I want discuss something here that I’ve been hesitant to bring up.
With all these trees imported from China, we should assume they are all infected with RKN. Wether or not you actually see the galls, it is best to treat your trees as if they do have RKN.
RKN is a Serious issue and I’m absolutely shocked how lightly people are taking this. I’ve spoken with many forum members and many people did not treat their trees even though this last order, and probably all the other orders, had RKN.
RKN is a serious threat to our gardens. Once you get RKN established in your soil, they are difficult if not impossible to completely get rid of them.
They stunt or kill vegetables and can decrease productivity in woody plants.
I’m not telling people not to purchase trees from China but if you do purchase trees from China, treat them for RKN regardless if you see galls or not. Even if there is not a single gall detected out of 500-1000 trees, I would still treat them. RKN is microscopic and they may not have formed galls yet and there can also be RKN eggs.
Nursery owners are well aware of the horrible issues associated with RKN and some states even have restrictions that nurseries that ship plants must grow their plants raised off the ground.
I have a friend that has RKN in their yard and his tomatoes and fig was severely infected. His tomatoes looked horribly stunted and his fig tree was growing a lot slower than it should be. He pulled up one of his tomatoes to show me the roots and it looked like the same galls from the Yangmei trees from the last group buy.
With the popularity of Yangmei, I don’t want RKN spreading in all of our gardens. I’m not saying don’t buy the trees, just please treat your trees just in case. Any soil, water or tools that have come into contact with infected trees should be thoroughly disinfected or discarded in the case of soil.
RKN is absolutely horrible and you may not notice symptoms until many years down the road when the RKN population has thoroughly established and by that time, it’s probably too late to eliminate them. An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.
Simon