- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot:
Gardening in the Mid-South.
I'm Chris Cooper.
Honeybees pollinate our vegetables.
Today we're going to hear some of the latest research
and information on these important insects.
Also, it's about time to plant fruit trees.
Find out how to do it.
That's just head on The Family Plot:
Gardening in the Mid-South.
- (female narrator) Production funding for
The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South is provided by:
the WKNO Production Fund,
the WKNO Endowment Fund,
and by viewers like you.
Thank you.
[cheerful country music]
- Welcome to The Family Plot, I'm Chris Cooper.
Joining me today is David Glover.
Mr. David is the Bartlett Bee Whisperer.
And Mr. D. is here.
Thanks for joining us. - Thank you.
- We love talking about bees, Mr. David.
You know that.
- You gotta have bees for your gardens.
You gotta have bees for harvest time.
No bees, no squash.
No bees, no pumpkins.
- There he goes.
Bees are that important for sure.
What do you have for us today on the table?
- On the table, I've got honey, which we normally see.
This came from Germantown Farm Park.
We recently harvested.
And here is honey also.
Unlike that one, this is creamed honey.
Natural honey granulates.
If you control the granulation, you get a smooth,
creamy honey.
This is good for kids.
It's not gonna drip on the counters.
- That is pretty neat.
What do you think about that, Mr. D?
- No mess.
- Pretty, pretty good.
Let's hear some of the latest bee information
that's out there for us.
- You know, there's information
and there's info-tainment.
I've been going through the numbers that we've gotten
from 2016, 2017 on our bee losses.
The state of Tennessee lost about 49% of our bees.
That sounds scary until you start actually looking
at the pool that they drew that information from.
The state of Tennessee, we have about less
than 60 beekeepers report.
People who report are the ones
who are actually experiencing loss.
In Shelby County, we have more than 500 beekeepers.
We got less than 1% showing up.
In the nation, we lost about 33% of our bees.
Since I've been keeping bees,
when I started, we were about 2.5 million colonies.
We got up to 2.7 million colonies.
We dropped back down to 2.62.
And this year we're at 2.89.
The numbers I work off of to see how our bees are doing
are the USDA Nass report.
That comes out April 1.
It comes out quarterly, but the April 1 numbers
are the ones that I watch
because that's just as we're getting into spring,
just as we're getting to hitting the harvest.
Not the harvest, but the pollination series.
We need the bees for that.
We do lose bees throughout the year
but the biggest number of bee losses
happens with our migratory bee keepers
who are taking bees all over.
We have a large congregation of bees in one area,
they're very social, they share what they have.
If that happens to be a disease, they could share it.
If it happens to be a mite, they could share it.
The USDA and the Bee Informed partnership
has said the number one killer of our bees
is the varroa mite.
That is a communicable mite.
Sort of like lice, things of that nature,
except it's for bees.
It vectors more than 20 different diseases.
If we can control that mite, we control colony collapse.
And number two is starvation.
- Starvation? - Still.
Another report that came out just within the last month
came from Europe.
It's a pan-European study of neonicotinoids
and everybody freaks out when we talk about pesticides.
Pesticides kill everything.
My take on the study, it was the UK, Hungary, and Germany,
and they inoculated or they coated rapeseed,
planted it, then put the bees in the middle
of those fields.
UK and Hungary had severe losses,
and losses were anything from bees not being able
to reproduce, to the bees just dying.
Germany experienced no losses.
As you read through the report, you're hearing about
all these things that the neonicotinoids did.
You get to the bottom of the report and it says,
"These numbers may be skewed because Germany had
"strong hives and the bees had another source
of pollen and nectar they could go to."
So, you take something, put it in the middle
of a field and they have nothing else to eat,
they're going to die.
If all you have is cyanide, that's what's gonna happen.
Germany had no losses.
So in the United States, I'm still pushing hard.
Any problems with your bees can be solved
with a strong, healthy colony, not diseased.
UK and Hungary had diseased bees in the study.
Okay, you got diseased bees and now you're feeding them
something that might kill them or hurt them.
They're gonna die faster than a strong hive
that has other sources of food around them.
- So how far are neonics on the list, then?
- They didn't make the top 10.
That's the USDA reporting.
2015, 2016, neonics was a little subline.
Pesticides may be causing some of our bee losses.
What, really, maybe?
Didn't make the top 10.
Things to think about.
I've been telling you ever since I started coming
to visit y'all, varroa mites.
- You have been saying it. - We control that.
In Tennessee, small hive beetles.
I want to control those too.
- How do you control the varroa mite?
- We have a bunch of different things we can put out there.
Apistan, Apovar, even oxalic acid, wood bleach.
Mix the wood bleach in with sugar water
and there's actually a formula that you use.
And you drizzle it across the cluster of bees.
It coats the bees with sugar water, it gets on the mites,
it kills the mites.
You have to do that on a three week slide
because you want to make sure that you catch
all the bees that are hatching out.
If you want to go all the way and go six weeks,
but you also don't want to do it
when you're harvesting honey.
October 1 is when I'm gonna start treating my bees.
It's not a pesticide, it's something natural.
By the way, they did a study recently on the wax.
Wax is very absorbent.
It's a lipid protein, so it absorbs everything.
You can do a spectrum analysis on the wax
and see what's in there.
This was 2012.
The main thrust of the study was that pesticides
and the cides that were in there
were beekeeper originated in trying to control mites.
- Trying to control the mites.
- And it wasn't coming from the fields.
We kill a lot more bees than John Doe out there.
- I see you're pondering something there, Mr. D.
- Not necessarily error in some cases.
In some cases you're grabbing at straws to control them.
- In a lot of ways they are.
Every once in a while, we'll hear of a new thing
from one of the other beekeepers.
"Have you tried this?"
"Does that have a label?"
That's an important thing.
If it hasn't been labeled by a control, the EPA,
then you really don't know what you're putting on your bees.
- You got a food source here.
- You got a food source.
- Human food, you gotta be really careful.
- Yeah, this is regulated, it is food.
- David, that's some good stuff, man.
- Thank you.
- Appreciate you for being here today.
- You're welcome. - Thank you much.
There are a number of gardening events going on
in the next couple of weeks.
Here's just a few that might interest you.
All right, Mr. D., let's talk a little bit
about planting fruit trees.
What do we need to start with that?
Is this the time of year to be doing that?
- This is the time of year to be
really getting involved in planting fruit trees.
It's not the time of year to stick the trees in the ground.
But it is the time of the year to be preparing your soil,
making sure your pH is right,
and choosing the varieties that you're gonna plant,
and choosing whether--
Doing research on whether or not you need pollinators,
figuring out how many you need to feed a family of five
or whatever, depending on what you want to do with them.
Going out and choosing the site.
Now is the time to do that.
You can do some site prep.
Burn down, control some weeds and grasses,
go ahead and get ready to do that.
I've got some information that might help
with that a little bit.
Get my glasses on here.
Auburn has a real, real good publication.
(Chris laughing)
- Yeah, he knows all about that.
- I've copied a few things from the publication,
and it's entitled Fruit Culture in Alabama.
If you have a sloped area and you're planting rows,
don't plant your rows up and down the hills.
Plant them on the contour, because you don't want
to increase the chances of gullies forming
and things like that.
In a landscape situation, you don't have to pay
a lot of attention to the spacings
that I'm about to mention because you kind of
strategically place these trees around
to kind of help the aesthetic nature of your landscape.
This is for a family of five.
Tree fruits and nuts, five to eight apples.
They recommend the semi-dwarf apples.
Five to eight peaches if you want to go that route.
Five to eight plums, two to four persimmons,
three to five pear trees, four to six pecan trees.
I really don't understand that on the pecans.
And the spacings on semi-dwarf apples,
15 to 25 feet apart.
Because they're gonna spread and you want to be able
to get between them, especially with your riding lawnmower
or your mower or your bush hog and your sprayer
and all that.
Peaches, 20 by 20 or 15 by 20.
Plums, same as peaches, 20 by 20.
Anytime there's a choice,
if you've got the room, go to more distance between it
because it's amazing how fast those trees will--
- (Chris) Spread out.
- Overlap.
Pecans, 60 by 60.
That's some of the older pecan trees.
There are some precocious varieties,
some smaller pecans that you can plant
a little bit closer than that.
Pears, 20 by 20 or 25 by 30.
Some of the pear trees get a lot bigger.
On pollination, most apples need to be pollinated.
Some of the yellow delicious varieties are self-fruitful.
Pecans are wind pollinated.
Pecans need pollination.
You need a type one with a type two pecan tree.
Plums, peaches, and nectarines are self-fruitful.
You don't need pollinators for that.
Pears need cross pollination.
You need two varieties of pear trees.
- When it comes time to planting them,
how do you go about it?
- Okay, we've done all that,
you've chosen your varieties, you've ordered them,
you've got them coming,
the smaller plants you can get, the better off you are,
in my opinion.
Two year old plants are plenty big.
So go out, you want to dig a planting hole.
If you've got bare root plants,
it doesn't have to be that big a hole.
It doesn't need to be that deep.
But the most important thing when you're planting
any fruit tree is that you make sure
that you plant it no deeper than the depth
that it grew in the nursery.
If it's a grafted plant, usually two or three inches
of root stalk visible above the ground.
You can see where the graft took and came out.
You don't want to cover that up,
because if you plant it too deep, it'll die.
Not that it won't do well, it'll die,
because the above ground portion of a plant
is supposed to stay above ground.
Don't mulch it, don't pile mulch up against it.
The above ground portion of a hardwood plant
is supposed to stay above ground.
It needs air.
If you put it below the ground, it will die.
I can't repeat that enough.
Do not use a post hole digger to dig a planting hole
(Chris laughing) for a tree.
I don't care if it's a little bitty tree.
Do not use a post hole digger because you're gonna be,
you're gonna want to dig it deeper than it needs to be dug.
Use a shovel.
- Uh oh!
- You like that dirty shovel?
Use a shovel.
Dig a wide planting hole, not a deep planting hole.
Dig a wide planting hole.
Dig it the depth that, if it's in a container or pot,
dig it, take it out the pot, set it down,
and if it goes down an inch, take it out,
add dirt to the bottom, and get it so it is the same depth
that it grew in the nursery.
Then you bring the dirt around, put the topsoil,
if it's got any grass or anything, I'd crumble that up,
put it down first, and try to make a little kind of dam
well out away from the stem or the base of the plant
so that when it rains, everything's gonna settle down
a little bit.
Keep that in mind and if you dug it way too deep
and then you had to add a lot of soil in the bottom,
that's gonna settle down and it's gonna wash in
on it again, so keep that in mind.
You'll actually want it up a little higher
if you have a lot of loose soil in the bottom
of your planting hole.
- Put the native soil back in the hole, right?
It doesn't have to be amended.
- Right, it doesn't have to be amended.
Put the native soil right back in the hole.
Do that and you don't have to stake it.
If the plant, if it's a peach, plum, or nectarine,
cut them off at 20 to 25 inches.
If it's an apple or pear, it'll be 25 inches.
All you're doing is you're telling that plant
where the first limbs, you want them to come out.
And then if you've got a real tall tree,
I'd bring it down.
- Can I ask you this, though?
How do you pick the right tree for your area,
for your landscape?
- I go to choosing varieties for Tennessee.
Small fruit cultivars for Tennessee, PB-746.
Dr. Lockwood up in Knoxville put together
a great publication.
in it he's got peaches, varieties that are good
for Tennessee, and there's a bunch of them.
I'm not gonna read them all unless you want me to.
- We can get them on the website.
- Okay, put them on the website.
Apples, I've got three, four pages of peaches.
Apples, not as many apples.
Apples do better in higher altitudes.
We're here in west Tennessee in the Mid-South.
Our altitude is the lowest it is anywhere
in the state of Tennessee, but we can still grow apples.
The thing I like about this publication
is it'll also tell you about the problems.
And there are problems,
fire blight and brown spot,
and brown rot in peaches, plums, and nectarines.
There's one section on apples, disease resistant apples.
In a home situation, I would probably recommend that.
Keep in mind, resistance is resistance.
Resistance is not proof.
This publication will tell you what varieties
have proven that will work in Tennessee.
- So Mr. D., when do we plant fruit trees?
- Late winter.
Late February, early March is the best time,
in my opinion, to put them in the ground.
- It's an opinion I'd listen to.
- I would too.
Thank you much, Mr. D., appreciate that.
- Thank you.
- Looking at our blueberry here.
Looks like it's kind of putting the brakes on,
getting ready for wintertime.
Got a little weed here.
Little tree that's trying to grow.
Get that out of the way.
Not gonna really do anything to it at this point.
I am gonna prune the dead limbs.
It's got two or three dead limbs here.
I don't know why they died
but we're gonna go in and get them out of the way.
That's one.
Do the same thing to this other limb over here.
Then you have like a four inch shoot here.
I'm not even gonna get it.
I'm gonna try to stay out of the green tissue.
Just take that off.
Did a pretty good job with that.
I'm just gonna leave that alone.
The leaves are starting to turn, change color.
Days are getting shorter.
We're getting closer to fall.
One thing you definitely do not want to do
is apply fertilizer right now.
We don't want a flush of new growth
because believe it or not, in a few weeks,
we're probably gonna get a killing frost.
It's 90 degrees out here today.
We're probably gonna get a killing frost
within three weeks or so.
In the fall of the year, we don't do a lot with blueberries.
- Here's our Q & A session.
Mr. David, you jump in and help us out, okay?
- I'll try.
- Here's our first viewer email.
"Will Granny Smith trees grow
"and produce in the Memphis area?
"If so, what is a second variety that will cross pollinate
with them?"
This is from Danny right here in Cordova.
We just got done talking about fruit trees.
Granny Smith, of course, apples.
He wants to know, will they grow here and produce?
- They will.
They are one of the varieties that was on
that long list that I did not read to you.
They will grow here.
They will have problems.
Fire blight and things like that.
So I would probably get one of the
more disease resistant varieties to cross pollinate.
You ought to be okay.
- Do you have a couple of those to read off real quick?
- (Mr. D.) Yeah.
- Something we might be familiar with.
- Let me do that.
You might want to be prepared to spray the Granny Smith.
Let me read the Granny Smith.
Let me read a little bit about that.
Fruit ripens late, stores well, may develop
an orange blush on the side that's exposed to the sun.
If it's allowed to hang.
Trees are willowy, somewhat difficult to train.
They're susceptible to scab, fire blight, cedar apple rust,
and powdery mildew.
You may have to spray them.
The disease resistant apples I mentioned
are red free, liberty, freedom, enterprise, and gold rush.
The yellow varieties seem to be better pollinators,
and gold rush is the only one of these that's yellow.
Let me read you a little bit about gold rush.
The tree is highly resistant to scab, powdery mildew,
moderately resistant to fire blight.
Fruit is sweet, crisp, and good for fresh and processing.
Ripens late, keeps very well.
You may want to go that route.
- Mr. Danny, hope that helps you out.
From Mr. D. himself.
Here's our next viewer email.
"I have mealy bugs on my hostas and coleus.
"Is there anything I can do at the end of the season
to keep mealy bugs from coming back next year?"
This is from Miss Kathleen right here in Memphis.
So mealy bugs.
She wants to try to get rid of them for next season.
Practice good sanitation is gonna be one of them,
because they're gonna overwinter in crop residue.
That's one thing you need to do.
But here's the second thing, Mr. D.
You know about this.
How about late winter, early spring,
dormant oil application?
That way you can help get rid of the eggs
or any of those clumps that might be there.
That's the route I would go with that.
Of course you have to read the label
to make sure you have the right proportions
for the oil mix.
I think that'll do the trick.
- That's about all that I know.
The systemic insecticides don't do very well
with mealy bugs.
That, and then there are contact killers you can use.
You have to use them early.
- Insecticidal soap would be one.
Oil is another you could use.
They are kind of tight, but I would use those other.
I would, late winter, early spring,
I would do the oil application.
Just follow the label on that,
and that should keep you covered, Miss Kathleen.
Here's our next viewer email.
"How can I keep my plants from dying back every winter?
"Last year, a winter hardy gardenia looked awful all winter
"but when I went to pull it up, it had new growth,
"so I left it and it looks nice again.
"It was supposed to be hardy to five degrees.
"Can I spray plants with some sort of horticultural oil
"to help them?
"Also I have some mahonias that seem to take winter
"on the chin.
I don't want things to keep dying back every year."
This is from Miss Nancy.
How can we help Miss Nancy with that?
- Cover them up.
- I would just cover them up.
- But don't leave it on.
Cover them and when the cold snaps come in,
cover them with something that has a little bit
of insulation, and make sure the soil underneath them
is wet, is moist, because moist soil gives off heat
better than dry soil.
Gives off more heat than dry soil.
Just try to do a good job of covering them.
- We always say the term winter hardy.
What does that mean to you, hardy? (laughs)
- The fact that this gardenia is still alive,
that's winter hardy.
- It's like disease resistant.
- We're actually at the point where you can
just about get by with growing gardenias in this area.
Just about.
They can get nipped if we have some bad winters,
without a doubt.
Yeah, I'd just cover those up.
I'd cover them all the way to the ground.
Most people just throw blankets and things
just right over the top of them
but you're still allowing air to come up through there.
- Make it like a teepee.
Where it's broad at the bottom and more narrow at the top.
It's okay to have breathable,
mama's old quilt or blanket or something like that.
Black plastic
is probably one of the least desirable covers.
An old tarp or something.
You're gonna have to have some ways of supporting it.
You don't want whatever you put on it to be so heavy
that you crush it.
But something with a little bit of insulating factor.
And there's some products out there
on the market that have a little bit of thickness to them.
- You're right, just cover it.
- Remember to take it off though.
When temperatures warm up the next day,
it may mean she'd have to cover up at night
and then take it off in the middle of the day
if it gets above freezing, you know.
Take it off.
You just leave it on there,
then you're doing more harm than good.
- I'm glad you mentioned that.
And she talked about spraying with an oil.
That's not gonna help you.
- That's how we control unwanted birds.
We spray them with oil and it makes them
freeze to death, right?
That's one the ways.
- Miss Nancy, there you have it.
Hope that helps you out.
So Mr. D., Mr. David, we're out of time.
It was fun.
Thank you.
Remember, we love to hear from you.
Send us an email or letter.
The email address is familyplot@wkno.org
and the mailing address is Family Plot,
7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, TN 38016.
Or you can go online to FamilyPlotGarden.com.
That's all we have time for today.
There are links to the honeybee studies
and the fruit tree planting publication
at FamilyPlotGarden.com.
We have links to information and guides on these topics
and many others.
I'm Chris Cooper.
Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot:
Gardening in the Mid-South.
Be safe.
[cheerful country music]
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