- Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today we discuss precautions to be aware of before amending your vegetable beds.

Dennis Martin shares about fairy rings you may find in your lawn.

And finally, I demonstrate how to de-eye palladium bulbs.

Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma Green and growing.

Oklahoma Gardening is also a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Shape your future provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

Oklahoma Gardening 50th anniversary.

I love sharing with you guys the cool things that plants can do.

- People in Oklahoma love their gardens.

- I feel like this is the People's show.

We all know we're working towards the common goal and that's to produce the best quality television and information for our audience.

It's that time of year that we're getting our garden ready for the season.

And if you haven't put compost, a lot of times we do our bed prep in the fall so that we allow that compost to break down.

So make sure when you're adding anything that you've added aged material so that it's had time to kind of break down a little bit.

You can see here what I'm adding is an old straw bale and this is for mulch on our vegetables.

We've got some onion plants here that I'm just kind of tucking in some straw around it.

Now this is important because it suppresses any weed growth, but it also helps kind of insulate that soil moisture and prevent evaporation so we can be a little more water conscious in our vegetable garden.

Now we've talked about using hardwood mulches and things like that in other areas of the landscape and really in the vegetable garden you wanna use something that's gonna break down a lot faster.

So that's why cotton seed hulls or straw often works well.

Now you might hear people talk about hay mulch.

We prefer to use straw mulch 'cause it has a little less seed material in there so you won't have as many weeds growing.

Now a lot of times when we're adding things into our vegetable garden, there can be concern about residual material that might be in the products that we're using.

And so today I wanna talk to Dr. Daniel Adamson with Plant and Soil Science Department who is here to talk to us about these basically agriculture products right at one point and how maybe they were treated in order to then use in our garden.

So let's talk a little bit about this.

- Yeah, thanks for having me Casey.

Yeah, so like you said, what do you know about your, your mulching friend here?

What's his life history?

Right.

Because have have any concerns at one point.

Right, exactly.

So like you, I have the opportunity to speak to our master gardeners through the state.

And a subject that has come up a few times is residual herbicides that can actually persist in hay straw and get into our composts or manure, things like that that could cause us some problems in our garden.

Right.

- So - It's a low risk problem, but it does happen sometimes.

So it's worth being aware of.

- And the problem being that it can prevent our vegetables from growing.

Right, - Exactly.

- So we think we're doing something good for our vegetable garden.

- Yes.

- But we could be doing something bad.

- Exactly.

And it all boils down to just what is the history of the products we're using in our garden.

- Okay.

And now there's a specific couple of chemicals, right, that we wanna be aware of that have a residual effect.

- Yes.

Can we talk about those?

Yeah.

So a lot of people don't realize a lot of herbicides have long lasting effect in the soil.

And that can be a really good thing for long lasting control of weeds, especially hard to control weeds like stubborn perennials.

And - It's, which is why - Farmers - Use it, - Right?

Exactly.

Yes, exactly.

So if you're in a range land situation or a pasture situation where these products are typically used, it's a really beneficial thing.

But if you take those herbicides out of that setting and get them into the garden, it could cause problems.

- Okay.

- The ones that are most persistent are actually in the 2-4D family.

So they kill plants the same way that 2-4D does.

- Okay.

So broadleaf - Weed killers we're talking about, they're broadleaf weed killers.

They hang out in the soil for quite a long time.

We're talking months to years.

One of particular concern is called aminopyrlid .

It's the active ingredient in milestone or grazon next hl.

Okay.

The label really clearly states don't use this product anywhere that you think some of that material could become compost or mulch.

- Okay.

- If used properly, this isn't a problem.

- Right.

- But through that communication chain, sometimes we lose track of where this product has been sprayed and somebody might unknowingly bring some hay in to mulch their garden, or they use some compost from some manure that an animal ate that hay and therefore it's tainted with this herbicide that could actually cause some problems for your sensitive broadleaf crops in your garden.

- So let's follow that chain.

So a farmer is just using it to control some weeds in his hay field to feed his livestock.

Right?

And so he's done this using a herbicide that maybe has a little bit more residual effect so that he doesn't have to spray as often.

Exactly right.

So it's a beneficial situation there.

The problem is, is when we remove that and we've taken it then to the garden, right?

Yes.

Yes.

So, and it has a residual effect through the animal also.

- Yep.

So the, the chemical will be unchanged through the animal's digestive system.

It doesn't harm the animal at all.

So again, there's these steps in the chain.

- Yeah.

- That can just make it a little hard to keep track of where it came from.

So - Comes out in the middle nowhere.

- Exactly.

So just be aware of where you're getting your compost manure or mulches from.

If you could have a, you know, a good friend who's a farmer, just ask them, did you spray milestone recently?

Gra on recently, Tordon recently.

Or some other active ingredients like pick Lara that kind of have the same behavior in the soil.

Ask them if they bought hay and if they know the history of that hay and what their animals have been eating.

- And primarily it's in hay, not straws.

- Correct.

There are some residual herbicides in wheat systems, but the way they behave and they move through the plant is much less persistent than the the range in pasture herbicides.

- Okay.

And now I know one of the big questions is like, okay, so maybe I'm concerned or I don't know about my products.

Right.

Previous, you know, right.

Life.

What do I, how long do I have to wait?

Gimme a time.

- Exactly.

Yep.

Well that all depends on the biology of the system.

So these herbicides don't hang around forever.

They will naturally degrade.

And a healthy soil microbial community will do most of the work.

- Okay.

- So if you have good organic matter soils with healthy microbial populations, warm soils, moist soils, eventually they will leave.

But these herbicides naturally are pretty persistent.

So we could be talking months to years.

- Okay.

- So if you do have a problem, what you're gonna see is those two four D like symptoms, it's called epi nas.

That's the fancy science word.

It means you'll see curled up tips of the growing points, - Right.

- Or cupped leaves or potentially just poor germination.

It's hard to confirm that.

So talk to your extension specialist and see if you think that's a problem.

If you do have the problem, you might want to consider bringing in some clean material to help dilute that or get rid of the problem material.

And - You, and you would see that effect pretty immediately, right?

Yes.

After putting, putting in that compost or or putting in the mulch or something like that.

'cause there also is sometimes two 40 drift that we see that.

Right?

Right.

And so that might happen later on.

- Yep.

So use your detective hat, think about what is the most logical reason why I'm seeing this problem.

- Okay.

- If you've ruled out everything else, if you've ruled out, you know, maybe this compost is too salty, maybe the pH is wrong, you know, send your samples to waffle.

Do a do a soil test first.

Do soil - Test.

Yeah.

- If you've ruled out, you know, I haven't sprayed in a while, my neighbors haven't sprayed this problem keeps happening, then maybe you can consider this.

Remember, it's a low risk problem, but it does occur.

- Okay.

And will we, because it's a two four D broadleaf, I mean it might be that we see grasses weeds growing Exactly that maybe no broadleaf weeds - Growing, right?

Yep.

So the grassy plants shouldn't be injured, but you're really sensitive.

Broadleafs like tomatoes, potatoes, those are some things where you might start to see the problems show up first.

- All right.

So again, we have something we wanna use, you know, can we talk about trialing it maybe?

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So when in doubt, you know, ask those questions.

Use somebody you trust, but to be as safe as possible, you know, early spring, so earlier than we are now, take some of your new material, you know, bring it in the greenhouse or the house and plant your seeds of of the plants that you're concerned about in it and just make sure there's no problems.

If they grow without any symptoms, then you're good to go.

- Okay, excellent.

And of course, aging your material offsite before you put it in the garden, always a good benefit too.

- Yep.

- Well thank you so much for this advice and something to be looking forward - To.

Exactly.

Thank you Casey.

- Thank you.

- And Dennis, welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Hello Steve.

This is your first time on the show and we're glad to have you here.

It's beautiful springtime in Oklahoma again.

And in the spring we oftentimes see several turf afflictions.

We might be seeing spring dead spot, fairy ring or winter kill.

But what we wanna focus on in this short segment is fairy ring.

Now fairy ring is a symptom and in you'll see in this segment that we have dark green turf and we sometimes have a dead ring or a series of arcs within that ring.

And this is caused by a fungus and it's said to be the fairy ring fungus.

And so no, we're not making things up.

That's the actual common name of it.

And there's three symptoms exhibited by fairy ring.

And right now we have a type one symptom.

And what you see here is you'll see greening of turf, but you'll actually see tan brown dead turf.

So that's a type one symptom.

Type two symptom would be no dead turf visible, but the greening effect from the released nutrients.

And then a type three symptom would be where you actually see the mushrooms being exhibited, the fruiting bodies of the fungus.

I do wanna point out that this is not an actual pathogen on the turf, but rather the secondary things that happen because of the fungus moving through the soil and digesting organic matter, it releases lots of nutrients and also the sheer amount of fungus present is hydrophobic or water repelling.

And it is that water repelling aspect that causes the turf to die from drought stress.

And so that's what you see here, this dead ring.

Now over months and over years, the fungus will continue to grow outward radially.

And so these rings can actually become many yards wide.

Some of 'em viewed from the air, you can see 'em several hundred feet wide out in the prairie or cemeteries.

Here we see much larger fairy ring symptoms.

These fungi that caused this probably originated in the mulch that was used around the base of the sycamore trees.

One thing that is very important preventative wise, with a new construction site, you want to remove as many of the wood construction debris as possible, two by fours, wood pieces, wood scraps, et cetera from the soil.

Also any tree roots or tree stumps because those are the food that the ferry ring fungi feed upon.

So it's very important to take their food source away from 'em to reduce the chance of fairy ring symptoms coming up.

What we wanna do first is show you what it might look like when we extract a core that covers both where the injury has occurred and where the turf appears healthy and where the ring is headed to.

So we're gonna grab a common sharp shooter spade that's almost in every gardener's wardrobe of tools.

And we've pre-cut our slice and we're gonna go perpendicularly across the slice and we're gonna lift out the turf.

So we can take a look at it underneath.

And you'll notice here's the dead area.

Actually the fungus is, is advancing outward.

Now from there, so the injury was here and you notice the soil's very faulty and dry.

It didn't take water from our recent rains.

Soil's nice and moist here and out here.

And if you look closely, you can actually see a high concentration of the white mycelia in the soil, but the fungus is actually moving outwards.

And so over time this hydrophobic tendency will spread out this way.

So the next step in this process is to choose your favorite tool, whether that's a pitchfork or a spading fork, either are usually available in the garden arsenal.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna pierce the soil and do some aeration.

And in this process we're gonna get the soil ready for pouring a drench in, which is a soil wetting agent made from dishwashing liquid and water.

So now we're going to start the spading process.

And what we're wanting to do is make sure that we are going perpendicular to the ring and we're getting about four to six inches inside of the green most area, and then also four to six inches outside of the green outer area.

That way we will be completely crossing where the area has been damaged, but also where the fungus is at this point in time.

So what you'll do is you'll just essentially stab in the soil and I will mention personal protective equipment of gloves.

This is a very aerobic process.

You don't wanna injure your hands also and watch where your feet are.

So boots would be handy as well.

I just happened to be in a sneaker this morning and we're gonna stab in and we're gonna rotate the spading fork back and forth, just opening up an area to receive water so that we can wet up the soil.

After you've spad the soil, you want to clean your tools.

So clean the soil and debris from the spading forks, pitch forks, those types of things.

And then give 'em a good wash down because it is possible to spread the fungus to other sites.

So we finished aerating the ring and it's ready now to receive the soil wetting agent.

We've already mixed our soap in and we're just gonna gradually pour over this area trying to wet up fully four to six inches outside of the dead area.

So it's an inexpensive way of helping alleviate the hydrophobic nature of the soil.

And it should facilitate earlier recovery of the ring itself.

The fungus that causes the ferry ring symptoms isn't really a pathogen of the grass, it's not attacking the grass, it's the secondary issues that happen like excluding water.

And so this feature can happen on any turf grass species or in another portion of our view here you'll see the effect on white clover that's present in a much larger ring.

And as these rings grow outward over several years, it can be many, many yards across these very large rings.

I've seen them 50 to a hundred feet across in some prairies and naturalized areas.

- It is the year of the calladium.

And in honor of that, we're gonna do a couple of segments about calladium's, but ob, obviously I don't have any foliage plants right up here with me right now and that's because we're gonna show you how to kinda get these started in your garden.

So what I do have are a few calladium bulbs and calladium bulbs look kind of gnarly.

They're very bumpy.

And so I wanna talk to you today about how to de-eye your palladium's and why you may or may not want to do this.

So first thing is, is you gotta kind of know what the top and the bottom of the calladium is.

So if you, it's sort of like a a potato that you would maybe have eyes on.

And unlike a potato that has eyes all over it, this is gonna have eyes on the top side and not so much on the bottom side.

So what we're looking at is this is the top side here and you can kind of see up close how it's sort of got these like pinched areas and those are the eyes.

So when I say eyes, this is all stem tissue and this is where our foliage stems are gonna actually sprout from.

Now calladium's are a tropical foliage plant, often used in the shade but can be pushed into the sun a little bit and we'll talk more about that later on in the season.

But the thing about them is they are tropical and so they don't like to sit in our wet spring soils for very long.

So we're not putting these out in the garden just yet because right now in our forecast with spring rains, we could be getting anywhere from six to 10 inches in the next couple of weeks.

So we don't want them sitting in that moisture trying to grow just yet.

So what we're gonna do is start them in some containers ahead of time.

A lot of times you can buy them either as bulbs or already pre grown in containers as well.

The buying bulbs kind of allows you a little more options on which type you're getting, which color you're getting and also whether you want them to be de-eyed or not.

So again, going back to de-eyeing and how you do that and why you might want to do that.

So right now if we didn't do anything to this, what's gonna happen is this primary eye is going to sprout and it's gonna sprout one leaf and then we're gonna have some of these other eyes that will also then sprout leaves.

But by removing this, it's kind of like trimming back your apical dominance on your main stem.

You're gonna force those other side buds to sprout.

And so while we can't always see these side buds by removing the center eye, we're gonna have these other latent buds then push out.

And so that's gonna allow us to have ultimately more foliage on our plant.

Now anytime you do this, it's causing more energy to go into more foliage, which means that foliage might not be quite as tall as just that primary leaf.

So that could be a good or bad thing depending on your application.

A lot of times in landscape situations they want taller foliage to kind of stand up in that landscape a little bit more.

So in some of those situations and scenarios you might not find that de-eyeing is necessary, but if you're wanting a container, a lot of times you want that container really full of foliage.

And so height isn't necessarily as important because you don't want it to topple over, so you just want more foliage.

So that's an a very appropriate application for de-eyeing.

So let me show you how to do this.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna take our knife here and we're just going to kind of pivot our knife around that di or that eye, excuse me, and kind of take it out.

Some people call it scarring the eyes if you're a little more graphic, but we're just gonna de-eye so we're gonna remove that.

Now we do know these are also eyes here, so we're gonna go ahead and kind of remove that.

You don't wanna take too much of that tissue, you just wanna simply cut that out and in fact you can kind of see that eye.

It has a little bit more of a pink tint to it where it would be growing.

So we're gonna remove that and then we're gonna take that one out also.

And then the side one here, and then we've got one more here that I can see we're gonna remove that as well.

And in fact, we have one more over here.

You can see it's already sort of that point coming up right there.

We're gonna cut that out as well.

So we're just trying to remove not too much of the actual tissue because all of this is valuable energy, it's carbohydrate, it's kind of the battery pack that's gonna force those at leis to come up.

So we don't wanna take and remove too much of that.

Also, anytime you cut into the plant, you're creating an exposure to different pathogens.

So minimal amount of opening as much as possible.

But basically we've done that to the primary ones.

And what we don't see, and I can kind of see there's probably an eye there and there that's gonna force some of these.

So try to remove as many as you can, but go ahead and leave those secondaries and that's gonna force those to come up.

Now ideally what we're gonna do is we're gonna set these down for about 10 to 12 hours and sort of just let them heal over.

You can see there's a little bit of moisture on 'em.

So kind of like you would do a potato if you had cut your potatoes, let them kind of heal over and dry out just a bit before you put them in the soil.

But for TV purposes right now, what we're gonna do is go ahead and show you how you would pop these up.

So when you put them in the ground, of course we wanna put a plant right side up as much as possible.

But plants are smart, they kind of know.

So if you accidentally end up putting it in the wrong way, it's going to send those shoots up the right way.

But we're gonna put that in there and then cover it with just about two inches of potting soil over that.

Again, we're doing this in containers, so we wanna make sure that we're using potting soil and not top soils.

So we have good drainage.

Now we're gonna moisten this pretty well.

And again, plants caladiums are tropical and they like high humidity environments but not saturated.

We don't want these to rot or anything like that.

So one thing that we're gonna do when we moisten this is then cover it with some saran wrap.

So this is going to allow that humidity to stay high.

I'm just gonna wrap this around here and put a rubber band over it to kind of keep it tight.

And this is going to, when I put moisture in here, really allow it to heat up and kind of get that germination effect happening that will soon cause that bulb to start sprouting.

And of course, as soon as we start seeing those shoots start to emerge, we wanna make sure to remove this saran wrap.

So this is a great way to just kind of place it outside so it allows for it to get warm.

You wouldn't wanna put this in the greenhouse 'cause it would kind of create too much of a greenhouse effect on these bulbs and heat 'em up too much.

Now another option you can do if you're doing a lot of these, of course they're shipping wraps so you can get a larger amount of Saran wrap than what you might have for that situation.

Or another option that you can do as well is kind of create a system where you, if you have these disposable containers, just put a lot of your pots in here like this and then this would be something that you could cover over to create that greenhouse effect.

Or if you need to in really hot days.

The other day we were up to 90 degrees, so it's gonna be even hotter in here.

Kind of vent it a little bit so that they aren't cooking too much, but keep a close eye and a few weeks we'll start seeing those sprouts come up and we'll be able to really see the difference in the vegetation from de-eyeing calladiums and not de-eyeing them.

There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

Be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead.

Join us next week on Oklahoma Gardening as we head east for the preview of the Tulsa Garden Club's annual garden tour.

Miami is Dr. Danny Adamson.

Daniel, sorry.

You was good.

The winds were how fast.

95.

That's like a hurricane.

Yeah.

To find out more information about show topics as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources, including a directory of local extension offices, be sure to visit our website at Oklahoma gardening dot OK state.edu.

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Oklahoma Gardening is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

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We would like to thank our generous underwriters, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry, and Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Additional support is also provided by Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, the Tulsa Garden Club, and the Tulsa Garden Center.