FOR RELEASE THE WEEK OF JULY 9, 2000:
Our apples seem to be really small this year. What causes abnormally small fruit?
If the leaves are small, pale-green or yellow and the shoots are shorter than a foot, your apples’ disappointing size may be explained by nitrogen deficiency, says Michael Colt, University of Idaho extension horticulturist. However, what normally produces small apples is simply too many pieces of fruit growing on one tree.
Many older apple trees are so vigorous that their leaves and branches shade and stunt interior fruit. Apple size depends directly on the leaves adjacent to the fruit; if those leaves don’t get enough sunlight, they can’t make enough carbohydrates for large, well-colored, sweet apples. "There should be broken sunlight on the ground beneath the tree," says Colt. If there isn’t, plan to prune more aggressively this winter.
In mid-summer, you can still remove some of the apples and boost the size of the remaining fruit, but your apples won’t be as large or as sweet as if you had thinned them in spring. "The earlier you thin, the more impact you have," Colt says.
Sometimes my kids leave the ice cream out on the counter and it partially melts. Is it OK to just stick it back in the freezer? Or has it gone bad once it has melted and sat out for awhile?
Unless the ice cream has fully melted, it’s still safe to eat if you put it back in the freezer, says Sandra McCurdy, University of Idaho extension food safety specialist. However, if much of it has melted, its quality will be significantly diminished.
No doubt you’ve already noticed that melted, refrozen ice cream is gummy and grainy. It has lost the air that was whipped in during manufacturing; that commercial agitation process is what gives ice cream its characteristic texture. The same process also produces small ice crystals; once melted and refrozen, the resulting large ice crystals leave the product much grainier.
What do you recommend for control of corn earworm in home gardens?
Bob Stoltz, University of Idaho extension entomologist, suggests either tolerating their damage to the tips of cobs or committing yourself to a rigorous treatment schedule.
About 1.25 to 2 inches long and marked with light-brown and pink stripes and prominent black dots, corn earworms attack several hundred hosts but appear to like nothing better than sweetcorn. They lay single, white eggs on fresh corn silks. Upon hatching, the larvae crawl right into the ear and begin feeding on kernels.
"They may not be a problem in earlier-planted corn, before their generations build up, but if you’ve got corn that matures in August and September, you’re pretty much certain to have corn earworms," says Stoltz.
If you don’t like the idea of just lopping off the tip of the ear when you shuck it, then dust with Sevin every three to four days between the time the corn starts silking and when it matures and turns brown. Alternatively, try dusts of pyrethrins, rotenone or neem. According to Stoltz, weekly releases of Trichogramma wasps are "fairly good" at parasitizing corn earworm eggs. Still another option: applying a couple dozen droplets of mineral oil to corn silks three to seven days after those silks first appear.
I would like to know, Does grass make oxygen? John Hesch, Whitehall, Pa.
Yes, grass, like most plants, releases oxygen into the air, says University of Idaho plant physiologist Bob Dwelle. "Interestingly enough, the oxygen released by plants is a waste product, as far as they are concerned, but it’s a very valuable waste product for us."
The air around us contains 21 percent oxygen, Dwelle says, and most of that comes from plants while they’re manufacturing their own food. "Except for pitcher plants and the Venus fly trap, most plants have to make their own food, since they generally can’t chase and catch other things to eat," he says.
All of us–plants and animals alike–depend on finding carbon compounds through our food, since carbon is the basic building block for all things in our bodies. We humans get our carbon for making sugars, starches, fats, proteins and even muscles by eating plants and animals. Plants get their carbon by taking carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil, and then–in a process called photosynthesis–using energy from sunlight to change this carbon into food compounds.
"Lucky for us, the waste product from photosynthesis is oxygen and, yes, lawns and grasslands produce large quantities of it to replenish the air around us," Dwelle says.