Poor pollination can cause unshapely fruit

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Question: My cucumber plants are growing wonderfully. They have put out a few straight veggies. Now they are putting out J-shaped gherkins. What's up?

Answer: Generally, misshapen fruit are the result of stress or poor pollination. Poor pollination (cukes require about 8 to 10 visits by a bee) result in crooked cucumbers. However, fruit shaped like a lady's figure may be the result of drought during its development or not enough visits by bees.

Commercially, farmers bring in beehives to make sure the crop gets enough visits and good-shaped fruit is produced. Putting plants in the yard that bloom just before the cukes do will get bees accustomed to visiting your yard. The down side to that is they may ignore your cukes if they are blooming at the same time.

It is possible that they may miss the first few flowers of the season, and the first few fruits produced may be misshapen and the subsequent fruits are normally shaped once the bees have your yard in their sites. To reduce drought stress, you might try mulching to conserve soil moisture.

Q: We planted two African sumac trees in October 2004. They initially did very well, and grew considerably, obliterating an "eye-sore." At the end of last year, we noticed that a lot of the leaves were turning yellow, but hoped that this was a seasonal thing and that they would improve in the spring. Unfortunately, this has not happened and they also seem a lot sparser than a year ago. Please can you advise?

A: After doing some checking in some other parts of the country to make sure, it corroborated my feeling that there are very few, if any, reported diseases that this tree has had. That would have been my first concern. There are some slight chances that disease may be a problem, but very slight.

So following the KISS rule, I would check irrigation first. Make sure the tree is getting adequate water. The tree is a large one with the possibility of an extended root system and deep if given the chance. You didn't mention how it was being watered, but make sure, if it is on drip irrigation, that there are enough emitters first.

They grow rapidly and they can easily grow beyond their need for just one or two emitters in a single season. I would think you would be up to about eight emitters by now if that is what you are using. The emitters should range from a foot or two from the trunk to at least half way out to its dripline or edge of its canopy.

Next, make sure that when it is watered, like any deep-rooted tree or shrub, that it is watered long and not daily. There are some reports that they will not do well when soils are kept wet, so make sure it is not watered daily. Twice a week, deep watered each time, should be adequate at this time of year.

Thinning of the canopy, or leaf drop, can be a sign of either not enough water, too much water, some diseases like verticillium wilt, or root rots. But let's see if it is the simplest reason first -- water.

Q: I have a 2-year-old Texas mountain laurel. I recently pruned back all but three canes and stripped off all of the lower leaves and tied up the branches so they would be upright.

Yesterday I noticed yellowish-colored thin worms about 1/2-inch long at the tops of the branches. The tops of two of the branches were eaten.

I sprayed them with water and checked again this morning. There are still worms. I shook Sevin-5 garden dust all over the tree. Do you have a better idea?

A: One of our master gardeners first clued me into this pest a few years ago. It goes by a lot of different names, like the Sophora worm, the genista -- because it may also attack the brooms -- or pyralid worm. The adult is a moth and it has no common name to my knowledge.

Texas Mountain Laurel will get these "worms" nearly every year, but they are easy to control with Bt. Or Sevin dust also will get them as you probably found out, but Sevin is deadly to bees.

The caterpillars are usually green or yellow green with small patches of white hairs coming out of dark spots. They will usually cause some webbing in the plant as they feed.

Birds do not like them and they don't seem to have a lot of natural enemies. They also will attack crape myrtle and honeysuckle, but usually prefer plants in the pea family (legumes).

The adult moths do not cause any direct damage, they just spread the young around to other plants. I think we can expect at least two of these outbreaks each year.

Q: I found a nest of insect eggs on the top side of a leaf of my climbing rose (white) and they look like dash marks.

There are lots of them.

Are these good bugs or bad bugs? I don't have any aphids on the roses.

Are those hopefully ladybug eggs? I bought two packs of ladybugs a month ago and sprinkled them on that rose bush.

Until three months ago, I had an exterminator service.

I cancelled it because of course it killed everything, and I want ladybugs and whatever good bugs I can get.

A: I sent you a picture of lady bug eggs so you can identify them.

I also included it in my newsletter.

The mental picture you sent to me does not sound like ladybug or ladybird beetle eggs.

Reduce your dependence on the hard pesticides and work at using the softer pesticides for insect control, and apply pesticides only where you have to in order to get control.

You will see the good guys' numbers increase.

Q: When I planted my mini orchard, the sequence I followed was plant a tree, build a berm for the water from a bubbler, install the portion of the watering system to the tree and do the next tree in sequence on down the line until I was done.

In classes I attended, they told me I should plant the trees first and then install the irrigation system to the trees, but that would have required me to hand water until I completed the task of planting the trees. What is your opinion?

A: Landscape irrigation is different from orchard type irrigation layout where it is very structured.

You need water right away in that orchard situation and you know exactly were the plants will be located.

In a landscape, it is easier to plant first and then run the drip system to the plant and locate the emitters after the plant is in the ground.

The emitters should be no further than about 1 foot from the plant or on the edge of where the container would have been; they should be on the uphill side if there is a slope, etc.

You always want to hand water for the first week or so after planting, anyway. The surrounding soil is often dry and it will just suck up any water you put down through emitters. Those plants, when first in the ground, need to be flooded completely and then backed off when you begin automation of the irrigation.

Of course I am assuming you have good drainage, which is a must.

Q: I have quail who love to dust off and nest in the soil around my fruit trees.

The problem is that when they burrow into the soil, they leave holes in the tree's water basin areas.

These craters are quite deep, about 2 to 5 inches.

That doesn't sound too bad, but when you put about 5-10 of these craters in the basin, they are exposing the upper roots and affecting the soil climate. I don't want to hurt them, just somehow keep them away from the basins.

A: Have you tried putting wood mulch in the basins? I think the plant's roots will adapt to them, but mulch would help keep the roots and soil moist and allow for the roots to better adapt. Some holes in the root area may not be all that bad.

Bob Morris is a horticulture specialist with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.