I am covered with bedstraw seed capsules, as perhaps you are – it being that time of year.  I have both the smooth and the ‘sticky’ – so lucky.  This year seems like a bumper crop – and it definitely moves around.

I was reminded to remind you – wild parsnip is up and blooming – the yellow umbrella shaped flower heads. This is the plant that can give you very nasty burns if you get the sap on you.  Like giant hogweed but much more common.  You can get the sap on you while weed whacking and mowing, so keep an eye out for it (even when it isn’t blooming).  I think I have seen it at every summer meeting I have been to in several years.  I have it in my yard, too, just so I know what I am talking about, I guess.

The DEC has information at http://nyis.info/invasive_species/wild-parsnip/  Their iMapInvasives definitely does not show all the places it exists – map information is only as good as the people reporting it.  I’ll add that to something else I should learn to do!

GDD                       June 19                 June 24

Champlain           483                         615

Geneva                598                         724  a slightly different AgriTech weather station

Riverhead           746                         857

Cryptomeria scale – first generation crawlers 600-800 GDD.  Why do I say first generation?  Because there is more than one generation in a year, which means you need to keep checking on these. Nitrogen fertilization makes these scales and other sucking pests happy (and when they are happy they make more scales) so don’t over fertilize

There are some beneficial insects that feed on elongate hemlock scale. Check and see if you see small holes in the scales which might mean that parasitic wasps have hatched out to go lay eggs in more scales.  The presence of beneficials is one reason to not use pesticides if you don’t have to or to use them on as limited a scale as possible.

Bagworms – should have destroyed overwintered bags by now – because that’s where the eggs overwinter.  The young larvae will hatch out and start feeding at 600-900 GDD. Bacillus thuringiensis Kurstaki (note that there are different kinds of Bt’s) will work when they are small.

Some things that came up at the Hudson Valley Virtual Twilight meeting on Tuesday –

Controlling porcelain berry

https://projects.ncsu.edu/goingnative/howto/mapping/invexse/porcelai.html

Buckthorn Blaster – this is one version of a method for treating cut stems with concentrated glyphosate.  You can use a paintbrush or other systems but this was recommended by one grower.

https://landscape-restoration.com/product/buckthorn-blaster/

Have a great week!