It would worse if she said "i don't eat avocados".  Have you guys met these people?  Thats crazy talk

This is the rootstock Dave Wilson nursery uses on their stone fruits.  Does anyone know how the rootstock is propogated?  How can I get some good peach rootstocks? 

I had not seen that.  That really sucks.  Luckily here the cold is not an issue.  The heat on the other hand could cook my plants.  If there is a power outage and my fans and mist system go down when its 110 things are going to get roasted.   I am usually around and have a small generator in as of emergency. 

And yes, this thing is done done.  For now...

Mark, I just wanted to update you on the mist pump.  All I can say is it works amazing.  Not cheap, probably 1500$ or so of misting pump, fittings, nozzles, and a couple fans.  But this thing works amazing.  I have a 30$ amazon humidity controller running it automatically.

The exhaust fan and shutters in the HH are on a thermostat and come on around 90F or wherever I set it.  Then as dry air is pulled int, the humidity drops below 40% or whatever its set to and the mist pump kicks on.  Runs for a minute or so and shuts off and drops the temps.  The exhaust and mist usually shut off at the same time and the temperature and humidity in the HH are pegged wherever I want them. 

I would highly recommend it with one exception.  Since you guys have more humidity, I don't know if it will work as well for you.  Humidity here has been 15 to 35% lately.  Quite low and this is our wet season.  It should work extremely well in summer.  I can do a video next time its hot here.  Had it running quite a bit a few days ago.  Today it was cooler and more humid and hardly ran.

The HH is doing amazing things for my plants.  I always thought I was bad at growing container plants.  It turns out having the right humidity makes a huge difference.  No more brown leaf tips and everything is actively flushing mid winter. 

Ive got about 50 mango trees and 50 avocado trees started.  Lots of cherimoyas and dragon fruits also.  I put some coffee seeds in pots recently, hopefully those pop.  We are also growing tomatos, cilantro, onions, and peppers.  We also let loose 1500 lady bugs inside and they fixed the aphids we had on some trees in just a few days.

Quote from: spaugh on January 24, 2018, 02:59:43 PM

I can photo the different setups later if you want to see them.

That would be awesome spaugh. I already have an idea of what I want to do, but would like to see your setups first before I make my purchases

What kind of piping do you currently have?  Maybe snap a photo of a setup. 

Im not at home but this is a useful part if you are using 1/2" pvc hard pipes and risers.  Then any micro head can go on it.

https://www.dripdepot.com/product/shrub-riser-adapter-with-10-32-threads-by-global

Keep in mind if you are using the type of heads that throw a mist circle type pattern that they will be more impacted by wind than a spider type spray.  You get better coverage with misty circles but they don't do well if your property is in a high wind area. 

Post what you have and what you are considering.  I will post more stuff later on.

I will start planting small trees in about a month and I would like to know your experiences with gopher predation on small trees. I purchased a roll of chicken wire and will going down about 12-14" below the surface to protect many of them but this will be a pain the the butt to do for all of them.

Last year they killed:

Lots of guavas, which I planted all around the ranch to provide a good microclimate/shade protection for future small trees before I realized castor bean plants work much better.
2 tamarind seedlings
2 jackfruit seedlings
1 3 foot sweet tart mango(this might have just been rot since I waited a couple of months to pull it after it died)
1 white sapote seedling
1 banana
I know for a fact they don't seem to like any of the annonas but the weather here kills these off just fine so it doesn't really make a difference I guess

I plan on putting these in the ground:

White sapote
Tamarind
Ice Cream Bean
Barbados Cherry
Mango seedlings
Starfruit
Feijoa
Mamey

Which of these in your experience, gophers seem to munch on and which do they tend to ignore? Along with any other trees they tend to like or ignore, for future reference.

How are you watering your trees?  What type of sprinkler heads or irrigation do you use?  Gopher problems can be worse with higher flow heads where water pools up normally.  Then when there is a gopher tunnel all the water goes into the tunnel and not to the tree roots.  Where a sprayer or micro sprinkler type head wets a large area and doesnt suffer from this problem.  The large area soaks slower and never runs in the tunnels. 

For what its worth, I have acres full of gopher holes but never lost any plants to gophers.  My neighbor clued me in on the watering issue.  He claims its usually lack of water when tunnels interfere with irrigation.  I don't bother trying to control them at all.  But we do have plenty of snakes and other predators here that may be keeping them in check.  My trees dont seem bothered so I dont worry about it.

Check out youtube for ideas how to use traps on them.  There are also videos of how to pump propane and air into the holes and nuke them.  You can also run a hose and pump lawn mower exhaust etc into the hole and suffocate them.  They also have spike sticks to inject poison pellets into the tunnels.  And there are mesh gopher bags and 1"chicken wire etc.  Lots of options.

Let us know about the watering thing.  Im curious if that theory holds water.

As long as theres a fence it should keep them out.  Deer are a pain otherwise.  Jack rabbits can kill a tree also.  They chew up the bark really bad.

You could even put fencing around each tree for the first couple of years until they are large enough to deal with wildlife.

Anyway, I will have to look up where your place is.  Near the wild animal park?  You should get good chill so you have lots of opportunity to grow things others in SD cant grow. Cherries, plums, pears etc should do well.  I just put in a dozen more bare root trees here.  We will see how they do, not much chill here.

Its bare root fruit tree season at walter andersons.  Peaches and other stone fruits would do great.  Is the new digs fenced off and have neighbors around?  Just asking because if its very rural and no fencing, deer will eat the fruit trees.

If you want the very best grow lights you need COB leds.  They are the closest thing to real sunlight.  They arent cheap but they are super efficient and make white light that plants need to grow.  Each COB has many small LEDs on it tuned to different wavelengths so you get a perfectly tuned spectrum.
 3500K rating will be like pure sunlight. 

This place sells them.  www.timbergrowlights.com

If you want the next best thing that is a bit cheaper but less efficient try searching for ceramic metal halide lamps. They have them on amazon.

The purple china LEDs on amazon will work but the purple light is terrible to be around.  And it may draw unwanted attention from neighbors if thats an issue.  Trust me on this, get a light that makes white sun like color.  Its so much more pleasant to be around.

We are still picking guavas.  Ate one last night.  The trees did a few fruit sets and there has been a steady supply of fruit coming for months now. They do not all ripen at once.  I think you will have better luck with shaded guavas in san diego than in northern CA. 

We planted 3 trees.  2 of them make excellent fruits, the 3rd one is terrible and is getting removed.  The one tree with bad fruit makes green fruits that never ripen and taste like cardboard but its sitting in full sun next to the others.

Walter anderson sometimes has them.  You can also get them at clausons and atkins or the other nurseries up in the farming towns in north county.  Bonita creek may have them also.

I was going to buy one from atkins last time I was there but forgot to buy it before I left.  Had several items and forgot. 

I had a champaigne loquat tree from walter andersons but the jack rabbits chewed it up and it died.   

If you go get one post back what you get.  I still would like to get one of these trees at some point. 

http://clausennursery.com/sub-tropical-trees-miscellaneous

ThangBom, you can take a string of 10ft length and pin one end down.  Now put a chalk on the other end and swing it around and draw a circle with it.  Now you have your curved part.  You can make it as long as you want. 

My 20ft bender is just sitting around not used now I am done with my project.  I could sell it to you at a discount if you wanted it.  I doubt I will be using it again.  Send a PM if you want it. 

And honestly, I don't think its worth your time to try and build one.  They have a very affordable one on buildyourowngreenhouse.com

The one I got was the mid grade one with a stand for it.  You can bend a hoop in about 30 seconds with it.