Dropped to 60F this morning…felt almost fallish out there. Very comfortable weather. NAEFS keeps the coolish weather right into mid month for most of the area.
Alaska stays very warm.
Was out driving in the country last weekend and noticed the corn (lots of corn grown in this area) was looking far better. Lots of it tasseling… Looks like the weather really helped at least locally. Does look dry until next weekend.
Our dew point has went from 72F about 48hrs ago to 54F…the difference is so noticeable. Shouldn’t need AC today.
send the cool dry air this way. upper 80’s and high humidity forcasted for the next 3 days.
It was 48 when I got up this morning. Down right nippy. Felt great
Time to start planting the fall garden!
Had to water most of my nursery stock in containers today…for the first time. Lost one apple in a 5 gallon pot that was 3 years old due to dried up.
One week with dry weather, wind, and low humidity…and even in the shade the containers are dried out.
To be fair, that particular tree had soil directly from a bag …. not my normal custom mixing and blending.
We got some brief showers here, but hardly softened up the ground much.
Not directly weather related, but maybe it is, but how are you handling the grasshopper plague in Vegas, @jujubemulberry? That’s some crazy stuff going on.
the plague is such that it is now more appropriate to rename them in biblical terms: locusts.
this species seems to be not too excited about devouring crops, as the only casualties were okra/squash seedlings, and didn’t even touch the older okra bushes and older squash vines.
fruit trees were all spared as well. Incidentally,the locust horde we have now are relatively small and brownish, and it is the large green locusts(not sure what species) which sometimes eat juju foliage. Thankfully they only eat in small nibbles, and do not seem to actively seek out juju trees.
as for biblical terms and nibbling, well, nibbling on the problem seems to be the best solution --and kosher at that. Some conservationists say that insects are a protein(and omega-3’s) of the future. And there seems to be no issues with locusts at risk of going extinct. Many crop farmers wish they actually would follow the dodo bird’s path. Those 'hoppers are supposedly delicious, and have heard that in some parts of africa, a pound of hoppers is more expensive than a lb of beef. Also sure the spca would find it more humane than farming mammals and birds, while proponents of organic produce would give it an A+ rating, and conservationists would deem it ‘sustainable’ and environmentally-friendly.
Raf,
You need to think of a good recipe for the Japanese beetles ASAP. They are everywhere in Omaha and the Midwest. They don’t spare any foliage at all and go after soybean, pawpaw, apple, jujube, plum, apricot, peach, persimmon, cherry, roses, wild weeds, and large hard wood trees. I sprayed Sevin a total of 6 times this year so far killed thousands. They will going into the ground soon for egg laying around the middle of August. The cycle never ends until some kind of virus or bacteria that kill them all. I don’t even think milk spores do the job here since the whole farming areas are infested. Ugh!!!
Tony
I hear you about the J beetles. They have shredded my pluot leaves worse than anything else, and have got to a few of the apple trees. Now they’re after some of my raspberries and blackberries. Next year I’ll spray my pluots before they start up.
The polar vortex last winter seems to have decimated them, we have so few now I haven’t even bothered to spray the plums and cherries. I even have roses in flower! I’m sure that in a few years they’ll build their population back up, but it’s nice to see them gone temporarily
sorry to hear that @tonyOmahaz5
[quote=“tonyOmahaz5, post:5022, topic:4490”]
after soybean, pawpaw, apple, jujube, plum, apricot, peach, persimmon, cherry, roses, wild weeds, and large hard wood
[/quote] was wondering if they also attacked mulberries
Some how the white latex in Mulberry and fig deterred them from eating it. Btw,
I pinched the tips of my figs and the white latex got on my skin one time and I got a brown 1" scar for a month before the new skin developed over the brown scar. Nasty stuff.
Tony
Got to 91 today, so quite warm. But tonight we got about a 30 minute pop-up storm, and it gave us a good soaking, without too much wind. We actually needed some rain, it’s been about 9 days since we’ve had any real rain. Hope the brief downpour doesn’t cause my tomatoes to split, guess we’ll see tomorrow.
Seems to be the same situation here. I saw my first 10 days ago and I’ve only seen a total of 4 so far. Quite a change from the last five years.
I think the JBs are just getting going this year due to the cool spring and relatively cool summer. I put out some trash can traps and they are crawling with thousands of J. beetles, even though I hadn’t seen many previously. We aren’t that far from you and had plenty of Polar Vortex cold.
Interesting you get them so heavily. I have killed 1 here and really haven’t noticed any although i haven’t been looking. Its weird…one year they were pretty thick and then another year i hardly saw any…this seems like a low year again. I 'm wondering if winter isn’t killing off some or most of them…lets hope.
This past week or so has been amazing. Highs in the 80Fs, lows in the 50Fs/low 60Fs. Like Miami in January. Today thru the weekend looks warmer though…88F today…and humidity on the rise for the weekend. Rain chances coming back too (been dry). Extended looks great…no heatwaves and cooling back off again next week.
I’m going to do all my chip budding this weekend. I need to move around some stuff and i want to get rid of some things this fall.
I saw a few JBs on a couple Basswood trees about a month ago. That was the extent of them this year (knock on wood). I also noticed next to zero tent worms this spring. I’m guessing the polar vortex did most of the egg masses in last winter.