Fresh apricots available at festival
Do you want locally grown apricots? Come and get them while you can. If you haven't heard, this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. the master gardeners from the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension are featuring the first-ever Las Vegas apricot festival at Whole Foods at Charleston Boulevard and Fort Apache Road. Local apricots, the first of the season, bursting with freshness and just picked not shipped hundreds of miles. Come and get them while they last and learn how to grow them, can them and freeze them .
Apricot season here starts sometime near the beginning of May (it depends on the variety and the weather ) and runs about six weeks. The earliest apricots here are Royal Rosa, a fabulous tasting apricot. These apricots are grown without pesticides.
Q: I have a dwarf apricot tree in my yard in Las Vegas. It is about 11 years old and 8-10 feet tall. I've had an abundance of fruit, even though they are quite small, each year. When all the leaves fell, I noticed what appears to be hardened sap on the trunk of the tree in the shape of a half marble, but some bumps (which are mostly clear in color, some bumps appear darker) are as large as a half egg. There are bumps on the main trunk and some higher branches.
A: It is very possibly borer damage in the tree. Apricots are quite susceptible to borers. When sap coming out is clear it usually means the borer is dead, suffocated by the sap. When the sap coming out is darker it is because of the sawdust kicked out by the marauding borer larva.
Use a sharp knife and cut the sap out of the tree along with some bark and look for damage in the limb caused by borers. At the master gardeners' orchard we usually cut out the damage from the limbs or trunk and let the tree heal. We usually do this in winter when the leaves are off but you can still do it now and let the tree heal. It heals rapidly in the spring.
If you do not see any borer damage under this hardened sap, then it is possibly heat or sun stress and damage. If that is the case, you might try adding wood mulch under the canopy to help keep the soil from drying too quickly. Painting the trunk and upper sides of the limbs with diluted white paint (whitewash) will help minimize stress from high-intensity sunlight.
Make sure you fertilize and water adequately so the canopy shades the tree and its limbs. It is tough to apply a hard pesticide to fruit trees for borer control and still have it acceptable for eating the same year.
Q: I have bougainvilleas in pots that have survived the winter with some care; ditto for my Meyer lemon tree. When is the best time to prune and clean-up each? When to fertilize?
A: Wait for new growth to appear on the bougainvilleas so you know where to prune to remove any damage from this past winter cold. Always cut at a place where two stems come together, removing the dead or damaged stem from the one that is healthy. Fertilize the bougainvilleas now with any fertilizer meant for flowering plants .
Fertilize your citrus after harvest unless it needs iron (yellowing); then do that any time you see it. In the case of Meyer lemon, the fruit should be harvested no later than about January. Citrus requires very little pruning. Just remove broken, crossing, vertical growth and open it up a bit for the sun to penetrate into the canopy. Do that after harvest as well. Iron fertilizer sprays applied to the foliage may discolor fruit so be careful of iron fertilizers applied when fruit is present.
Q: I purchased an Early Elberta peach locally. The tree requires 700-750 chill hours. I know that the Las Vegas Valley has a lower number of chilling hours than this. I am hesitant on planting the tree because of the high chill requirements and I'm not sure if the tree will ever reach good fruit production because of the high chill requirements. Is there anything that I can do to compensate for this, or would it be better to take the tree back?
Also, I purchased a nectarine tree named Sweet Surprise. The label never gave the chilling requirements, which makes me wonder if it is an appropriate tree for our climate. Would you recommend irrigating the fruit trees using a bubbler type emitter or some other method? I would normally apply the water to a basin around the tree with a bubbler and water it that way.
A: We have Elberta and Early Elberta peaches at the orchard in North Las Vegas and both do very well regardless of the chilling requirement. They are both good producers and have good flavor. Don't worry about the chilling hours. It will be fine. Chilling hours are less important than we used to think.
I don't know Sweet Surprise so I can't help you there regarding the quality of the fruit for this climate .
In many cases the white-fruited varieties of nectarines are better tasting than yellow , but we have not tried them all. Arctic Star is a wonderful white-fleshed nectarine . The volunteers at the orchard rave about the fruit.
The water source is not that important but drip is more efficient. Conserving water really has more to do with you than the technology used to apply it. Bubbler and basin and drip both work well. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Primarily, the bubblers allow you to get watering done quickly but you do have to keep the basin repaired so the water doesn't go everywhere. Drip irrigation is also nice and more water efficient but it requires closer attention to plugging than bubblers.
Bob Morris is an associate professor with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Direct gardening questions to the master gardener hot line at 257-5555 or contact Morris by e-mail at morrisr@unce.unr.edu.
