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Protect your garden when temperatures soar
When unusually hot weather is in the forecast, it's time irrigate, shade and mulch plants to protect your plants, reported Sandra Barrera in the Los Angeles Daily News.
The story was prompted by a heat spike in Southern California recently, when temperatures soared above 110 degrees in many areas.
"While most plants can endure triple-digit temperatures, they suffer when heat comes on suddenly," the article said.
- When a plant is dry, it's already stressed, so give it a good soaking before temperatures rise.
- A patio umbrella, bed sheets or landscape shade cloth suspended on the sunny side of a plant will shade tender growth on hot days.
- A three- to four-inch layer of mulch around plants will cool roots and hold moisture.
One of the best ways to avoid heat damaged trees and plants is by planning a garden for the climate.
"In Southern California, Sunset zones are preferred over USDA zones due to their greater accuracy," said Janet Hartin, UC Cooperative Extension environmental horticulture advisor for San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties.
The American Horticultural Society also has a Heat Zone Map to select plants adaptable to inland and desert climates. The map has 12 zones searchable by city. Each zone designates the average number of days per year temperatures exceed 86 degrees, which is considered by the point at which most plants begin to suffer heat stress.
"The numbers are relatively conservative and many plant enthusiast experimenters are already finding that many plants - under the right conditions and a little shade - do just fine outside of their listed heat zone," Hartin said.
UC programs provide heat illness prevention training
Record-breaking heat led to 12 farmworker deaths in 2005, bringing the issue of heat-related illness to the forefront for California labor activists and legislators. New laws enacted since then call for employee and supervisor training, fresh water at work sights, access to adequate shade for rest and recovery periods and written documentation on site that provides information about the regulations.
As the hottest August on record comes to a close, the next essential task has become educating California’s diverse population of outdoor workers and their employers about the heat illness prevention rules, according to an article on HealthyCal.org.
At the heart of the educational efforts are “Train the Trainer” workshops in which representatives from UC Berkeley’s Labor Occupational Health Program along with UCLA's Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program, and UC Davis’ Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety train representatives from schools, advocacy organizations, cultural centers, churches and health centers who in turn reached out to thousands of outdoor workers in their respective communities, the article said.
Related to this story, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources has a Heat Illness Prevention page on its website with the following articles:
- Ten key points about heat stress
- UC gives tips for coping with heat stress
- Heat illness symptoms and first aid
- How heat affects the body
- Preventing heat-related illness among agricultural workers (pdf)
Visitors can also download bilingual (Spanish and English) heat illness prevention handouts from the website.
In 2011, of 753 heat enforcement inspections, 76 percent of employers were found to be compliant.
Heat wave takes a toll on San Joaquin Valley agriculture
Six consecutive days of San Joaquin Valley temperatures topping out over the 100-degree mark are impacting agricultural production, reported Bob Rodriguez in the Fresno Bee.
Rodriguez talked to UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors to learn about the recent hot weather's effect on tree crops and grape vines.
"Trees and plants just seem to shut down when it gets this hot," said Kevin Day, University of California Cooperative Extension advisor in Tulare County. "And the fruit just doesn't ripen."
Grape growers face similar challenges when the mercury rises.
"Instead of producing sugar and enlarging the berries, the vines just maintain," said Stephen Vasquez, UCCE advisor in Fresno County, viticulture.
The high temperature around the Valley is expected to be about 101 today. More pleasant weather begins Saturday, when temperatures return to normal for this time of year, the mid- to upper 90s.
When the weather gets really hot, grapes go into survival mode.
Heat wave generates hits
With a heat wave settling in on California for the next few days, the UC ANR news and information office shared its collection of helpful information for preventing heat stress in outdoor workers, which is compiled in a media kit on the news and information Web site, http://news.ucanr.org. The news release went out yesterday, and the information was made available to the Fresno Bee's 157,546 readers this morning.
Cool!
