Billy Blankenship

May Lotito wrote:So you have over grazed ranchland with calcareous soil and a semiarid climate. The patchy native grasses and bushes that are doing well probably benefit from the fertility pockets from cattle manure and urine.

---That makes sense. Some areas grow really well, and then most of it is just bare ground where nothing grows. This is one of the better areas. That is why I chose this spot as my first places to start trying to grow something. This is where the soil samples came from.---

Usually high calcium soil samples need certain tests to get a more accurate readings, but it still doesn't change the diagnosis of the lack certain macro and micro nutrients. I would want to double check the Zn level as it could be the most limiting factor besides P. And you don't have to do a full test, usually university extension office can do the DTPA test for Fe/Cu/Mn/Zn at the same time for a few dollars. Zinc is important in many aspects of plant physiology including auxin production and soil microbes need it too. If it's true deficiency (really low in soil, not due to being locked up or competition, aka induced deficiency), supplementing zinc fertilizer will make a big difference.

---I will get some more soil samples done. I was trying out a company that someone recommended. I will do what you are recommending this year for testing. I found a product and I'm wondering if this will work. If anyone has used it to provide micronutrients. I am uploading a picture of it.---

Terry Frankes wrote:Do you have any growing season pictures of what does grow there?  

I have uploaded a picture for you. From a distance, the land looks like it grows native grasses really well. But, close up you can see how patchy it is. Just a bunch of barren spots that grow nothing and are being baked in the sun all day. It is like this all over. Minus the lowland area. That area has no problems growing grasses over 5 feet tall, but that only makes up a small portion of the property.

This area is actually doing better than most of the land. I chopped some lower branches off of some trees/shrubs out there in 2023 that regrow their limbs, and threw them out in this pasture for some ground cover. You can see some dead branches laying down on the right side of the picture.

I looked up some native thistle. I will keep my eye out for it this year to see if I see any growing.

Thanks for all of your info so far. Yes, I did only do 1 soil test so far in the area I planted my first Miyawaki forest. I am focusing on that area first to see if what I am doing works. I will only do about an acre per season since that is all I can afford. I have upland areas and lowland areas so figured the soil would be different for each site. I did start growing my own seedlings. I was spending too much money and having low success with grafted trees. I am also building half-moon bunds to capture and hold water since the soil is a bit hydrophobic.

This year I am trying out a lot of different Acacia species native to the region since they are normally first to invade a site and they fix nitrogen. I have some native oaks that I will plant between them so the Acacias will hopefully provide shade to them while they are small.

I didn't even realize, until you pointed it out, that they didn't list nitrogen. No wonder that company is shutting down this year. The soil is made up of clay and sand, mostly. It has a lot of limestone, too. It is very compacted. They ran cattle on it for a long time until it was split up into smaller ranchettes.

I paid for a soil test for my new property of over 20 acres. The land was used for grazing and all of the trees were pushed into piles and burned for decades. The land is really degraded, and I am trying to reforest it with native trees. Everything grows poorly, even the grass and weeds.

I have the results uploaded. The vendor was telling me to fertilize each acre with 300 lbs of this and 270 pounds of that twice a season. Things like feather meal and blood meal. I'm not rich so that's not possible. They would only give me organic options and no conventional. What would your recommendations be to fix this soil per acre so I can get plants established?

The land is kind of between central and west texas. Over 20 inches of rain per year.

Cujo Liva wrote:I have a moderate amount of char that I'd like to break down into small pieces.  

Any suggestions on good methods?  I don't have a large press of any form, so this will likely be a manual process.

I just fill the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket with charcoal and crush it with a 4-5 foot long 2×4. Wear a dust mask.

I have access to some Ashe Juniper trees in the Texas Hill Country. I am wondering if there is a way to root these trees from cuttings. I know they can grow from seed but they can take a long time to grow that way. I watched a video about rooting Junipers and took a bunch of new growth cuttings but not one of them were successful in seed starting mix with a humidity dome and grow lights. Most of them stayed green but formed no roots after over a month. It was a different variety of Juniper, though, that the video was made about. So, I am wanting to know about this particular variety and if anyone has had any experience with it.

Josiah Kobernik wrote:I think that the tree is trying to replace it's diseased trunk by sending up new replacement trunks from its roots. As the old trunk dies, it's ability to transport energy from the roots is constricted, so that root energy must make a new way to reach for the sun.

I would consider allowing the root suckers to grow and see if they will succumb to the same disease. You could either leave the old trunk to die of its own, or use a sterilized pruning saw to make an angled heading cut two feet below the lowest canker. I would remove the diseased wood and burn it.

If the new leading stems also get the same disease, then I would try to grow a genetically different individual. Either from seed, or a cutting from a different plant. you might even consider planting seeds from this diseased tree.

these are just my thoughts, hope this helps.

Thank you for your help, I will go with your suggestion. I saw small white bugs on it earlier. I looked it up and they are called planthoppers. I am wondering if they caused the damage. I found the bug because it was "spraying" droplets of water in the air. I guess it was somehow taking liquid from the tree. It is hard to get a look at them because they walk around the limb as you try to see them.

Josiah Kobernik wrote:I'm not an expert with mulberry, but that looks like a pathogenic canker to me. Either fungal or bacterial.

Is it a grafted tree?

No, it is from a cutting.

I have a 4 year old mulberry tree that is having a few issues. The first two years it grew a couple of feet each year and put out good mulberries. Last year the leaves and fruit on the tree were much smaller and the fruit tasted bland, but the tree still grew a couple of feet. This year the tree lost the top few feet of previous years growth, the leaves are still small, but the fruit tasted a little better than last year. This year I keep getting really good growth from the trunk of the tree but the top is growing slowly. I keep trimming the growth off from the bottom but it comes back in a few days. I now have bark damage where the limbs come out from the trunk. Do you have any ideas of what could be causing these issues? I have pictures attached. The tree was about three feet taller but I had to trim off the portion that died. It was only 2-3 feet tall when I planted it, and had a pencil thin trunk.