MSN_041819

malibusurfsidenews.com sound off
Malibu surfside news | April 18, 2019 | 13
Don’t Panic, It’s Organic
The long-term solution to fighting whiteflies
Andy Lopez
Contributing Columnist
Invisible Gardener
If you were having a
whitefly problem last
year, you know you
will have whiteflies this
year. As a matter of fact,
you are having the start
of your whitefly problem
right now! Whiteflies will
attack a wide variety of
plants from attacking jade
plants to fruit trees to roses
and many vegetables and
flowers.
What your plants have is
a mineral deficiency problem.
I tell folks that it is a
soil problem, but in many
cases, it is not the soil’s
fault, it is really yours
for planting something in
batteries
From Page 7
could help keep a system
operating within safer tolerances
for a longer period
of time, giving grid operators
and line workers more
time to respond to outage
events. Workers need time
to drive out to a site for repairs
or implement other
solutions to keep the lights
on for affected residents.
“We need to consider
battery storage and solar as
part of a toolbox to provide
customer resilience in the
face of the growing threat
the wrong place. When
plants have a mineral
deficiency problem, it is
usually due to one of two
things: soil not delivering
the minerals or the plant
is not capable of using the
minerals which the soil
sends to them. Let’s talk
about the plants not being
able to utilize the minerals.
This is because the
plant or tree is not getting
enough light to function
correctly. Most, if not all
plants, need approximately
8 hours of direct sunlight.
So even if the soil sends
the minerals, the plants
cannot process them. If
they are missing certain
minerals, they will get attacked
by pests or diseases.
Sometimes, plants are
planted in the wrong time
zone. This means they
won’t get either enough
soil heat or light or both
to function properly. Soil
PH also plays an essential
factor in mineral availability.
If you insist on
having the plant(s) there,
then I would start foliar
from wildfire. The catastrophic
events of the past
two years are forcing us to
rethink how the electricity
grid is built and operated.
Clean, customer-sited energy
storage and generation
may be a key enabler of
change and hence greater
safety for California communities
in at risk areas,”
said Michael Wara, Director
of the Climate and Energy
Policy Program, Stanford
Woods Institute for the
Environment.
To realize the energy vision
established in Building
A More Resilient Grid, the
company is further urging
feeding it with a complete
micro blend. It should be
a mix of micronutrients
as well as microbial life.
An excellent source is Dr.
Earth products. They have
been around for a long
time and now are available
at most local nurseries.
Their products have almost
all the micronutrients as
well as a comprehensive
source of microbes I would
then buy something like
Sea90 which has 90 trace
minerals and use the two
together.
The best PH range is
within 6.2 to 6.8. The farther
away from this range,
the less you will find these
specific type of microbial
life.
It is this microbial life
that takes minerals and
converts them into a nutrient-rich
build that is then
transferred to the plants
via the plant’s root system.
A specific microbe lives
on the root hairs which
has the job of transmitting
this food to the plants.
They also transmit other
California state policymakers
to embrace three specific
policies: eliminating
the cap for developers on
state storage incentives to
allow for community-scale
solutions to reduce wildfire
risk, raising storage incentives
for lower income Californians
in wildfire prone
areas, and passing the recently-introduced
California
Solar Bill of Rights.
“Last year’s wildfires
are a wake up call. We all
need to come together to
deliver solutions that will
make our energy system
safer for all. We can do
this,” Hoskins said.
information which can
come from other plants.
This is just one-way plants
communicate.
I talk about long-term
and short-term solutions.
There are many ways to
control whiteflies with
short-term solutions but
remember they are not
dealing directly with the
cause. As long as you
avoid the cause, you will
always have its effects.
While this makes money
for businesses in the pest
control world, it does not
solve the problem. So for
long-term whitefly control,
you have to start paying
attention to the health
of the soil. It will take a
long time to bring the soil
back to health. Regular
applications of living
compost and living mulch
along with various sources
of trace minerals like rock
dust and Sea90, will start
to change the soil and help
to bring back the living
army of the soil.
While this is happening,
you can spray the plants
with any number of safe
sprays. Here are a few and
not in order of importance
and you can mix them
other than where I say you
shouldn’t. Garlic will kill
any soft-bodied insect-like
whiteflies. You can either
buy (try Garlic Barrier) or
make your own. To make
your own just buy 1 oz
crushed garlic and place
into a pantyhose or sock
and tie into a ball and
let sit in 5 gallons clean
filtered water overnight,
squeezing the ball every
once in a while to get the
garlic juice out. The bag
will filter out the garlic
bits to avoid clogging up
your sprayer.
Cold Brew Coffee will
also kill whiteflies. Try 8
oz organic cold brew coffee
per 5 gallons clean water
and spray. When you
spray to make sure you
spray at night and cover
both upper and lower leaf.
Any questions or help? Email
me at andylopez@invisiblegardener.com
Poet’s Corner
A single
rose
Softly, silently , with no
hurrah
a single rose rises
proudly from the debris of
the fire.
flamingo pink, it defies
the devils of destruction
Deep wisdom of the
earth sends fine threads of
green grass
tendrils of life from the
fecund, stirring earth
rising from the flaming
flare of ruin.
Birds flitter and flutter
in a canopy of scorched,
leafless trees
Nature is doing what
nature will
replenish, restore, revive
and rejoice in new life.
Jacqueline Craven, Malibu
resident
Support Your Local
Hometown Newspaper
AND ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS OR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TODAY!
CALL FOR CLASSIFIEDS!
708-326-9170
Deadline Thursdays at 3pm
MALIBU SURFSIDE NEWS