- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Fungus can be a big problem in the garden.

Luckily there are fungicides, and today we're going to talk about the most common ones.

Also, monarch butterflies are heading south and there is a way you can help study them.

That's just ahead on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer) Production funding for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South is provided by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund and by viewers like you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Mike Dennison.

Mr. D is a retired UT Extension agent, and Mary Schmidt will be joining me later.

Mr. D, always good to have you here.

- Glad to be here.

Glad to be here.

- All right, so we're gonna talk about common fungicides.

So my question to you is gonna be this, why do we need fungicides?

- Fungicides are very important to primarily prevent diseases.

- Okay.

- With insects, you can see an insect problem and you can spray it with insecticides - Right.

- And kill the insect.

With a fungal disease, leaf spot diseases especially, things like that, you want to try to prevent those from occurring.

And if you already have the spots on the leaf, there is no fungicide on the market that will take those spots off.

- That's good.

- But you can hopefully prevent it from spreading.

- All right, so let's talk about some of the different common fungicides.

- One of the most common one is chlorothalonil.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And let me, at this point let me say, the trade name really is not as important as the common name.

The common name is chlorothalonil.

It is probably sold under several different trade names.

- Okay, and what do you mean by trade names?

- A trade name, I'm gonna give you an example.

- Okay.

- Daconil is a trade name for chlorothalonil, but chlorothalonil is in a lot of fungicides.

Because the patent has run out on most of these fungicides.

Most of these fungicides have been around quite a while.

But chlorothalonil and mancozeb are two very, very common fungicide that you will often see recommended for vegetable diseases; tomato blight, early blight, some of the leaf spot and rust and things like that that affect vegetables.

Captan is probably the most widely recommended fungicide for fruit trees.

Brown rot on peaches, black rot on apples, fly speck, a lot of the common diseases on apples.

Captan is the most common ingredient in home orchard sprays.

Sulfur is a biological fungicide that is also commonly recommended for fruits.

A lot of the fruit diseases, and I'm talking about the leaf spots, brown rot, and even black rot on grapes and things like that.

- Oh, I didn't know that.

- When you get into the roses and some of the ornamentals, myclobutanil, propiconazole, tebuconazole, some of them, these are systemic type.

- Okay, and do explain what systemic means.

- Systemic means that it is absorbed somewhat by the plant.

- Okay.

- There are locally systemic fungicides that are absorbed by the leaf and it may move a little bit into the leaf.

- Right.

- There's some that are a little bit more systemic that are absorbed into the leaf and may go right to the end of a chute, [Chris chuckles] or the end of a growing point - Right.

- A little bit.

And then there are some newer the fungicides that are out there that are totally systemic and they'll move throughout the plant.

- Right.

- All the way to the roots.

And those are some of the brand new ones.

And they will give you about another week's control from 7 to 21 days control if rain doesn't wash 'em off.

The contact fungicides are 7 to 14 days.

So you get an extra week if you go with some of the systemics.

And some of the systemics have a little bit of kickback activity, a little bit of curative problem.

You can have an infection that is less than 72 hours, and if that fungicide is absorbed into the tissue, it can actually help control that disease.

- How about that?

- So that's... And some of the ornamentals, if you're really into aesthetics, you want things to really look good, and that's why most of the time you see one of the systemics - Okay.

- Recommended for those kind of problems.

- Right.

- Copper is another fungicide, copper sulphate.

That will also has some bacterial activity.

In the pecan business, copper fungicides are very, very common to control of the diseases on pecan trees.

Some of the newer ones, and these are commonly used in turf grass, strobilurins.

- Oh yeah.

- Azoxystrobin, pyraclostrobin, those type of fungicide they'll control brown spot, brown patch and dollar spot in turf grass.

And they are also systemic.

The golf course, it's really important to keep those diseases, and in your home lawn also.

- That's right.

- Those are the most common ones.

Some of the botanicals that are out there, for folks that are organically minded, sulfur is one of those - Yeah, that's right.

- That I've already mentioned.

But neem has some fungicidal activities.

Clove and rosemary oils do, too.

There's a biological out there.

We're all familiar with Bacillus thuringiensis which controls caterpillars.

- Right.

- But there's a Bacillus subtilis [Chris laughs] that has some antifungal activity.

- How about that?

Really?

Never heard of that.

- Yeah, it sure is.

- Oh wow.

- And that's pretty much it on the most common fungicides that are out there.

I know that on the agricultural end, new ones come out all the time.

- Okay.

- And it's hard to keep up with 'em.

And there're some of the systemics that, you know, at one time, when you said systemic activity with a fungicide, you'd kind of - Yeah.

- Say, "I don't know about that."

- So, if you're a homeowner, how do you determine which fungicides you need to use?

- The label.

- Okay.

- Read the label.

A lot of these fungicides will control powdery mildew, downy mildew, leaf spots, rust, and things like that.

And you'll see that on a lot of fungicide labels.

It's probably a good idea to use more than one class of fungicide, because fungal diseases can build up a resistance to fungicides if you use the same fungicide all the time.

- Right.

- That's why, you know... And there are fungicides out there that have more than one chemical in them.

There are actually two fungicides together that also combats resistance.

They're a little bit more expensive, but they'll control more diseases, and it combats the resistance thing.

But, read the label, - Yeah.

- Try to identify the disease that you have.

- Yes.

- Or, I know on my fruit trees what kind of diseases that I'm gonna get.

And so I make sure that I use a fungicide that will prevent those diseases from occurring.

The thing about fungicides is you can spray during bloom, and sometimes it's necessary to spray when the plants are blooming because there are fungal organisms that can get into the blooms.

And actually, if you take the bloom out, you've lost your fruit.

- That's a good point.

- And the fungicides have no insecticidal activity, so they will not - Yeah.

- Hurt the honeybees, pollinating insects.

But know what disease that they're trying to take care of.

- I think that's the key, really.

- And then, make sure that the fungicide you choose has that disease on the label.

- Right, another question, so is it best to use a liquid fungicide?

- You know, I'm not aware of...

There are some powder fungicides.

- There's some powder, yeah.

- I don't think it makes any difference.

I know Benlate, benomyl, used to be a powdered fungicide.

- Sure did.

- But, you know, with the work that I do, have done in the past, almost all of the fungicides I've used have been liquid.

Personally, liquids are easier to get into solution.

- Yeah.

- But the powdered also are pretty easy to get into solution simply by slurrying them, - Yeah.

- Pouring them from one container to another.

Make sure that they're really in solution real good and really, you know, liquified before you put 'em in your spray tank.

That's very important.

And then continue, well any of 'em, you know, shake the tanks up, keep 'em agitated.

Even the liquid ones will fall out - Okay.

- If you don't do a really good job of keeping the tanks agitated.

- Okay, yeah, so the key is read and follow the label for sure, right.

- Read and follow the label.

Especially, one thing you need to be aware of is, most of these fungicides have withdrawal periods before harvest.

So make sure that you stop spraying well before the harvest.

- All right, well thank you, Mr. D. We appreciate that good information.

All right.

[upbeat country music] - We have some issues with our cucumber here.

It looks like it's got quite an infestation of squash bugs.

See, there's one right there.

I see one there.

I see one right here on the backside of this leaf.

This is a cucumber.

This goes to show that just because it's called a squash bug doesn't mean it won't attack other plants.

To control squash bugs, you need a pretty hot insecticide.

The synthetic pyrethroids are probably the best way to go; esfenvalerate or lambda-cyhalothrin, or one of the synthetic pyrethroids will do the job on these squash bugs.

And I consider that pulling out the big guns.

And with as heavy an infestation as you have, you need to do that.

The squash bugs have piercing sucking mouthparts, and so they're feeding on the stems and they'll feed on the fruit.

Insects with piercing sucking mouthparts can also spread diseases, viruses, and things like that, which may have some of that going on in this cucumber plant.

I would get rid of 'em as soon as possible.

[upbeat country music] - Alright, Mary.

So let's talk a little bit about the migration of monarchs.

- Okay, so monarchs are the butterfly that I brought along today.

And monarchs are really unique because they have a migration.

And most butterflies don't migrate.

But the monarch butterfly is gonna migrate all the way down to Mexico.

But it's not every monarch that we see, it's only the fourth generation in the year, which peaks around late September, early October.

And that's the generation that's gonna migrate all the way down to Mexico.

- Okay, it's a long journey all the way down to Mexico.

- It is, it can be up to about 3,000 miles.

- Okay, and this is the fourth generation?

- That's right.

- Okay.

- So all the other generations are gonna be laying eggs, and once those become caterpillars, then butterflies, they're gonna be moving further north up into just past the Canadian border until that last generation that migrates south.

- Okay, now what are of the challenges?

'Cause that's a long journey.

- It is.

- So there has to be some challenges along the way.

- Lots of challenges.

Some of them are gonna be not having fueling points.

So just like we're driving our car and we need to stop at a gas station.

Butterflies have to find some really good food sources.

- Okay.

- So things that we can do, plant late-blooming nectar sources.

- Okay.

- Also weather.

One bad storm along that journey can really affect them.

And really loss of habitat is one of the biggest things affecting them today.

- Okay, loss of habitat?

Okay, so what do we need to be planting for them then specifically?

- So, some of my favorites to plant right now, and so you wanna things that are gonna be blooming in late September and maybe even into mid-October.

- Okay.

- Some of the ones I brought around, goldenrod is a good one.

Blazing star.

The ones I have in here are late thoroughwort and frost wheat.

Frost wheat is sometimes called white wing stem, too.

- Okay.

- If you look on the stem, it's got little wings on it.

So those are a couple that I brought along with me.

Mistflower is another really good one, too.

- All right, now let's talk about citizen science projects.

What is that all about?

- Okay, citizen science is kind of what it says.

Citizen science is science that anybody can be part of.

- Okay.

- And so, we're gonna talk a little bit more about monarch citizen science, but citizen science is a kind of across the spectrum, everything from just reporting if you felt an earthquake to recording the first time you saw a hummingbird in the spring, or when milkweed is emerging or something like that.

So lots of different projects that anyone can be involved in.

- Okay, and this is something that folks have to call Lichterman Nature Center to learn more about or- - No, not at all.

If you just go on the internet and you look up citizen science, or if you're specifically interested in citizen science on birds or butterflies or plants, just look that up and there are thousands of different projects that you can participate in.

- Oh, good deal.

I know Mr. D mentioned earlier that you actually saw monarch butterfly when you were, what, fishing?

- I have.

I've lived a number of years down in Mobile, and I've seen them on the beach many times.

And I've been out fishing far enough out, you know, out of sight of land and I had monarch butterflies land on my boat.

And I don't know whether they're trying to take a shortcut or whether they got a north wind blew 'em out and they're kind of going along the coast or what, but it's, you know.

Sometimes quite a few.

You know, you see quite a few out like that.

It's kinda strange.

- Yeah, so sometimes, most of the time they're gonna migrate over land.

But like you said, a wind can blow 'em out to sea and they probably saw your boat and were like- - Good place to rest.

- Exactly, exactly.

- So you're right, weather does play a role - Absolutely.

- In their migration.

So just a little wind can just move 'em off course just a little bit.

How about that?

- Yeah, I think they weigh a little bit less than a paperclip.

- And I guess they can land on driftwood and rest.

- Okay.

- And now they, I don't know what they would find to eat out there.

- Right, not much.

- Not a whole lot, I wouldn't think.

But they don't have to have a big something to land on.

- Right, and just gonna hang out for a little bit.

All right, Mary, we're looking forward to going outside and tagging monarchs, right?

- It's gonna be great.

- All right.

All right Mary, let's tag some monarchs.

- Yes.

- So first, what type of equipment do we need?

- Okay, so if you're interested in tagging monarchs, the first thing you need to do is order the tags.

- Okay.

- And so you'll go to monarchwatch.org, order your tags, you'll get some tags, and these are what we're actually gonna put on the butterflies here in just a minute.

- Okay, those are real small tags.

- They are really small and what's great about 'em is they're not gonna affect the butterflies flight pattern or anything like that.

So they've done studies, really lightweight, special weatherproof glues, stuff like that.

- Okay.

- Really important too, you'll wanna get a toothpick because this is how we're gonna apply the tag to the butterfly wing.

- Wow.

- And need your data form, which you've got there.

- Yes, which I have.

- And a pencil.

- Which I have.

- And then to catch the butterflies, you wanna get a butterfly net.

And when you're looking at a butterfly net, you want one something with a deep pocket.

So when you're going over the butterfly, you're not gonna damage your plant and you're not gonna damage the butterfly.

- Makes sense, okay.

- Okay?

- And what's on the tags, by the way?

- Oh, great question.

- 'Cause I see some writing, - So it's pretty small, but on the tags there's going to be an email address, the name of the program which is Monarch Watch, a phone number, and a unique code.

It's three letters and three numbers.

- Okay.

- So each individual butterfly that's tagged can be tracked - How about that?

- From where it was tagged to where it was recovered.

- Okay.

- So a unique combination for each butterfly that we're gonna tag.

- It's pretty neat.

- Okay, so should we get to tagging?

- Hey, let's get to tagging.

- All right, so I brought along some monarch butterflies with me.

And tagging only happens on the southern migration.

In this area, like we talked about, mid-September into the beginning of October.

So, if you see monarchs other times of the year, they're great to watch, but we're not gonna be tagging them.

- Okay.

- Okay?

- Good to watch.

[laughs] - Okay, so let me reach in here and grab one out.

- And you've been doing this for a while, right?

- I have.

- I see you just go right in and just go.

- Yes, so not much hesitation.

So what we're looking for is we're gonna tag in one specific area.

We're gonna tag on this mitten-shaped cell, okay?

So I'm gonna read you a number.

This is gonna be our tag number.

- Okay, all right.

- It's WCM877.

- Got it.

- Okay?

So then the first thing we're gonna do is get this tag off and get it on the butterfly in case I accidentally let it go.

And then I'm gonna give you a little bit more information about it.

- Okay.

- Okay?

So we've got the tag on there.

And then, this is a male.

- Oh wow.

- So you can see the two, - Yeah, I can see it.

- Black patches there that only the males have.

- Okay.

- Okay?

So we've got a male.

- We got a male.

- And these are ones that we actually raised at Lichterman.

So you can put an R for reared.

- Okay.

- If you're collecting 'em in the wild, you just put a W. And then our tagging location is going to be Cordova, right outside the studios.

- All right, got it.

- And that's it.

So we put our hand out, give this guy just a second, and there he goes.

- Ah, there he goes.

So there they go, how about that?

- Yeah, good luck.

Hope they make it to Mexico.

- I hope they make it, too.

So what happens when somebody finds them again?

Can you talk about that process again?

- So most of the time people find them they have no idea what that little tag is.

So luckily, the tags have contact information, email, phone number, so people, if they do find them, can call or email with that unique code.

And then hopefully, we'll know that some of our butterflies either made it maybe to the Texas coast, but we're hoping we don't hear from 'em for a couple months and they make it all the way down to Mexico.

- Okay, and how long again do you think that process takes for them to migrate down that way?

- Well, they're gonna fly maybe 30 to 50 miles a day.

- Wow!

- So it could take month and a half, two months to get down there.

And then they'll spend their winter kind of all huddled together on this one type of fir tree down in the mountains of Central Mexico.

And then hopefully, they survive the winter down there, too.

And then make the trip back to the Texas coast starting like in March.

- I hope they make it.

- I hope so too.

I hope we get some recoveries, that'd be great.

- That would be great.

Thanks again, Mary.

Definitely appreciate that demonstration.

- Thank you for having me.

- Cool, all right.

[upbeat country music] Sweet potato vines are pretty easy to propagate.

So what I'm gonna do here, grab a couple of these vines here, cut in between a couple of leaves.

All right, I'm gonna do one more.

So I'm gonna take a couple of these bottom leaves off here.

We're gonna stick 'em in this water.

So what we're gonna do here is we're gonna stick this in a well-lit room and we're gonna see if it's gonna produce roots for us.

So, here are the sweet potato vines that I cut today.

Here are some sweet potato vines that were cut three weeks ago.

And as you can see, they're rooted pretty well.

So what I'm gonna do here is just grab one of these.

Ah, look at the roots, right?

Nice white, fibrous roots.

Okay, I'm gonna cut this part off.

Yeah, right there.

All right, I'm gonna go ahead and plant this in this nice soil mix that we have here.

So now this is potted up, what we're gonna do is let it stay here for about a couple of weeks.

We'll take it outside, we'll put it in shady conditions first, right?

'Cause we don't wanna stress it out.

We want it to get acclimated to the environment.

And then, maybe a week or so after that, we'll put it in the condition that it loves, which is full sun.

[upbeat country music] All right, Mr. D, here's our Q&A segment.

You ready?

- I am ready.

- These are some great questions, right?

- They are, they're some good ones.

- All right, here's our first viewer email.

"Which herbicide should I use for grassy weeds around my fruit trees?"

And this is Tyler from northwest Mississippi.

So yeah, you probably know something about killing some grass around fruit trees, I'm sure!

- I do, I do.

Around my fruit trees, I use sethoxydim.

- Oh, good old Poast, right?

- Yep.

- How about that?

- I am afraid of Roundup.

- Ah.

- Roundup does strange things to fruit, to a lot of fruits, especially grapes and peaches and things like that.

Roundup is labeled to be used around fruit trees.

And it will get more, it'll get the broad leaves and the grasses.

- Sure.

- But the question is about grass.

- Grass.

- If grass is your problem, sethoxydim will not hurt the fruit trees at all and it'll take the grasses out.

- Right, so what if there's some broadleaf weeds you know, around your fruit trees?

How about that one?

- Are you commercial or homeowner?

- Ah!

Okay, yeah, yeah.

- If you're commercial, paraquat, Gramoxone.

- Yeah, yeah, okay.

- It's labeled for use on fruit trees and it'll take out grasses and broadleaf.

- Okay.

- Do not use 2,4-D and dicamba because that also can create problems, - Strange things - On fruit trees.

- Yeah, to the fruits.

- And that's what common broadleaf material.

- Right, it sure is.

- So, I pretty much control the grasses and the broadleaves, mostly dollar weed, it's a vine, kind of, I pull them out, I mechanically pull 'em out.

But pretty much... - Okay.

- I live with the broadleaves.

I don't have many broadleaves - Okay, so you live with the broadleaves, you pull 'em out.

So yeah, thank you Tyler.

We appreciate that question.

Read and follow the label, okay?

- Yep.

- Here's our next viewer email.

"My corn has grown well, but the lower leaves are all yellow spotted.

Is this about the weather we've had this summer or is it a fungus or a disease?"

And this is Kathy from Snow Hill, Maryland.

She says, "It is not affecting the ears, "but the farmer's field across the street has the same problem."

- Very, very, very common.

Gray leaf spot.

- Gray leaf spot, right?

- Gray leaf spot on corn, don't need to worry about it.

The keyword there is it doesn't affect the ears.

- The ears, that's right.

- So it's a kind of a late-season, you know, mid to late-season disease that very, very common pops out on a corn.

And it's just one of those things that we live with.

- Yeah, yeah, and like she said, it's on the lower leaves.

- It really doesn't hurt the ear.

It really doesn't hurt the ears much.

- So don't have to worry about any type of spray, anything like that, right?

- I would not.

- Would not worry about it.

So thank you for that question, Ms. Kathy, all right?

And enjoy that corn, all right?

- Here's our next viewer email.

"I am trying to start a plum tree from a seed.

What do I need to do for success?"

And this is Ken.

[Chris laughing] All right, Mister D, all right.

- Ken, that depends.

- All right, it depends.

- Do you want a tree or do you want fruit?

- Okay.

- You can plant one from seed.

If you do plant from seed, and we'll go with that angle first.

- Okay, let's do that.

- If you go from seed, you need to make sure you stratify the seed.

- Aha!

- It needs to be refrigerated for six to eight weeks.

And, you know, peat moss or a moist container in the refrigerator.

And then you plant it, it will sprout and it will grow.

- It will grow.

- It will not be what the plum looked like that you ate because most plums are cross pollinated.

- Right, there you go.

- That means it will be, like the pecan I mentioned earlier, it will be half mama and half daddy.

And if mama's good and daddy's bad, then, - You got a problem.

- You got a problem.

So it's kind of a gamble because it's gonna take three to five years for you to figure that out.

That's how long it takes for a plum to bear.

- Okay.

- Three to five years.

- Three to five years, wow.

- If you want fruit, I suggest you purchase a budded two-year-old little plum tree, - Okay.

[laughs] - Two of 'em, - Okay, two.

- Because you wanna cross pollinate.

And you plant 'em and you take care of 'em.

They're like peaches.

They have brown rot, they have the same diseases as peaches.

They are gonna require a lot of spraying.

- Wow, spray schedule.

- You know, you may wanna consider going to your local commercial plum grower and buying 'em.

It's gonna be a lot cheaper.

- It's gonna be a lot cheaper.

[Chris laughs] - It's gonna be a lot cheaper.

- Might taste a little better, too.

- Yeah.

- How about that?

So there you have it, Mr. Ken.

And something else, you know about those seeds that I learned in school, right?

If you wanna know if those plum seeds are viable, put 'em in some water.

If they float, throw it away.

If they sink to the bottom, they're viable.

- Huh?

I didn't know that on the seeds.

- I was paying attention in class that day.

- We learn something new every day.

- Learn something new, right?

So thank you, Ken.

We appreciate that question.

- You can teach an old dog new tricks.

- Yes, you can.

Yes, you can.

Thank you Mr. D, that was fun, man, as always.

Thank you much.

- Yep.

- Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is questions@familyplotgarden.com, and the mailing address is Family Plot 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee 38016.

Or you can go online to familyplotgarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

If you want to see how to mix and apply fungicide or learn how to build a butterfly garden, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

We have those videos and hundreds more.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]