dendrite

I’m on the waiting list with them for the darling 58 if/when it gets FDA approval. I’m growing natural mother trees here now.

Long, but good, read on the transgenic chestnuts. https://psmag.com/ideas/most-controversial-tree-in-the-world-gmo-genetic-engineering

I'd just be wary about introducing something not native that could damage more down the line than just EABs.

And yeah...more hope against EAB? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23216-6

They're coming.

Not yet...been wiping them out with the pruners and loppers.

lol Did he graduate?

I’m pretty sure the transgenic ones are going to get FDA approved in the next 2 years. All they changed was 1 gene. It doesn’t even kill the blight...it just allows the tree to be able to handle the acid it produces. Studies so far show that it doesn’t change anything with beneficial forest fungus, bee pollination, leaf litter decomposition, etc. Frog tadpoles have a higher survival rate in water with the chestnut leaf litter versus those from leaves from other trees too. Makes you wonder how much of the frog decline is due to that too. Anyway, they’re coming. Just gotta save the elm, ash, and hemlock now.

65/58 Warm but not warm enough here. DIT would be angry having to tie his B.U.M. Equipment sweatshirt around his waist so he can throw it on when he gets that chilled weenie by the fire.

Pic with a quarter for reference. Thank you Di! The smaller ones are mostly dark now and the larger mostly green.

Storm drains got blocked. My guess is the hail flowed and piled up in low draining areas as water drained out through it. Impressive either way.

After Lava mentioned it, I found some of that around my chicken run too. The flowers fully open def look like creeping buttercup. I’m not a weed expert, although I’ve been trying to ID many of them since getting chooks.

Glad we don't live in Wyoming.

Anyone an expert on hickory nuts? Diane braved the heat and humidity to Nashville to collect me some and I have some in different sizes. I know shellbark are the largest followed by shagbark and then either mockernut or pignuts, but I’m not sure how large each nut hull is supposed to be...I just know the relative sizes. I’ll post some later, but maybe @tamarack will know? i feel like I either have ovata with some ovalis, or laciniosa with some ovata.

9 days of 90s later...

We don't have much of a problem around here with areas of overgrown fields with wildflowers and weeds for the bees and beneficial insects, but it must be tough being one of those little buggers in suburbia...anally manicured lawns, pesticides, nothing overgrown, etc. I wish everyone had a little patch of their yard with an area of native wildflowers and/or weeds. It's funny, but the greens I notice my birds eating the least are the zoysia and cold climate grasses. They love clover, dandelion, plantain, and anything related to a crabgrass. I'm trying to grow bocking 4 comfrey for them from root cuttings too, but I see no sign of rooting from them yet. Anyway, RIP this morning to Sophia, our last white leghorn. She was the perfect little forager and must've laid us 500-600 eggs before she stopped in February. We suspect she was internally laying, but she had ups and downs from that point until the past week. She actually had times when she seemed to be her normal energetic self. But the last week she declined rapidly. She spent the weekend in the spare bedroom with no energy to move and hopped into the rainbow nesting box this morning...our first loss since June 2017. She will be very missed, but the flock must go on. RIP Sophia

We pollen.

I'm not an expert, but yeah. I'd let it all grow for now as we get into deep summer. Keep it on the longer side too. Let those roots grow down deep and keep the sfc moisture up.

MPM with some subtle humble bragging in this thread.

Actually now that i look again it looks like yarrow. I’ll vote yarrow and creeping buttercup.

Yellow flower though...creeping buttercup maybe?

Wild fennel and geranium?

Raining pollen today.

Congrats on your flooding. lol

You guys make my 0.71” look like Yuma.