Planting

WATER

SOIL, GROWING MEDIA

1. Keeping your garden free from any kind of debris is the simplest thing you can do to ensure that it stays pest free. Some pests feed and thrive on debris and for most of them it makes for a good hiding place. You should also remove the weeds frequently as they too provide good hiding spots for garden pests.

2. Grow different types of plants in your garden. Growing only a single type of plant increases the chance of pest infestation as the pests which love that plant might invade the garden in a group and destroy the entire crop. However, in case of multiple types of crops, the risk is considerably reduced.

3. Crop rotation has numerous benefits and reducing the chances of pest infestation is one of them. If you plant the same crops again and again, the pests which love that crop will multiply and wreak havoc on your vegetable garden. Hence, it’s best to change crops every season. If you have planted watermelons this season, you can plant cabbage next time on the same plot.

NATURAL PESTICIDES

Fermented plant material. Plant material is fermented with lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and crude sugar or molasses to break down the plant fibers to make the nutrients and beneficial properties they contain more accessible for garden plants. After being stored for a significant amount of time, this liquid is applied directly to the root zone or as a foliar spray in order to add nutritional and microbial benefits to the soil and the plant.

Not only is FPE a smart way to add nutrition back to your garden, it’s also an easy way to use waste plants that otherwise would be tossed aside. Weeds tend to have the best nutritional content, so fermenting them into a spray helps you to get garden benefits out of them. Even better, using specific types of plants for your extract can give the final liquid anti-fungal and pesticide properties that help your garden repel harmful pests. Common garden weeds tend to be ideal for this process because they have been naturally selected to withstand the onslaught of pests and insects in the environment.

If you see some bubbles or even fungi in your jar while making FPE, there’s no need to worry. It simply reveals that your mixture needs more sugar or molasses. You can stir in a few tablespoons to fix the problem. Keep your ferment barrels our of direct sunlight and heat in order to prevent it from getting damaged. Stay away from any areas where plants might have gotten sprayed with pesticides when harvesting for your FPE. This includes roadsides, and the edges of farm fields.

Method: To make a natural insect repellent we can use either water or oil as the base and then add 40-50 drops of any of the essential oils with the base and prepare the solution. If you want to make insect repellent oil based then you need to add 8 ounces of base oil (it can be grapeseed oil, jojoba oil, almond oil, olive oil or neem oil) to the essential oil. The method differs with water as the base, since it is difficult to mix water with oil and therefore you will need to add 4 ounces of an emulsifier (it can be aloe Vera gel, witch hazel, vinegar) with 4 ounces of water to the essential oil for preparing the solution.

Precaution: Before using any of the homemade insect repellents for the vegetable plant it is recommended to test by spraying little portion on the plants so as to ensure it won't harm the plant. Also, avoid using detergents or bleaching agents in any of the mixture.

Certain insect-repelling flowering plants can also act as natural deterrents to home garden pests. Celery and broccoli are two such examples. Even herbs like cloves, garlic, help keep the pests away.

HYDROPONICS

Water-based plants may grow quickly, as well as provide food, ie, freshwater plants, algae, etc, which can be used as fertilizer to enrich our soil, and livestock feed for chickens, cows, goats, water buffalo, but to clear land and give milk, butter and cheese.

AVOCADO

Due to the unavailability of sufficient quantities of planting material, many growers in the Royal Project Foundation areas of northern Thailand have raised avocado from seedlings. These avocado trees have produced fruits of poor quality. The Kasetsart University personnel who voluntarily work for the Royal Project Foundation tried to persuade growers to graft or bud these avocado seedling trees with the recommended cultivars such as Buccanaer, Hass, Peterson, Booth 7 and Ruehle.

About 84 hectares of avocado were planted by hill tribe growers under the extension programme of the Royal Project Foundation with a total production of 45 tonnes in 1997. The future planting area of avocado in the five-year plan of the Royal Project Foundation, from 1998-2003, will be 270 hectares with an estimated production of 1,500 tonnes by the year 2005.

Work for better cultivars continues at Pak Chong Research Station. At present, scions from the recommended cultivars are used for grafting, budding or inarching on Guatemalan and West Indian rootstocks (Pak Chong 6-5 and Pak Chong 1-14). Some selected rootstocks at Tung-roeng Development Centre are also used in some growing areas. The Pak Chong Research Station and the Royal Project Foundation are the two main production sources of grafted and budded avocado plants. These two institutions produce more than 4,000 plants per year for the growers.

Seedlings are raised in the nursery under 50% shade. The seeds are cleaned and soaked in fungicide solution for about 20 minutes. They are germinated in 8 x 15 cm PVC bags. The seedlings can be budded or grafted after 4-6 months.

Patch budding or modified chip budding are commonly used depending on the rootstock. If the bark cannot be peeled easily from the stem of the rootstock, modified chip budding must be used. Patch-budding can be used when the bark can be peeled off easily.

Bark-grafting is used when the bark could be peeled off easily from the stem, and this is commonly seen when the rootstock is over six months old. Modified side-veneer-grafting is used for the rootstock that cannot peel off the bark easily, usually when the rootstock is 4-6 months old. Modified side-veneer-inarching is also used for rootstocks that are 4-6 months old.

Where hardpan is evident, a sub-soiler is used for breaking the hardpan. The land is ploughed and holes of 60 x 60 x 60 cm are dug. The planting medium is a mixture of soil, animal manure and organic matter at the ratio of 2:1:1. Generally, land preparation is carried out before the rainy season.

Spacing of avocado is dependent on the cultivars and the soil conditions of each site. In Thailand, a spacing of 8 x 6 metres is used for Ruehle, Peterson, Hass and Buccanaer, whereas wider spacings of 8 x 8 metres, 8 x 10 metres, and 10 x 10 metres are used for Booth 7, Booth 8 and Hall cultivars.

Planting is carried out at the beginning of the rainy season. The plants should have no sign of insect pests and diseases on the stems and leaves and they should be subjected to hardening under full sunlight before transferring to the field. The plants are brought to the prepared holes and are removed from bags or containers. They are then placed in the hole, with soil mixture filled and firmed to ensure good contact with roots. They are then watered regularly to ensure availability of sufficient moisture until establishment. The plants are protected from wind by planting windbreak trees as well as by using bamboo stakes for supporting newly planted trees.

Organic materials such as straw, rice husk and wood chips are commonly used as mulching material because these materials can later decay and become available to plants as organic fertilizer.

Avocado trees are normally trained under a modified leader or open centre system. When plant height of newly established plants is about 70 cm, the growing tips are pinched off to allow development of more side shoots to form a round-shaped tree. After harvesting, the trees should be pruned. The upright branches, water sprouts, dead wood, infected branches, and the branches that are not exposed to the sun should be pruned off.

A mixed fertilizer of 46-0-0 and 15-15-15 at 250 grams/tree is applied two months after planting and the same rate is repeated again three months later. The same formula with a slightly higher rate of 300 grams/tree is applied in the second year at the beginning of the rainy season with repeated applications every three months. From the third year onwards, as well as for bearing trees, the amount of applied fertilizer depends on the radius of the tree canopy, i.e. at every one-meter radius, one kilogram of mixed fertilizer of 46-0-0 and 15-15-15 is applied.

The weeds are often cut, as ploughing to control weeds is not recommended because of the shallow root system of the trees. Where the climate is very warm, organic materials are rapidly decayed, so more organic mulching materials are recommended to be applied to the trees. Supplementary irrigation during the dry periods appears to be needed for young as well as mature avocado trees.

Avocado root rot is the most serious disease that affects avocado trees. The disease is caused by the fungus Phytophthora cinnamomi. This soil borne disease is commonly found in acid soils with poor drainage. It is recommended to use resistant rootstocks such as Duke-7 in the areas where the disease is prevalent. A well-drained soil is needed to prevent the spread of the disease. No ploughing underneath the tree canopy is advised. For avocado seedlings in the nursery, 20 ppm Dexon, applied as soil drench, is recommended to control Phytophthora in the nursery.

MUSHROOMS

Many commercial harvesters are nomadic in their patterns of following the natural supply of mushrooms. The natural supply may be determined by rainfall, forest fires or other factors, depending on the particular species. For example, in the spring harvesters may travel to the Yukon, Northwest Territories or northern Saskatchewan to pick morels. They return to British Columbia in the fall to harvest chanterelles and pine mushrooms. In late fall to early winter, harvesters travel south to Washington, Oregon and northern California for available mushrooms.

The price for any one species of mushroom may vary significantly across the province. Prices fluctuate during the harvest season, usually being higher when fewer mushrooms are available and tending to decline as availability increases. At the end of the season, when supply becomes limited, prices normally increase

The pine mushroom (Tricholoma magnivelare) is a large, robust, white to pale brown mushroom with a white flesh and a distinctly pungent, aromatic odor. It is closely related to the matsutake of Japan (T. matsutake), an aromatic species eaten by the Japanese for centuries. The North American pine mushroom is also known as matsutake or white matsutake.

The pine mushroom is distributed along the coast and interior mountain ranges of western North America from northern California to Alaska. The species is also found in the eastern Maritimes and as far south as Tennessee (Redhead 1989). Pine mushrooms are further distributed throughout the northern forested regions of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

At present the ecology of the pine mushroom is poorly understood, especially its functions within the forest community. Tricholoma magnivelare is thought to form mycorrhizal associations with a broad range of hosts. The fungal mycelium, the major underground vegetative component of the fungus, forms symbiotic associations with tree roots.

In the Pacific Northwest, pine mushrooms usually occur in stands of trees 100 to 200 years old, with lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), Douglas-fir (Pseudtsuga menziesii) or western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) as the dominant overstorey species (Hosford 1994; Molina et al. 1993). Harvesters, however, also report that pine mushrooms may occur in younger stands 50 to 100 years old. The mushroom is typically found under a thick layer of moss or leaf litter. Hosford notes that vine maple (Acer circinatum) and ericaceous shrubs dominate the understorey, serving as good indicators for pine mushroom sites.

The pine mushroom occurs in the Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF), Coastal Western Hemlock (CWH), Interior Douglas-fir (IDF), and Engelmann Spruce–Subalpine Fir (ESSF) biogeoclimatic zones. It is clear from Table 3, however, that pine mushrooms are not restricted to these four biogeoclimatic zones. Pine mushrooms also occur in the Interior Cedar–Hemlock (ICH), Sub-Boreal Spruce (SBS), Mountain Hemlock (MH), Montane Spruce (MS), Sub-Boreal Pine–Spruce (SBPS) and Boreal White and Black Spruce (BWBS) zones.

Despite a lack of overall ecological research, industry participants have identified some site characteristics where pine mushrooms occur. Pine mushrooms are often associated with 60 to 200-year-old Douglas-fir, hemlock, Subalpine fir, spruce and pine forests. The canopy is often partially open, with the timber of marginal value due to disease or poor growing conditions. The understorey vegetation may contain one or more indicator species, such as prince’s pine (Chimaphila umbellata), boxwood (Pachistima myrsinites) and ericaceous species, including evergreen huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum), salal (Gaultheria shallon) and kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi).

Large-scale commercial harvesting of pine mushrooms occurs near Terrace, the Nass River Valley, Bella Coola, the Anahim Lake basin, the Sunshine Coast, Vancouver Island, Pemberton Valley and the West Kootenays. The pine mushroom harvesting season generally begins in mid-to-late August in the Terrace, Nass Valley and Anahim Lake areas. The season in these areas usually extends to mid-to-late October. Harvesting in the Bella Coola area and West Kootenays usually begins in September and continues to the end of October. At the end of October, the harvesting season usually begins on Vancouver Island and in the Powell River area. By the end of November the pine mushroom harvesting season in southern British Columbia is normally over (de Geus 1992).

Harvesters report that between 2,000 and 5,000 persons harvest pine mushrooms begin their harvesting season in the northern part of British Columbia in early-to-late August (usually in the Anaheim Lake area) and then travel to other areas when pine mushrooms become available.

Mushrooms classified in each grade are weighed separately. The mushroom pickers are paid in cash, based on the daily price set by mushroom companies for each grade.

The mushrooms of two other fungal species, the yellow chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius) and the white chanterelle (C. subalbidus), are commercially harvested in British Columbia. These species commonly occur in mature forests of Douglas-fir or hemlock.

The yellow chanterelle is harvested in the Queen Charlotte Islands, Prince Rupert, Vancouver Island, Sechelt and the southern coastal mountains. Harvesting of yellow chanterelles begins in September on the Queen Charlotte Islands and continues until November or December in both Sechelt and the south coast mountains. The yellow chanterelle is normally shipped fresh to European markets. Europeans pay a premium market price for the yellow chanterelle because its color and size resemble the chanterelle species traditionally harvested in Europe.

White chanterelles are usually harvested from the Nakusp–Arrow Lakes region. Harvesting of white chanterelles begins in the early fall and continues until the first heavy frosts. Europeans who are not familiar with the larger white chanterelle consider its flavor inferior to the flavor of the yellow chanterelle. When dried, the white chanterelle turns yellow and is only then considered marketable in Europe, but at a lower market price than the yellow chanterelle.

Morels, the mushrooms of Morchella species, can grow on sites for up to three years after forest fires (Groves 1962). The numbers of morels produced over this three-year period decrease as regenerating vegetation begins to compete for nutrients and space. For example, between 1986 and 1987 more than $200,000 was paid to morel harvesters in the Boundary forest district. This large harvest of morels followed an extensive forest fire in the district during 1985. Not all morels, however, are associated with forest fires. Many other species of morels appear after disturbances such as blowdown, disease and timber harvesting.

In 1989, a mushroom harvesting and processing law came into effect, requiring the annual licensing of persons who buy and process wild mushrooms for market. The law requires mushroom buyers to submit to the Department of Agriculture a prescribed form each month noting the site of purchase, total weight of each species purchased, date of purchase, approximate location of harvest site, price paid to the harvester, and name, address and licence number of the dealer to whom the mushrooms were sold.

The wild edible mushroom industry of the U.S. Pacific Northwest entails the harvest, processing, and marketing of mushrooms from Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Twenty-five species of mushrooms are harvested commercially in the region, but only a few species are harvested on a large commercial basis. The important commercial species are morels, chanterelles, pine mushrooms, boletes, Oregon black truffle, cauliflower mushroom, true truffle species and spreading hedgehog

During 1992, approximately 1.8 million kilograms of wild edible mushrooms were sold in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The species with the largest harvested volume was the morel, chanterelles, pine mushrooms and boletes were also harvested during the same period.