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Most of us experiencing tree rats are enjoying Rattus rattus, subfamily Murinae, commonly called tree rats, black rats, roof rats, palm rats, ship rats, etc. They are introduced to all continents except antarctica. Not native to CA, they are thriving due to the weather, food, and lack of serious predation by other animals. They were native to Africa, Europe (old world rats), Asia, Australia. It was the black rat, Rattus rattus, that spread the fleas causing the Bubonic plague (Black Death) in Europe. The tree rat (Rattus rattus) is smaller (7 oz) than Norway rat (11 oz) and actually better looking for a rat. Tail is longer than body and a tan or white underbelly. They rapidly climb trees and move through a tree canopy easily. Our orchard is mature and has interlocking limbs, a virtual highway for them. Snap traps work, must be tended regularly. Best bait here is a shelled macadamia nut, they ignore peanut butter etc. preference is the macadamia. They ruin avocados on the tree, bite white sapotes and other fruits and nuts. Their nocturnal habit makes shooting them difficult. Poison is not used due to benign creatures living in the area like possums, raccoons, cats. Neighbor had pest control place poison in their attic, rats died and someone had to find the dead bodies in the attic due to the pervasive odor in their house. Snap traps need to be screened to avoid catching birds. Probably no final solution, but gophers seem to be forever also.Only if they made a poison that dissipated from the carcass quickly. Poison is most effective. There's a song if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere. Maybe someone should make a song. If you can grow in California you can grow anywhere.🙂
Didn't say you did! Just adding to the Arsenal of ideas. Yes flashing is a good idea. What type of rats do you have in California? Norwegian or the Roof rat maybe something else? As stated above not just rats andsquirrels travel through the canopy If you have a distance of 10 ft in between canopies that could help. A squirrel can jump about 8 ft straight out and five feet up according to the bird feeder people not sure about rats.I didn't say I used stove pipes I use alumimun flashing!I have used thin aluminum flashing that wife picked up at swap meet, it's thin and 24" wide so, easy to wrap around tree to keep critters from climbing up tree also, have made upside down funnels to wrap around tree trunks. Lesson to what Jack, posted about rats because he has had to deal with them for years, now unfortunately I have tree rats in my macadamia trees and trying to trap them with same method that Jack, uses.Corrugated sheets better than stove pipes because most tree trunks are not straight
I have used thin aluminum flashing that wife picked up at swap meet, it's thin and 24" wide so, easy to wrap around tree to keep critters from climbing up tree also, have made upside down funnels to wrap around tree trunks. Lesson to what Jack, posted about rats because he has had to deal with them for years, now unfortunately I have tree rats in my macadamia trees and trying to trap them with same method that Jack, uses.Corrugated sheets better than stove pipes because most tree trunks are not straight
Bovine, have you already started spraying for powdery mildew? I’m in north Orlando, 9B as well, and my bigger concern has been the temperatures lately. Another low to 36F this upcoming Friday. My smaller trees are covered, but larger ones (up to 15 ft tall) are on their own.I'm south of Orlando and the temperatures around 6:30 a.m. has been mostly 40 but it did dip down to 39 couple days ago. When my weather station says the humidity is 70% Plus makes me nervous it's either raining fog or heavy Dew. I go out and check the windshield and hood of my truck to make sure there's no Frost but there has been a little evidence on the neighbor's shingles. Since October monthly I've been spraying for anthrachnose fungus to systemically clean the trees as much as possible until first sign of Bloom. Then I will switch to weekly PM treatments. This weekend was my first application of Dr Earth final stop which is a blend of peppermint clove oil. All my Blooms are still closed. But after reading and asking questions this weekend I'm going to order some potassium bicarbonate. What I've gathered that I like from different statements and posts from people . One fellow said he likes it because he doesn't have to constantly agitate it like sulfur. Another said he sprays it on open boom and has no issues also that sulfur is preventive and potassium bicarbonate as a Curative property to it. I have sulfur but I've never used it because I'm kind of too lazy to constantly agitated in my low-tech handheld sprayer. So this weekend I may spray the sulfur until I can switch to potassium bicarbonate. In past seasons I haven't really troubled to spray for powdery mildew most of my trees are pretty resistant. Last season I didn't spray for powdery mildew and had a great season. A lot of other folks had some major issues so to be prudent I'm going to spray weekly until fruit set then switch back to a final application for anthracnose to keep the fruit pristine.
Regarding PM spraying — Do you wait until the flowers are mostly or completely lengthened out but not opened? Right now a majority of my blooms are maybe 1” long, and some are still buds.
Sounds like potassium bicarbonate is the ticket I read somewhere else where someone said it's not an issue on open bloom. Good to know that sulfur is preventative not Curative. Overlooked this thread because without my glasses I thought paranoid was a Latin word for a tropical fruit LOLIs now the time to begin spraying to prevent PM?
If your budding flower panicles over 2" long, it would be a good preventative to spray sulfur.
Sulfur doesn't kill powdery mildew, it prevents it from establishing. Once it establishes, you can blast it off with water to try and wash the spores into the ground. Milstop (Potassium Bicarbonate) is the only organic treatment Once it gets established. If you don't have Milstop in your arsenal, it may be too late once you get it shipped.
I'm trying a mix of 1 tablespoon of Potassium Bicarbonate and 1/2 teaspoon of Castile Soap per 1 gallon of water.
Yes I spray on open bloom. About three seasons ago I was talking with Alex Squam about Dr Earth final stop. He said he recommends it to the public and actually uses it himself. As far as sulfur he has said to spray on Bloom as it emerges then weekly until fruit set. So apparently he's not worried about spraying on open bloom.Just curious what other folks are using other than sulfur. I've had pretty good luck with Dr Earths final stop. Today was Bloom spray day scheduled for once a week until fruit set. Anthracnose regiment spraying schedule for first week of February
spray while blooms open as well?
My citrus seedlings look like crap. Can confirm.Be careful this thread will be moved to the Citrus Discussion Group like two did previously. If it had been posted in the Citrus group I would have never seen it or commented which you can take either a good or bad thing LOL. Point is the general discussion area is a wonderful good thing to compartmentalize everything it's kind of an echo chamber that could limit your base of knowledge because all these fruit trees have things in common such as anthracnose powdery mildew Frost and freeze issues. I wouldn't want a sub Discussion Group for Californians because there is much to be learned from them as a Floridian.
Just dumped out my Frosted Flakes you do have a valid point. Back years ago there was a lot of lawsuits brought on Monsanto by different states. Must have been some hush money donated. Don't really hear too much about it anymore. Thing I remember from back during that time frame was the Mexicans and the Russians didn't want our hybrid corn because it would contaminate their true seed by the pollen drifting in the Wind. Making their Native Seed corn sterileI miss my Persian lime tree casualty of citrus green so I believe. As I sit here eating my GMO Corn Flakes I would be okay with a fortified citrus tree.They have had GMO trees immune to greening for 10+ years. I think it was a spinach gene they spliced in back then. I don't want a GMO orange personally. The CUPS screen structures are working out great. We just can't afford to produce juice oranges in them. So, they will be for fresh fruit only (unless someone finds a cheap construction method). That means we will be saying good bye to ~90% of our citrus acreage sooner or later. :'(
HLB was just detected in my city a month ago. I would be ok with GMO citrus as long as there are no health concerns ( is that what the issue is?). If there is a method to protect existing trees with injections prior to infection I would use it on my five trees.
And people wonder why colon cancers are rising.
A tropical fruit forum that originated in South Florida and that also has a strong following in SoCal is naturally going to be obsessed with mangos, and mangos are going to inspire a lot of topics. Why turn these discussions into a sub-forum?In theory it sounds like a good idea but in reality I prefer the status quo. If there was a sub forum there's probably would be many things I wouldn't know. Such as Northern Australia is ultra tropical with many wonderful characters that just want to give you a kiss. Or some of the issues in Central America with fruit eating flying rats and parrots. The tropical fruit Forum discussion Is's kind of like merging onto the interstate.You really don't know which lane you're going to end up in. I miss the forum member who used to talk about the polar vortex going wobbly. Which according to Rob is caused by people not wear a mask john51
I miss my Persian lime tree casualty of citrus green so I believe. As I sit here eating my GMO Corn Flakes I would be okay with a fortified citrus tree.They have had GMO trees immune to greening for 10+ years. I think it was a spinach gene they spliced in back then. I don't want a GMO orange personally. The CUPS screen structures are working out great. We just can't afford to produce juice oranges in them. So, they will be for fresh fruit only (unless someone finds a cheap construction method). That means we will be saying good bye to ~90% of our citrus acreage sooner or later. :'(
HLB was just detected in my city a month ago. I would be ok with GMO citrus as long as there are no health concerns ( is that what the issue is?). If there is a method to protect existing trees with injections prior to infection I would use it on my five trees.
If you're going with electric powered heater of some sort, make sure to put it on a temperature controlled timer so it doesn't run all the time (only when it dips below set temp). You can also get a govee remote probe so you can check how much the temperature actually is in your tree.Thank you I'll study that tonight
Check out this long thread:
https://www.ourfigs.com/forum/figs-home/153645-electri-fig-ation
Otherwise, passively large water barrels might also help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1iMlKOpXDo
This has been a topic of discussion around here at times, too. Covering small trees with a blanket, then a 10'-12' section of silage bag (tied at the top), and placing a heat source inside (such as microjet sprinkler) has proven very effective.That's what this form is about kicking ideas around throwing mud on the wall and see what sticks. Since I kind of have the luxury of experimenting I have more trees than hair LOL. In that situation I have a fruit cocktail tree on the north side but I didn't have a plan for. It does have overhead irrigation. Well like the last Windy freeze event we had where I experimented with PPK and sweet tart fairly large trees. If you remember I wasn't expecting such a long duration freeze Because of overcast sky well into the mid-afternoon took until about 11:30 pm for the ice to melt. Thought occurred to me to shake the tree but I wasn't sure if I would expose cause damage. Pretty sure you said that's what your dad did with his leeches. Preferably with a raincoat and a helmet. Hopefully I never have to test this Theory out but at least I have a plan and supplies to put All the Above in action I won't have any regrets. With farming there's always trade-offs and decisions. Such as Harvest your corn first then have to switch the beans because they're getting too dry🙂
Unfortunately, as you know this becomes impractical once the trees approach bearing age. They just get too large to cover. At that point we just iced the trees--but a windy freeze can be problematic. One solution might be to put stakes around the drip line and wrap with plastic or landscape fabric to break the wind--similar to covering the small trees but the top would be open. Heat rises, however and breaking the wind would reduced the wind chill factor and allow the ice to protect the bottom 6'-8' of tree.
We have not had a reason to test this, yet. Take it with a grain of salt.
Burn barrels might be an easier solutionBurn barrels are not applicable in all locations. But yes I have a fire pit and propane heaters
20 amps divided by the number of amps the pipe warmer uses. Since they probably won't cycle at the same time you could plan to use every amp of the 20 amp circuit.
