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Intervals of clouds and sunshine. High around 65F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..

Some clouds early will give way to generally clear conditions overnight. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable.

Chip Bubl may be reached at at 503-397-3462 or at chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu. The Lincoln County OSU Extension Service may be reached at 541-574-6534.

Chip Bubl may be reached at at 503-397-3462 or at chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu. The Lincoln County OSU Extension Service may be reached at 541-574-6534.

Flying termites don’t indicate that your house is infested with termites.

The insects are part of our wood decay cycle and are very common. They certainly have been around far longer than humans in this landscape.

The reproductive forms of the termite fly this time of year to mate. Fertilized queens drop to earth, shed their wings and look for a suitable home. Suitable is the key A dampwood termite requires continuously wet wood. If there is no dirt piled up against your house or leaking pipes in the walls, you don’t have to worry about the dampwood termite. They can’t live there.

The subterranean termite is more devious. It must have moisture. But it can conduct moisture up mud tubes from the earth into your house structure. Crawl under your house once a year to look for these tubes. If you find them, you need to hire an exterminator.

It is interesting to watch the numbers of creatures that look forward to this annual termite flight. They include many birds especially swallows and Steller’s jays, bats, tree frogs, alli-gator lizards, yellow jackets (I have seen them grab wingless queens and haul them away to the nest), mound-building ants (they attack in groups), spiders, and so many more. This feast is probably millions of years old.

But don’t get too complacent. Carpenter ants are our number one wood destroying pest in Columbia County and they are very dangerous. They don’t require wet wood, though they do readily infest it. But that is a story for another column. If you suspect a carpenter ant in-festation, you should have your house inspected and develop a treatment plan.

Hollow centers are a peculiar disorder (not disease) of potatoes. It often strikes the largest, fastest growing tubers. However, you won’t notice the problem until you actually cut into the potatoes during dinner preparation. The heart of the potato is either streaked brown or is actually hollow, hence the names of the disorder, “brown streak” or “hollow heart.”

Older books say hollow heart is caused by uneven potato watering, especially on lighter (sandy) soils. That is part of the story but not the entire picture.

Newer research implicates my favorite mineral, calcium, in the disorder. Calcium is very important to cell wall integrity in plants. In addition, it is a mineral that is not moved easily from the soil up through the stems and into the various plant parts. Finally, the roots and shoots compete for the available calcium with the shoots generally winning.

This plays out in the potato as follows: during rapid tuber growth, the plant is still trying to put out new leaves. Calcium is absorbed through the main plant roots and most of that goes to the leaves. Even watering tends to encourage more calcium uptake. The tubers also have some roots that supply them directly.

Calcium those roots and it will absorb the developing spuds. If you can give the tuber roots some soluble calcium at the time of most rapid tuber growth, you can dramatically lessen hollow heart. Commercial growers are using calcium nitrate as a soluble fertilizer run through their irrigation systems at this critical tuber formation period. Home gardeners can use soaker hoses and drop calcium nitrate next to them to achieve the same results.

Other possible solutions involve the use of wood ashes around potatoes, applying gypsum pre-plant to add calcium without changing the soil pH (which increases potato scab) and avoiding varieties more prone to hollow heart like Russet Burbank and Kennebec.

Chip Bubl works at the OSU Extension Service in St. Helens. He may be reached at at 503-397-3462 or at chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu. The Lincoln County OSU Extension Service may be reached at 541-574-6534.

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