Where to grow tree collards

Tree collards should be three feet apart. And they will readily cross-pollinate with other members of the cabbage family. Tree collards grow best in nutrient-rich, slightly alkaline soil.

Tree collards thrive in dappled shade and prefer protection from afternoon sunlight. They do not grow well in full shade.

Tree collards are relatively drought tolerant but perform best in well-aerated soil with regular mulching and top dressing. And they’ll grow bigger and better with regular irrigation in summer. It’s always a good idea to have your soil tested by a reputable lab before fertilizing. Adding too many nutrients can cause more problems than nutrient deficiencies.

Tree collards pests and diseases

These plants are relatively trouble-free. Imported cabbageworm butterflies are the primary pest of tree collards. Handpicking the caterpillars and extermigating the eggs are your best control methods. Snails and slugs are less of a problem than seen on their shorter cousins. And aphid infestations tend to be localized and short-lived. Let the ladybugs and other beneficial insects take care of those pests for you. Ladybugs won’t be able to do anything about the deer and other herbivores, though.

Powdery mildew is a common problem for tree collards, so maintain good airflow and keep your plants healthy.

To keep your tree collards attractive and productive, it’s a good idea to prune out stems as you harvest leaves. If you want your tree collards to reach full height, you may want to stake them upright. When growing naturally, they tend to fall over, creating an arching tangle similar to a blackberry bramble.

We’ve all heard social networks help us to be healthy and successful. It ends up that trees have been networking quite intimately for a very long time.

Tree networking takes two forms. They frequently share nutrients indirectly, using soil microorganisms as go-betweens. And they fuse their root systems in natural root grafts, called anastomoses.

How do roots graft?

Natural root grafts occur when relatively small roots of two different trees come into contact with each other. As they grow, they fuse, creating mutually accessible cambium layers and vascular bundles that allow them to share water, nutrients, and the products of photosynthesis. 

Why does this happen?

More than 150 plant species exhibit natural root grafts, according to researchers. There is debate about whether this occurs due to overcrowding or if plants purposefully graft their roots onto neighboring roots. There is also debate whether this action is beneficial or verging on parasitism. Most researchers lean toward the mutually beneficial explanation. Potatoes and strawberries frequently graft their roots onto neighboring plants of the same species. Surprisingly, some natural root grafts are between different species.

Benefits of natural root grafting

Natural root grafting provides several benefits to all parties involved. Those benefits include improved stability and water and nutrient sharing. These benefits help keep neighboring trees healthy, making them more resistant to wind and herbivore damage. In one study, trees with natural root grafts were found better able to recover from a spruce budworm attack.

Tree root grafting allows groups of trees to share water and nutrients. It also forces them to share soil-borne pests and diseases, such as Dutch elm disease and apple proliferation. 

For me, this is yet another example of the amazing processes going on underground. I was stunned to learn that plants can hear. I wonder what will be discovered next.

Plants respond to heat

When plants are hot and dry, they protect themselves by closing pores found on the underside of leaves. These stomata control the rate of gas exchanges used by plants in photosynthesis. This respiration can be slowed by as much as 50% during periods of extreme heat. Unless your plants are drunk.

Pints and plants

Recent research has found that many plants can thrive during drought if they are given ethanol. Ethanol is alcohol. It ends up that plants produce alcohol when they don’t have enough water. This fact led some researchers at the RIKEN Centre for Sustainable Resources Science to wonder if the same processes could be used to protect plants.

Alcohol is abundant and cheap to make. Did you know that U.S. bars mark up their alcohol by an average of 400-500%? But back to the plants.

Researchers compared wheat and rice plants that had been treated with alcohol to those without. The plants were deprived of water for a couple of weeks in summer. Only 5% of the untreated plants recovered, while 75% of the alcohol-treated plants were able to resume growing once watered. Those are some significant numbers!

The scientists radio-tagged the alcohol so that they could see where it went within the plants. Plants that were given alcohol started behaving like they were in a drought even before the water was cut off. This helped them to be better prepared than their teetotaling brethren. Not only did they make better use of the water they had, but they also used the alcohol to create sugars to provide themselves with energy and perform more photosynthesis, even though their stomata were closed.

Now, this doesn’t mean you should go around giving your pumpkin plants shots of tequila. That would be a bad idea. What it does mean is that an occasional spilled beer might not be such a bad thing and we should all be on the lookout for more specific instructions as the research continues.