Horticulture Educator Rhonda Ferree recently wrote an article on our over-the-top spring rains and the waterlogged soils that resulted. Her comments apply statewide and I wanted to share some of that article this week.
"It's no secret that much of Illinois has received excessive spring rains,...
This column has talked about how different plants, insects and diseases have developed based on our unseasonal temperatures and rainfall. Last year, I reported on the Viburnum Leaf Beetle larvae feeding towards the end of June. Our accumulation of growing-degree days being so far ahead, the larvae...
What do bees, ants and termites have in common? At some point in the year, they all swarm.
Our honeybee may be the most obvious example as the queen gathers up thousands of support bees from the existing hive and heads off to find another location to set up shop. Those swarms can be seen hanging...
Weather Injury on our Plants
All of Illinois has seen and experienced some very different, and not so typical, weather the last two months, and we are still waiting to see what is next. March and April seemed like weather from late spring and, on a few days, even early summer....
Our weather continues to put a lot of disease pressure on our flowering crabapples and apple trees due to the cool and wet conditions. The disease that is easily seen right now is Cedar Apple Rust (CAR). CAR is a two-host rust, and right now, it can be seen on the cedars and junipers as a strange...
The impact of all our rains is clear while commuting to work, shopping and traveling through the county. Farm fields to backyard gardens will be drying for some time to come. Farmers will be waiting to return to the fields until the soils can be worked again without damage to soil structure and...
Late last week, several weather-related organizations put out a release entitled "Major Cold and Wet Spring Event: Potential Impacts in the North Central U.S. April 26 –May 9, 2017." The story comes from the National Weather Service in partnership with NOAA, USDA Midwest Climate Hub, USDA...
That perennial question of "How soon can I plant my garden?" likely has been around since the first garden was planted. Part of the answer stems from knowing what kind of vegetables you are going to sow from seed or put in the garden as transplants. There are things you may need to know before you...
If plants could think, they probably are wondering, "What is going on? Why am I trying to grow in such difficult and changing weather conditions?" I am sure migratory birds and other wildlife are wondering the same thing.
There are groups and organizations that monitor just about everything these...
Over the past weekend, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) posted a news release with changes for this summer on their tactics for managing Gypsy Moths in parts of Kane, Kendall, Will and LaSalle counties. In past years, the public's involvement has been passive in the sense that IDOA...
