FEBRUARY, 1998
VOL. 9, NO. 2

IN THIS ISSUE:
MISSING NEWSLETTER
FOOD QUALITY PROTECTION WORKSHOP
CITRUS FIESTA YOUTH SHOW
TEXAS FRUIT GROWER
CITRUS NOTES
TREE TOPPING
PRUNING
PECAN GRAFTWOOD COLLECTION
PECAN VARIETIES

MISSING NEWSLETTER -----

Because of the holidays, the Beltwide Cotton Conference, the Ag Program Conference and other reasons, the specialists here at the Weslaco Center were simply unable to put together any information for this newsletter last month. So, no, that issue is not lost somewhere in cyberspace.

Julian W. Sauls
Professor & Extension Horticulturist

FOOD QUALITY PROTECTION WORKSHOP -----

It looks like some progress may be made in implementing the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA). A workshop on FQPA will be held in St. Louis on February 18-19 to provide details on how it will finally be implemented. Sessions are also scheduled to provide feedback and discussion on the potential impact of FQPA on all aspects of agriculture.

FQPA was originally a much anticipated change from the Delaney Clause, but as details are revealed, it appears that agriculture may have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Hopefully, in a rather short time, we will get answers to many of the questions that have been asked since the passage of FQPA. Only then will we know what we are facing and how we can best proceed to continue to be productive and simultaneously address the health and environmental concerns the general public expresses toward agriculture.

Stormy Sparks
Associate Professor & Extension Entomologist

CITRUS FIESTA YOUTH SHOW -----

While the interest is mostly limited to Hidalgo County, the Citrus Youth Show is newsworthy. Among the 10 commercial varieties of Texas citrus, a Ruby Red grapefruit entry by Ebed Silva, Jr., of Teacher Academy won Grand Champion honors. This individual also entered the Champion Star Ruby and Ray/Henderson grapefruits.

A Marrs orange entry by D. J. Wernecke of Shary FFA garnered Reserve Champion honors. D.J. also had the Champion Hamlin, Champion Navel and Champion Pineapple orange entries.

Brice Wernecke of Shary FFA entered the Champion Rio Red grapefruit, Paul Neugebauer of Shary FFA entered the Champion Jaffa orange and Jennifer Williamson of Shary FFA had the Champion Valencia orange.

Shary Orchards won the Grower Award for having been the source of the most placing entries; D.J. Wernecke won the Mark Carpenter Sweepstakes Buckle for having the highest total placing entries.

Paul Neugebauer of Shary FFA won the citrus identification contest at the senior level, while Carlos Ascencion of Shary FFA won at the junior level. Too, four-member teams from Shary FFA won the citrus judging contest at both senior and junior levels.

The Mark Carpenter Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Viviana Longoria of Mission.

Congratulations to the winners, as well as to the rest of the 120 participants who entered 876 samples of all varieties of Texas citrus.

Julian W. Sauls
Professor & Extension Horticulturist

TEXAS FRUIT GROWER -----

Jim Kamas and Larry Stein have joined forces to develop the Texas Fruit Grower newsletter directed at the commercial fruit industry in Texas. The inaugural issue of January 9 arrived last week. Basically, they plan to distribute the newsletter free for six months, after which a subscription charge will be imposed for those who want to continue to receive it.

County Extension Agents throughout South Texas should be receiving this newsletter, especially if you have any commercial fruit orchards in your county. Too, when you next visit with fruit growers, you might check to see if they are receiving the newsletter‹have them call Larry Stein if they are not getting it.

Julian W. Sauls
Professor & Extension Horticulturist

CITRUS NOTES ------

Citrus trees are not out of the woods yet insofar as winter is concerned. Nonetheless, navel orange trees usually start the new growth flush and bloom about mid-February, with round oranges starting about the first of March and grapefruit coming on by mid-March. In the Valley, citrus trees of all types that have suffered extensive leaf loss to insects, disease or weather have already started to push new growth, the tenderness of which makes them very susceptible to cold temperatures and/or strong winds. Despite this early growth start, the main flush is yet to come.

The early orange season is almost over, with wrapup expected within the next two to three weeks. The navel orange season is essentially over, although the rains of last weekend may delay final cleanup for a few days.

Pineapple and Jaffa oranges are starting now. Although both have been mature since early December, most packers delay those until the early and navel crops are pretty much harvested. Valencia oranges will probably be passing maturity any day now, so you can expect to see Texas Valencias in the market pretty soon.

Both Rio Star (Rio Red) and Ruby-Sweet grapefruit are plentiful and should continue to be available through April, perhaps into May.

While grower prices appear to be lower than last season, I haven't noted any substantial decrease in consumer prices at the supermarket.

Julian W. Sauls
Professor & Extension Horticulturist

TREE TOPPING -----

I just did a pruning program in Webb County and will be doing another in Jim Hogg County next week. One of the questions that always comes up in these programs is that of topping trees‹to top or not to top. The answer is always a non equivocal "NO", with no "buts". Yet, there's always someone who claims that topping reinvigorates the trees.

While it certainly looks like an awful lot of new growth occurs after topping, the sad truth is that all of that new growth does not nearly equal the amount of wood that was removed by the topping. Besides being unattractive, creating a major limb disposal problem, being a potential hazard to perform and a being a dwarfing exercise, topping weakens the tree, destroys its natural limb arrangement and sets it up for invasion by borers and wood rots.

So, when those tree toppers (who regularly come around trying to convince homeowners to pay them to top their trees) knock on your door, you now know enough to tell them "no, thanks". Trees are such a scarce commodity in the Brush Country that none should ever be topped, even the "trash trees" like hackberry (palo blanco), ash (fresno), cottonwood (alamo) or any other. It is far better to thin out entire limbs, all the way back to their point of origin.

Julian W. Sauls
Professor & Extension Horticulturist

PRUNING -----

While pruning is on my mind, I may as well add a couple of other points about it. The winter is traditional pruning time‹primarily because deciduous trees are dormant and leafless, which makes it easier to see what needs doing, but also because winter is a time in which little else is being done in the orchard or home landscape.

Even so, pruning in the home landscape can be carried out whenever the need and the urge coincide. The need often occurs because of storm damage or other limb breakage and more commonly because tree limbs seem to have a way of growing too low or too close to houses, walks, driveways or fences. In either case, if a limb needs removing, then do it‹regardless of the time of year.

Just be sure to cut the limb all the way back to its point of origin. If the limb is larger than a couple of inches in diameter, it is better to practice the three-cut removal system: First, undercut the limb about a foot out from its base, then cut it off from the topside a few inches farther out than the undercut. Finally, cut off the remaining stub at its base so as to leave an oval-shaped scar (as opposed to a round one), as oval shaped cuts tend to heal faster.

You may treat the cut surface with a wound dressing material if that is your wont, but there's really no clear cut advantage to doing so.

Julian W. Sauls
Professor & Extension Horticulturist

PECAN GRAFTWOOD COLLECTION -----

Anybody who plans to topwork pecan trees come spring needs to select and collect pecan propagation wood within the next couple of weeks. In most cases, half inch diameter wood is a good median size to collect. Cut it into six-inch pieces, label it, place in a plastic bag and store in the refrigerator until use.

Commercial propagators usually dip the cut ends in wax to seal them. In some species, Elmer's white glue works just as well as wax, so it might be worth a try if you only have a few graft sticks to treat and cannot find the wax.

Most of the time, a damp (not sopping wet) paper towel in the bag with the wood will help preserve its freshness and viability, unless fungal growth occurs. Just wet the paper towel, then squeeze out the excess water and place the moist towel with the wood before sealing the bag.

Julian W. Sauls
Professor & Extension Horticulturist

PECAN VARIETIES -----

Nurseries have pecan trees available for landscape planting, but everybody wants to know which is the best variety for such-and-such an area. Aside from that, they also seem to want a large, papershell variety. There is no doubt that some varieties are better suited to a particular area than are others, and variety recommendations are available for every county in Texas.

The problem with varieties is that the plethora of insects, diseases and other problems of pecans require rather intensive management in order to produce regular crops of well-filled, quality pecans. The cost of such management at the homeowner level will usually exceed the value of the pecans, i.e., you can usually buy far more pecans for the same money that you spend to produce them. This is particularly true as the tree becomes larger than can be managed with the typical home-owned equipment.

For those reasons, and others, I have pretty much concluded that homeowners should plant either native or seedling trees in most cases. These trees generally grow much better with minimal management than do the improved varieties‹and they will occasionally produce a good crop of fair quality nuts.

In other words, plant the natives or seedlings for the inherent beauty and quality of a pecan tree, water and fertilize them as you do the rest of the landscape, buy the pecans you need for baking or eating and accept the occasional production as lagniappe (that's French for a little something extra).

JULIAN W. SAULS, Ph.D.
Professor & Extension Horticulturist
2401 East Highway 83
Weslaco TX 78596
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