrubs pages 354-366, Dr. Sinclair describes many treatments:

1. Fracturing subsoil to allow deep drainage, as without water the disease cannot spread.

2. Amending soil to improve structure

3. Inoculating with microbes to outcompete or directly attack the pathogen.

4. Applying calcium fertilizers or soil amendment with gypsum. “…calcium calcium compounds interfere with sporangium formation and zoospore function and thus suppress infection."

5. Drenching with “suppressive fungicides to limit damage."

6. Drenching with “…resistance-inducing chemicals such as potassium phosphate.”

7. Surgery to remove inoculum. “(Armillaria sp.) derives nourishment from recently killed as well as living tissues, and it reproduces in the dead tissues."

8. Applying heat to kill pathogens and promote closure.

9. Injecting minerals or fungicides.

The A300 Tree Care Standard Part 2, Soil Management covers many of these treatments for soilborne pathogens. The first step in Soil Modification is 14.4, Evaluating site soil condition practices. IPM guides “emphasize environmentally safe, less-toxic IPM methods”.
 
I can't even remember the hours spent aerating with a auger and 2" bit. That would rock the body more than splitting with a sledge and wedge.

We would drill a grid under -and just beyond the drip line of the canopy, one foot squared. Then fill each hole with a mix of vermiculite and whatever other substrate needed for that particular job.

Having that auger wrench from your hands and sink like a ship, when skirting a buried stone or other obstacle -would twist your back like anything. It would always take a week of doing it, 9 hour days, to finally get your body used to it.

Tough work.
 
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  • #7
Szajer said:
I can't even remember the hours spent aerating with a auger and 2" bit. That would rock the body more than splitting with a sledge and wedge.

Having that auger wrench from your hands and sink like a ship, when skirting a buried stone or other obstacle -would twist your back like anything.
Click to expand...
Imagine what that auger does to the roots that it hits! Highly invasive, even at the dripline. O and I like sledge and wedge splitting; i got 2 broken maul handles and i aint gonna bother fixing them, again.
 
The finer roots, the ones you don't realize you're hitting, then yes, rather invasive.

But in comparison -just as most treatments for cancer kill you to cure you, aerating isn't all that intrusive.
 
Must.......fertilize.......reduce.....error....error.....

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ZsJazHAr9EE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Jomo
 
We used the drill to fertilize with Davey in 60's. Your description was perfect. Dump a campbell's soup can of Davey Tree Food in each hole at a depth of about 16". I am sure the aeration had more to do with the tree perking up than the fertilizer. I still have an old Ross Root Feeder that I use occasionally to aerate and water a real stressed tree.
 
treelooker said:
Here's an infomercial for the wrecking bar and the Aqua-Cannon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7X7dompIo&feature=em-upload_owner

Gift one to your arb buddies who manage fungi, instead of letting fungi manage them.
Click to expand...

So let's see, positive diagnosis of Armillaria, with a recommendation of breaker bar aeration about the base, with water canon distribution to spread introduced innoculums about.

But what else is that water pushing about into healthy uninfected roots doctor?

Where does the runoff go with its fungal spore load?

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r603100511.html

Jomo
 
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  • #14
NickfromWI said:
I find this hard to believe. It's a wrecking bar. It wrecks things.
Click to expand...

2 ends on the bar. The rounded end does not wreck, if wriggled. No fert, just compost.

I've had helpers object mightily to my refusal to allow them to drive the chisel end in first: "They're just feeder roots, man!" We don't Know what's down there; gotta be cautious.

UC Davis agrees with Cornell re drying as therapy. Draining increases drying. Cultural Control. All kinds of microbes are swirling around in the soil. So?
Exposing an infected crown and upper root area of a tree infected with Armillaria mellea has been found to stop the development of the fungus into the crown area and allow the tree to regrow. In spring, remove soil from around the base of the tree to a depth of 9 to 12 inches. Leave the trunk exposed for the remainder of the growing season. Do not allow soil and debris to build up around the exposed crown and upper roots or the pathogen will resume growth. During the spring, summer, and fall, keep the upper roots and crown area as dry as possible.

That's managing fungus. Or, fungus can manage you. Your call.
 
Why not copy and paste the entire manage recs Guy?

MANAGEMENT
There is no truly effective control for Armillaria root rot. The effectiveness of soil fumigation depends greatly on soil type and moisture.

Cultural Control
Exposing an infected crown and upper root area of a tree infected with Armillaria mellea has been found to stop the development of the fungus into the crown area and allow the tree to regrow. In spring, remove soil from around the base of the tree to a depth of 9 to 12 inches. Leave the trunk exposed for the remainder of the growing season. Do not allow soil and debris to build up around the exposed crown and upper roots or the pathogen will resume growth. During the spring, summer, and fall, keep the upper roots and crown area as dry as possible.

Treatment Decisions
It may be helpful to fumigate the soil before replanting infected areas. Before fumigation, remove all infected trees, stumps, and as many roots greater than 1 inch in diameter as possible. Healthy-appearing trees adjacent to those showing symptoms are often infected also. Removal of these adjacent trees and inclusion of that ground in the soil fumigation may be advisable. Infected trees, stumps, and roots should be burned at the site or disposed of in areas where flood waters cannot wash them to agricultural lands. Complete eradication is rarely achieved, and re-treatment may be necessary in localized areas. If the soil is wet or if it has extensive clay layers to the depths reached by the roots, fumigant treatment with metam sodium is preferable. The greatest opportunity for eradication is on shallow soils less than 5 feet in depth.

Jomo
 
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  • #16
recs, like parks and recs? Those are not recommendations.

They describe in detail a management method that stops the fungus. The wording is very clear, isn't it?

Consider the source. U Extension won't claim 'truly effective control' (?) unless verified by U research. That's who they are dependent on.
Setting up a research study treating infected mature trees would run into a ton of variables; no replication possible, and no one to fund it anyway.
U Extension primarily serves commercial growers, hence the soil fumigation info, irrelevant to us.
Consider the source.
 
Sure seems like You and PhD plant biologists and pathologists disagree on some pretty important stuff Guy.

I mean they recommend removal of Armillaria infected trees and burning them, as well as any of their neighboring trees.

But not you, you recommend mud wrestling in the trenches with it and washing the infection source downstream onto the neighbors properties and trees.

An expert usually solves problems rather than spreading them about mate.

It's almost funny. Until you realize these are real people.

Jomo
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #18
Apples and kumquats. They are talking about NURSERY trees; that's the audience they serve.

Read carefully this time: U Extension primarily serves commercial growers. Yes I recommend wrestling with the fungus, instead of running scared from it. Mycophobia strikes deep; into your mind it will creep.

It's up to us to experiment. no harm done in trying this method. Using a blowtorch on oozing infections, per #7, is a bit more controversial.

But it works! 5 minutes in here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHB1nI0shtU
 
But do your customers get the straight PhD dope?

Or your unsubstantiated opinions?

They recommend removal and replanting with Armillaria resistant species like figs or magnolias.

Who's providing value to the customer and their family long term here?

Jomo
 
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  • #20
Whether a PhD dope is straight or gay, should that matter?

Armillaria is mycorhizal too--how do you know that every tree does not have it?

Better burn em all--that'll provide value to the family, and their little dog, too!
 
No. It's the facts clearly stated by peer reviewed PhD experts that there is no effective treatment for Armillaria mellea. That wet soil conditions are conducive to its spread.

Yet here you come riding in like the Lone Ranger with your water pistol to manage that Armillaria right into the downstream neighbor's property and trees!

You are not funny anymore chemosobby.

Oh that's just for nursery pros.......not my customers....


Jomo
 
1947.gif
 
Yea, why don't you two work out your personal issues somewhere more private.
 
I know very little about Armillaria, or inoculating, or aerating.
This thread is interesting and worthwhile...imo
But, if the higher caste members in this clique/ cabal feel otherwise, who am I to disagree?
 
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