Yellow Shoulder of Tomato

What causes the tops or shoulders of ripening tomatoes to remain green or turn a bright yellow instead of red?   This is a case where beauty is not just skin deep.  The fleshy part of the tomato just beneath the yellow shoulders is less flavorful and may have a different texture.  A number of different factors have been shown to play a role in causing this.  Some tomato cultivars are more likely to have the problem than others.  In the early 1900′s, scientists discovered that a genetic mutation in tomato resulted in uniformly red tomatoes and this gene was bred into many commercial varieties.  This has been reported by some to be associated with a less flavorful tomato, possibly because of a lower level of sugar and lycopene in the fruit.

Yellow shoulder is consistently associated with high heat or overexposure to sunlight.  Fruit removed from the vine and placed out of the hot sun just as it starts to pink will develop uniform red color while fruit left on the vine and exposed to a lot of sun might develop yellow shoulder.  Uniform red color is expected by most of today’s shoppers.  But did you notice that most nice, uniformly red supermarket tomatoes don’t have the same flavor as heirloom or other varieties?  Could be related to that ‘uniform ripening gene’.

What this means is that while the shoulders might be a bit less flavorful, the rest of the tomato has great flavor potential!  If the fruit is otherwise firm and healthy, don’t reject those yellow shouldered tomatoes.  If you grow your own tomatoes, you can choose from the many varieties including heirlooms that don’t have this trait.

To prevent yellow shoulder, you can try to avoid over exposure of the ripening tomatoes to excess sun by taking steps to prevent pest and disease problems that cause a loss of foliage (and shade), avoiding excessive pruning,  and harvesting early to finish ripening in a more moderate environment.  Ripening off the vine may result in a slight flavor difference.  Reduce disease by using practices that promote dry foliage.  Create good airflow around the plants by using ample plant spacing, supporting plants using stakes, cages or trellises, and pruning indeterminate varieties to 1-2 main stems per plant.   Avoid overhead irrigation or use it early in the morning.  All this helps because many fungi that cause foliar diseases of tomato can only cause infection if there is a film of water on the leaf surface.  In addition, make sure fertility is adequate.  Lower potassium and calcium levels in tissue analysis studies have preceded the development of yellow shoulder symptoms.  More info is available in this 2011 University of Delaware crop update.

J Allen

 

Stink bugs

Green Stink Bug (R. Bessin, 2000), KYU.edu

Green Stink Bug Nymph (R. Bessin, 2000), KYU.edu

The center has been receiving a higher number than normal of calls and emails about stink bugs. The nymphal stages are appearing now feeding on all types of fruits and vegetables. Stink bugs have a piercing/sucking mouth part used to stick into plants and produce to eat. Their feeding results in damaged vegetables and fruits and plants. All stink bug are shield-shaped and have  five segmented antennae. They are in the family Pentatomida, Greek for five segments referring to the antennae. Stink bugs have barrel-shaped eggs the adult female lays in groupings called rafts, on the underside of leaves. Eggs hatch into nymphs that gather around the raft of empty eggs until they molt into their second stage. Each stage after hatch and molts are called instars. Stink bugs have five instars until reaching adulthood. Eggs are laid during June and July and typically take five weeks to reach maturity. The highest number of populations will be during September until we have cold weather and frost. Adult will over-winter in leaf litter and other protected sites. These same adults will emerge on spring when temperatures are a steady 70 degrees F. and begin the annual cycle again. There is only one generation a year in the Northeast.

There are 55 different species of stink bugs in Connecticut, 16 are predators that feed on other insects. The remaining 36 are plant feeders. these are the ones gardeners typically notice and are not happy about finding in their gardens. Damage to fruits and vegetables are from their piercing/sucking mouth parts injected into the  produce as the insect sucks up the juices. Control measures are handpicking, row covers to keep the insects off of the plants and searching for and crushing egg rafts earlier in the season.

Connecticut has a new invasive stink bug from Asia. The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug was first found in the U.S. in 1998 in Pennsylvania. It has quickly spread east and north to us. BMSB can occur in high numbers damaging crops and is also quite a nuisance as it seeks over-wintering shelter in homes and buildings. Exclusionary measures of caulking and screening openings, such as vents and crevices will keep them out of the house.

brown marmorated stink, psu.edu

-Carol Quish

BMSB later stage nymph, Penn State Univ.

BMSB Nymphs, Penn State Univ.

 

Fish Hooks, Polliwogs and Purple Passions

I am loathe to admit, because of the horrendous drought affecting so much of this country, that this past weekend we got several downpours. In between the torrents, I did manage to do a bit of harvesting. The dozen or so cloves of garlic and the red onions were dug up and put in a tray to cure. Typically, the garlic bulbs and onions are allowed to cure for about 3 weeks in an area with warm temperatures and low humidity before storing at cooler temperatures.

Onion seedlings from the Knox Parks plant sale

Red onions

 

This is the first year I tried onion seedlings instead of sets and to tell you the truth, I’m sold! I picked up a small flat of red onion seedlings at the Knox Park Foundation plant sale last spring and set about 2 dozen red onion seedlings into the ground. They then were mulched with shredded paper (courtesy of Worm Day) and now the tops are bent over and browning. My red onions are not that large (about 2 – 3 inches) but are flavorful and inspiring enough to buy and sow some onion seeds next February.

The beans, both the pole and the bush needed to be harvested and when I was picking I noticed two heat related issues with them. The pole beans were all curved like fishhooks and the bush beans had a fair percentage that were yellowish in color and hollow (often referred to as polliwogs). Apparently the hot, dry weather is responsible for these conditions. We’ve had a number of days with temperatures in the 90’s and most beans are happier with daytime temperatures in the mid 80’s and nighttime temperatures dropping 20 degrees or so. (I suspect many of us are too). So high temperatures combined with sporadic rainfall and no supplemental irrigation are causing problems with beans.

Yellowing, hollow beans

Fishhook beans due to drought/heat stress

I have noticed that over the past decade or so, my gardens have gotten more and more purple. In the vegetable garden I grow purple cabbage, purple kohl rabi, purple radishes, purple Brussels sprouts, purple onions and of course, purple eggplant. Not only are they attractive but they combine quite nicely with many self-seeding and direct seeded annuals for great color combinations. Also those pesky caterpillars that feed on cabbage seem a bit less enthusiastic about chowing down on the red cole crop varieties.

In the past I have written about the many self-seeding annual flowers that just spring up all around my garden. One of my favorites is flowering tobacco (Nicotiana alata). The white, tubular flowers emit this most intoxicating, spicy perfume especially prevalent on warm, summer evenings. I usually leave about a dozen or so each year in various spots in the vegetable garden. That means I weeded out literally hundreds of seedlings that are where I don’t want them to be. I do usually deadhead but that last October snowstorm left lots of garden chores undone in the gardens.

One of the plants I left looks like your typical flowering tobacco in height and growth form except the flowers turned out to be a lovely, pale lavender color! And unlike many of the other shorter hybrid cultivars, it has that same lovely scent as the white ones. I am planning to save seeds from it and see if they come true. Mother Nature is full of surprises and rarely does a day of work out in the garden fail to find one.

Pale purple scented flowering tobacco

Soil-fully yours,

Dawn

 

The Wasp Watchers and EAB in Connecticut~ Using a native wasp to find Emerald Ash Borer

On July 20^th a press release was issued by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) announcing that the Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) was found in Prospect and Naugatuck, Connecticut by staff members at CAES.

Cerceris fumipennis -left              Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) -right
Photo-Philip Careless

Emerald Ash Borer

The emerald ash borer (“EAB”) has been responsible for the death and decline of tens of millions of ash trees, from the mid-west to New York State and south to Tennessee.  Connecticut now becomes the 16th state known to have EAB within its borders.

Cerceris with EAB
Photo Phillip Careless

The Connecticut discovery was made as part of a program that closely monitors a native, ground-nesting, and non-aggressive wasp (Cerceris fumipennis) that hunts the emerald ash borer as well as other beetles in the Buprestidae family. The wasp catches beetles in often inconspicuous locations such as tree canopies and brings the paralyzed beetle back to its ground nest to feed to its larva.   “Wasp Watchers” is a biosurveillance program made up of trained observers (many of them volunteers from the UConn Master Gardener Program) who watch over these native wasps and collect the prey they bring back to their ground nests. Cerceris caught the emerald ash borer in New Haven County and a Wasp Watcher found the EAB as it was brought back to the wasp’s nest.

The nests are often found in large colonies of independent burrows, the active wasps are capable of presenting the human observer with many buprestid beetles in a single day. These colonies are frequently found in areas disturbed by human activity and are easily accessed for surveys. Sandy soil along the edges of playgrounds and baseball fields located near forested land often shelter the wasps’ nests. Fortunately, Cerceris fumipennis is an easy going wasp and it appears that association with the Wasp Watchers is not detrimental to the wasp.  Cerceris fumipennis show no inclination to sting humans even when their just caught prey is taken.

Cerceris nest entrance
Photo-Philip Careless

 

Harvesting beetle from Cerceris

No one is sure how EAB entered Prospect or Naugatuck, but the movement of infested firewood has been previously linked to the spread of this invasive pest into other states. To prevent further spread of this and other invasive species, do not move firewood long distances, find local suppliers or purchase kiln-dried wood that is certified to have been treated to destroy insects and pathogens.

Comprehensive information on the beetle, its life cycle, what to do if you think you found an EAB and what can be done to prevent further infestations and more can be found at:

http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?A=2697&Q=464598#Connecticut

L Alexander

 

Eastern Dobsonfly

This unusual insect was found on a University sidewalk, swarmed by scavenging ants, as the final moments of its life slipped away. A curious passer-by interrupted the insecticidal carnage to bring him into the Home & Garden Center for identification. Corydalus cornutus commands attention because of the large size of its adult phase, and, in the male of the species, those formidable, sickle-shaped mandibles.

The Dobsonfly begins life as an egg deposited on rocks or vegetation close to fast-moving stream. The grayish-white egg mass resembles a bird dropping, likely an evolutionary adaptation to discourage predators. When the egg hatches in 1-2 weeks, a tiny larva falls or crawls into the water and undergoes an aquatic phase for 1-3 years. There, a predator itself, it sheds its exoskeleton 10-12 times, until it achieves a size of nearly 4” in length and a prehistoric appearance straight out of a Hollywood horror film. It’s armored with hard dorsal plates for protection and a pair of hooks at the end of its abdomen for stability in moving water. When fully grown, its fierce mandibles are powerful enough to draw blood. Although aquatic, the hellgrammite’s respiratory system allows it to breathe in or out of water. The name Dobsonfly comes from a fisherman’s term of the late 19^th century, “dobsons.” Much prized as bait, its tough exoskeleton endures through several catches.

Having completed the larval stage, the insect leaves the stream to find a suitable damp location under a rock or log to pupate. Talk about horror films – this emergence is a curious synchronous event of mature larvae called a “hellgrammite crawl, believed to be triggered by the vibrations caused by thunderstorms. The pupa is unusual in that the insect has full mobility and is able to defend itself against predators. This phase may vary in duration from two weeks to overwintering, depending on climate.

Adult dobsonflies live only about three days (males) to 10 days (females) and do not feed. Normally found in vegetation bordering streams, they are active at night and are sometimes seen near dwellings because of their strong attraction to lights. The male’s pincers are used in the courtship ritual and for jousting with other males, but are not for grasping females during mating as was previously believed.

Dobsonflies are members of the order Megaloptera (“large wing”). Relatives of the lacewings (Neuropterida) which they closely resemble, they are North America’s largest winged insects other than the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). They are not well known because of their brief lifespan in the adult phase.

Corydalus cornutus is found throughout the eastern U.S., from Canada to Mexico. A top predator in its aquatic phase, it plays an important role in riparian biodiversity. Its presence is an indicator of unpolluted water.

J. McInnis

 

H2O

With the dog days upon us, getting adequate water to our gardens can be a concern. Water is essential to all life. Plants use it to transport nutrients and to maintain turgor – the cellular pressure that keeps soft tissue from wilting.  Plants absorb water (containing soluble nutrients) through their roots and ultimately release it into the atmosphere as vapor through small pores (stomata) on the undersides of leaves in a process called transpiration. Although invisible, the cumulative volume of water transpired by Earth’s plants is prodigious, producing 10% of the atmosphere’s water vapor. One large oak tree can transpire 40,000 gallons per year. Drought stress occurs as transpiration continues and soil moisture is exhausted.

Wilting muskmelon plant
Photo: Erika Saaku, Iowa State

Transpiration rates increase with:

1. High temperatures
2. Low humidity
3. Wind
4.  More soil moisture
5. Larger, thinner leaves

Hydrangea or squash leaves wilt on hot, dry, windy days because the transpiration rate of these large-leafed plants is faster than the plant’s ability to take up available moisture from the soil.

At the other end, if a plant’s root system is compromised or undeveloped, extra care must be taken to ensure survival. The process of digging and transplanting exposes roots to the air, damaging or destroying delicate root hairs. Recovery can be difficult with the additional stress of hot weather. Provide shade and plenty of moisture to allow these essential single-cell structures to regenerate. In some cases, cutting back some of the leaf mass to reduce water requirements is advisable.  Old-fashioned advice for transplanting instructs: “water once a day for a week, once a week for a month and once a month for a year.” A very inexact guide to be sure, but a good reminder that transplants have high water demands at first and need to be weaned gradually over time.

Container-grown plants often have root systems a fraction of the size of an equivalent plant growing in the ground. Regular watering is a must, particularly when  containers are made of porous clay or fiber. Potting mixes are commercially available that contain polymer crystals which can dramatically increase the water-holding capacity of potting soils in containers.

Measuring irrigation output

“Deep and Infrequent”

This mantra of watering advice emphasizes the need to train turf grass and landscape plants to develop deep root systems in search for water. Shallow, frequent watering encourages the growth of roots close to the soil surface, making the plant vulnerable to drought stress.  Shrubs and trees with weak, superficial root systems are also more likely to topple over in a windstorm.

Root growth of turf ceases at soil temperatures of about 70°, so lawns should be encouraged to develop deep root systems during the cool weather of spring and fall. Summer watering of lawns is triage; keeping the patient stable until temperatures drop. Overwatering results in excessive growth and increased risk of fungal disease, while wasting water and fertilizers that can potentially contaminate waterways.

Mulch conserves soil moisture as it suppresses weeds and dresses up the garden.  Organic mulches mimic the natural duff on the forest floor, creating a hospitable environment for microbes, fungi, insects and worms as they perform their function of decomposing organic matter and releasing nutrients.

Managing water in the garden is a skill that gets honed over time, as the gardener develops sharper instincts for plant requirements. Water is also a surprisingly efficient and environmentally sound way of ridding plants of some insect pests such as aphids and spider mites – simply knock them off with a forceful spray from the hose. Regular flooding will discourage ground-dwelling bees and wasps (yellow jackets) from nesting in inconvenient areas.

Water makes the garden more pleasurable for people and animals alike. Bird baths, gurgling fountains, lawn sprinklers for children or ponds with fish and frogs create a richer environment and a cool oasis of refreshment on a hot summer’s day.

Children swinging in sprinkler, 1964
Photo: Museum of History & Industry, Seattle

J. McInnis

 

Brass City Harvest Fights Food Insecurity in Waterbury

Two years ago Leslie Alexander, state coordinator of the UConn Master Gardener Program and I visited Susan Pronovost at Brass City Harvest in Waterbury.  Susan, a Certified UConn Master Gardener, is executive Director of BCH, an urban agriculture program which has grown to encompass many community garden plots, an urban farm in the city’s Fulton Park, food kitchens and several Farmer’s Markets. At the time a greenhouse was nearing completion in the Crownbrook neighborhood, sharing the site with community garden beds and a children’s garden.

Now a second Brass City Harvest site is almost ready for occupancy in the city’s South End. Built on a reclaimed brownfield, there is a modern greenhouse, a hoop house and raised garden beds for community gardeners. This facility will contain a kitchen and bathroom in order to serve as a year round growing space, classroom and community meeting site. Local residents will be invited to cooking demonstrations, then receive groceries to prepare at home. Multi-generational family activities are planned.

 

New Brass City Harvest Greenhouse

 

Demonstration Kitchen Under Construction

As in the Crownbrook greenhouse there are two 400 gallon fish tanks where trout and sunfish will be raised. These tanks also support rafts of hydroponically grown lettuces.

 

Fish Tanks Waiting Residents

The fish will be sold at Waterbury Farmer’s Markets in addition to supplementing soup kitchen offerings. Local restaurants are interested in adding BCH-grown vegetables and fish to their farm-to-table offerings.

Brass City Harvest recently signed an agreement to open a year-round Farmer’s Marketa at 19 Field Street, in the center of Waterbury. Planned to open in early November, this market will feature CT Grown produce, fish, baked goods and more.  Prepared entrees will be available allowing downtown workers to shop the Farmer’s Market after work and take a quick, healthy dinner home.  BCH is also been selected by the Wholesome Wave Foundation to become part of the Double Value Farmer’s Market Coupon Program for 2012. This enables those using EBT, WIC and Senior Nutrition Farmer’s Market Coupons to double the face value, up to $12 per visit per person or household.

Susan is assisted at BCH by Rick Povilaitis, a Clinical Social Worker who brings services to the homeless, including a number of military veterans.  Rick is able to provide them with nutritious meals, housing and useful work through the Reaching Home Campaign.

Volunteers from UConn Waterbury, Naugatuck Valley Community College, and other community organizations enable Susan and Rick to accomplish all this.  In April, 2012, the situation looked dire when a fire at an abandoned factory across narrow Mill Street threatened the newly erected hoop house and greenhouse as well as neighbors’ homes. Fortunately, no one was harmed and work on the greenhouse continued as Susan, Rick and several of the veterans tended street side beautification projects in addition to their other projects.

UConn Master Gardeners and others are encouraged to assist with the ongoing, and growing, projects of Brass City Harvest.  For more information contact:

Brass City Harvest

73 Hill Street

Waterbury, CT 06703

Phone: 203-596-3484,

Email: Susan.ponovost@snet.net

Or find BCH on Facebook or brasscityharvestwtby.org.

Jude Hsiang

New Haven County Coordinator, UConn Master Gardener Program

 

Why I Like To Weed

After a long, busy day at work, I like to find an hour or two most evenings to work out in the garden. It is cooler then and sometimes a soft breeze can be had. I do have a bit of hand watering to do with 32 thirsty container plantings but then I can plunk myself down in the aromatic herb garden or amidst the vegetables or in one of several perennial/shrub beds and pull up weeds. While it sounds crazy to most, this is relaxing horticultural therapy for me. It gives me time to let my mind wander and pleasure at seeing a weed-free garden bed, and also keeps me in touch with what is happening in the garden and in the yard.

Ideally, mulch of some kind would get put down after weeding but this does not always occur in a timely fashion. A few beds were mulched with a bark mulch but with the hot, dry weather, the surface of the mulch has become hydrophobic (water resistant) and one has to either keep the sprinkler on for a long time or ‘prime’ it by poking a few holes in the mulch around the base of the plants to let the water penetrate and not roll off. I am having this problem because of late plantings (some last weekend –great summer sale at local garden center!). So I have overgrown 6-pack plants in small holes in very hot and dry weather. The root zone needs to be soaked every day and the bark mulch is repelling water.

Back to weeding. I found 3 Large Cabbage White caterpillars in one of my ‘Gonzales’ mini-cabbages. They were promptly removed and squished. Two other caterpillars to look for on members of the cabbage family are the imported cabbage worm and cabbage looper. They all seem to like green cabbages better than red ones. Hopefully that goes for Brussels sprouts too as I planted “Rubine’ red ones this year.

Damage from cabbage moth larvae

Dill self-seeds itself throughout the garden. This is great when drying the leaves for culinary purposes but there is a limit as to how much dill weed one can use. Many dill plants are weeded out but not before I check to see if there any eggs or larvae of the black swallowtail butterfly – aka parsley worm. Plants with caterpillars on them are left alone.

Parsley worm on dill

Not one honeybee to be seen but in these later evening hours, bumble bees and other native pollinators are still active. They really like the leeks that made it through the winter and are in full bloom. Good reading on the decline of our native bumble bees and what to do about it can be found in Conserving Bumble Bees. Guidelines for Creating and Managing Habitat for America’s Declining Pollinators from the Xerces Society.

In the herb garden I get to munch on pineapple strawberries and bronze fennel leaves while weeding. A cocoa hull mulch will go on this weekend. Most years there is a leopard frog or two living in the thyme bed but this year only grasshoppers are jumping about. Garlic chive seedlings are prolific as that October snowstorm dashed seedheads to the ground before they were deadheaded. Two of the four tri-colored sage plants overwintered but curiously several branches of plain-colored sage emerged from each plant and are now blooming. I suppose I should cut them off but the bees are so enjoying the blossoms.

Last year all leaves were variegated – this year plenty of green!

Early evening also brings avian visitors to the yard. The bird baths and feeders get filled then and cardinals, goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches and more line up for food as if knowing what they don’t eat now will probably be consumed by the squirrels in the morning. The past few days a couple of juvenile red-winged hawks have been chasing each other in the back woods and putting up quite the ruckus. A wren perches on the tomato stakes as if to check out my work. The spicy perfume of nicotiana permeates the area. Crickets softly chirp. Life is good!

A very bad picture of a very noisy young hawk!

(Uh oh – mosquitoes buzzing – time to go in!)

Soil –fully yours!

Dawn

 

The Lowly Earthworm

Pile of earthworms. Urbanext.illinois.edu

The soils supporting our home lawns, vegetable and perennial gardens are improved by the presence and activity of earthworms. They are considered beneficial in the plant world. Earthworms move through the layers of soil creating tunnels for water and oxygen to reach the plant roots and channels for root growth. Their movement increases drainage and reduces compaction. Often called “nature’s rototillers”, earthworms feed on organic matter, bacteria, fungi and small soil particles in varying depths depositing their castings, or feces, in other horizons effectively turning the soil over. Castings are rich in nitrogen and nutrients easily absorbed by plants. Their feeding aids decomposition of organic matter, aerates soil, creates good soil structure and develops humus. The Rothamsted Experimental Station in England has done research finding as many as 250,000 earthworms per acre. That is a lot of subterranean work happening! Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to recognize the benefits of earthworms. His last book written in 1882 is on the worm biology and behavior. His discoveries of earthworms are still being seen today.

Often after a rain, earthworms come to the soil surface then re-enter the ground head first. Some scientist think the worms come to surface for air if the ground is saturated. Others believe chemicals in the rain are inhospitable by changing pH and chemical amounts from acid rain. Still others think since the surface is moist, the worms come to the surface to mate. Earthworms are negatively affected by drying out by the sun therefore most surfacing happens at night. The action of tunneling back into the ground squeezes the worm leaving a pile of castings above ground. The casting look like tiny round balls piled up in a pyramid up to two inches depending on the size and type of the worm. Casting piles normally go unnoticed unless the turf is cut exceptionally short like that on golf course greens and tees. Home lawns should be cut to a height of at least three inches. Wet piles can stick to mowing equipment gumming up the blades and gears. The piles are easily dispersed once they dry.

Earthworms breathe through their skin. Oxygen is absorbed by mucous on the outside surface of the worm where it is transferred to the internal organs. This is called a gas exchange. The circulatory system of the earthworm contains five hearts or aortic arches. They pump fluids to blood vessels and capillary beds throughout the body circulating back to the hearts. The earthworm’s digestive system starts with its wide opening of a mouth that its throat or pharynx protrudes out of grabbing organic matter, soil particles and all that they contain. This food is swallowed down to a storage area called a crop. The food then moves to the gizzard where it is ground up by strong muscles and tiny stones and grit swallowed by the worm. Once the food is sufficiently ground, it moves to the intestines where digestive juices extract nutrients and some are absorbed by the worm. Excess digested food is then excreted as worm castings. It is these castings that are rich in nutrients readily available for plant roots to pick up. Earthworms don’t have eyes but are sensitive to light, vibration, touch and chemicals. They want to be in darkness and will move away from the light.

Chemicals added to lawn and garden can kill the earthworms. Preferred pH levels are neutral to 6.6. Adding lime in large doses can be too shocking of a change in their environment. Many earthworms will move to areas with better suited conditions or they may just die. Some insecticides and fungicides have lethal effects on earthworms. Researchers have also found earthworms within chemically treated soils to contain up to 20 times the toxin levels than the soil the worms inhabited. Stored toxins built up in the earthworms could then be passed up the food chain to animals using the earthworms as food.

Earthworms are classified as animal invertebrates. They are in the phylum group Annelida, meaning segmented worms.   Each segment contains four tiny setae or claw like bristles used to move through the soil.  Worms are hermaphroditic;  each worm has both male and female parts with the male pores located on the outside of the animal. Earthworms are not self fertile. They need another worm to mate and reproduce. Each worm is fertilized in the mating process called cross-fertilization.

The most common earthworms found in Connecticut are Lumbricus terrestris, called the Night Crawler, and Lumbricus rubellus called Red Worm. Night crawlers are known to venture deep into the soil in permanent vertical burrows. The will come to the surface to feed also. Red worms prefer to live in a manure pile or area with high organic matter. Both of these earthworms originated in Europe and were introduced to North America unknowingly on plant material, ship ballast, wheels and shoes of immigrants. Native earthworm finding are very rare. It is not known whether native types were wiped out by glaciers scraping the earth or if the new earthworm invaders displaced the old. Different theories exist. What is known is that the earthworms that are present today are many, active and busy decomposing and recycling organic matter in rich new topsoil.

There are some invasive worms originating from Asia that are causing problem in some areas of North America. They are such fast consumers of organic material they are changing the layers of soil and eliminating the forest floor called ‘duff’. Some birds nest in the duff areas to raise their young. Insects and animals that also reside and feed in the fast disappearing habitat are also finding it hard to live. The effect of the exotic worms in the local habitat really is upsetting the ecological balance. Some populations that depend on the areas the worms are ruining might vanish forever. Research is presently being done but much more needs to happen. So does education of the general public. Some fishermen are using invasive worms for bait, then just dumping the leftovers on the ground. They are unknowingly spread the invaders. ATV and off-road enthusiasts also can pick up soil, worms and eggs in tire treads, then depositing them far from the initial infected site. Hopefully in the not too far future, more information and education programs will be available. Keep watching!

-Carol Quish

 

 

Swarming Honeybees

Swarm of honeybees in a tree. Photo by J. Allen

I recently had the opportunity to see a swarm of honeybees in a tree.  It was pretty impressive: a ball of living honeybees about a foot across on a branch a few feet overhead.  A few bees were coming and going to and from the swarm.  These bees are scouts that leave the swarm in search of a good place for a new hive.  When a colony reaches the size where it needs to be divided an egg that will become a new queen is nurtured.   Sometimes, even before the new queen has hatched, the old queen will leave the hive with a swarm of workers in search of a new hive location.  The swarm gathers and awaits the finding of the new location.  The new location may be in a hollow tree, building cavity, or other protected place.   Beekeepers can collect these swarms into a manmade hive for pollination or honey production.

Once a swarm leaves the old hive and moves to its temporary location, it will stay there until a scout finds a new spot.  This can take anywhere from a few hours to a week or so.   For the first couple of days, the bees in the swarm are very docile and this is the best time to try collecting them.  After that, they have been without food long enough to be a bit testy and are more likely to become agitated and sting.

If you do see a swarm of bees, you should do one of two things.  One is just leave them alone.  Honeybees are important pollinators and their population is decreasing significantly due to several  problems in many areas so it is important not to become alarmed and kill them.  If you would like the swarm removed, you can contact a bee specialist who will be glad to come and collect them.  Contact information for the Connecticut Beekeeper’s Association is available at their website.  More information on honeybees can be found at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station website and at the UConn IPM fact sheet on bees and wasps.  A great general reference on honeybees can be found at the National Geographic website.

J. Allen