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Plant disease inspectors to go door to door in Beaufort, Colleton area.

CLEMSON — Clemson University and USDA plant industry officials on June 9 will begin conducting a house-to-house search for a harmful plant disease in the Beaufort area. Searchers will be looking for citrus plants with citrus-greening disease. The disease poses a serious threat to the citrus industry nationwide. The public’s assistance is needed in finding citrus plants in backyards in the area.

Clemson University Department of Plant Industry (DPI) personnel and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Plant Protection and Quarantine (USDA APHIS PPQ) inspectors from South Carolina and Florida will conduct the survey for citrus greening disease (Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus), also called Huanglongbing (HLB).

Surveys will begin Tuesday and last for 2 to 4 weeks. Inspectors will cover the city of Beaufort and Beaufort and Colleton counties. Personnel will be going door to door because most citrus in South Carolina is grown in residential settings. Surveyors will contact homeowners in the targeted areas, beginning with city of Beaufort.

Surveyors will carry photo identification and credentials from their agencies.

The purpose of the survey is to determine the extent that citrus greening exists in South Carolina.  It is a significant threat to citrus plants. However, there is no risk to people. The fruit from diseased plants is safe to eat but may be unappealing.

Officials ask the public’s help in locating citrus plants. It is vital to determine if the citrus greening disease is present in Beaufort and Colleton counties in order to prevent it from reaching citrus-producing states, such as Arizona, California and Texas.  Beaufort and Colleton counties are included in the survey because the insect for citrus greening was detected in those counties last summer.  However, the disease has been detected only in Charleston this year as of May.

It is not always possible to detect diseased plants by sight, as symptoms may be difficult to identify. Residents can contact the USDA at 843-746-2950.

For more information about citrus greening, go to the USDA Website: www.SaveOurCitrus.org.

State plant industry officials have set up a webpage on which people can report suspected citrus greening. The website is http://www.clemson.edu/public/regulatory/plant_industry/invasive_exotic_programs/

A Clemson University News Services press release provides background on citrus greening. The release is available online: http://www.clemson.edu/newsroom/articles/2009/april/Citrus_disease.php5

In Beaufort, contact Clemson Extension Agent Laura Lee Rose for more information.  Her contact number is 843-470-3655, ext. 117.

In Clemson, contact Christel F. Harden, Department of Plant Industry

Clemson University, at 864-506-5386 (cell).

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President’s Message

I'm Will Balk, and I thought I might give a sort of introduction of myself as your new President.

My first garden memory is of presenting my mother with a fistful of lovely flowers when I was four years old. I had seen them in Mrs. Riley's yard next door and had plucked them for Mama, without permission of course. I was promptly sent back to apologize, and Mrs. Riley, bless her heart, warmly accepted my apology and then took me around her beautiful garden and introduced me to her beloved plants, naming them and describing them with affection.

We were living at the Sandhills Experiment Station, outside of Columbia, where my father had taken his first job on the research faculty after returning from the Pacific in WW2. It was the beginning of an extended relationship with the Clemson Extension Service and with horticulture, since my father retired some 35 years later as the Director of the Edisto Experiment Station in Barnwell County. My four siblings and I grew up on several thousand acres of  horticultural and agricultural research, and many of my summer jobs were in assisting the research of the scientists and farmers and horticulturists on the Station.

I am a hopeless plantsman – not so much a gardener.  It's the joy of  learning a plant or a species or a genus, of trying to comprehend its peculiarities and quirks and demands that gets me most excited. Design and layout are joyful diversions for me, but it's the knowledge and its acquisition that really gets my blood rushing.

And all this has molded me. I'm hopeful that this lifelong devotion to things horticultural has provided me with the abilities I'll need in helping LMGA prosper and in working with and learning from all of you Masters of gardening.

Now back to getting my hands dirty!

MG Volunteers Urgently Needed

We have a number of ongoing projects where help is needed right now including:

Ask a Master Gardener Hotline in the Beaufort Office.  Senior Aide and MG Ginny, who was working 20 hours per week, is no longer with the C Extension Service.  Let’s try and fill those hours with MG volunteers.   The CES needs us more than ever right now; please offer to help. 

Turf Love and Rent a Master Gardener projects are both in need of more volunteers. 

One (or more) persons with experience using Excel spreadsheets. 

Scheduling volunteers – this can be done from your home phone. 

Historians – one or more volunteers from each region are needed to read the local newspapers and other publications and clip articles pertaining to the LMGA. 

Volunteers are needed to make note of gardening activities in the area and submit the dates, times and contact information to the local project coordinators for the newsletter and website. 

In May we hold a one day Lawn Care Workshop in Bluffton.  Volunteers are needed for publicity, poster distribution, soliciting donations, room set up and break down, information booths, logistical support, refreshments and many incidental volunteer opportunities. 

Please contact your Beaufort, Hilton Head or Bluffton project coordinator if you can help out in any way. 

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