Berry’s Picks

Live Oaks and Healthy Texas Youth Ambassador Program Announcement

The 0 to 2 degree temperatures were enough to burn the leaves on most all live oaks in the area. Most live oaks, and many other trees that currently have leaves, also suffered freeze damage, these trees will defoliate, but should be ok.

However, it is difficult to determine the true extent of this damage until after spring greenup.

Trees are quite resilient, and the damage should not be as bad is it initially seems.

While we did get very low temperatures, we had little ice damage from the last storm.

If your oak trees were damaged by a recent ice storm, you may be wondering what you should do to clean up the damage while also protecting them from oak wilt.

While painting fresh wounds on oak trees is important to prevent the spread of oak wilt, wounds that were caused by the ice and snowstorms are no longer fresh.

In cold conditions, trees quickly stop exuding sap and sap-feeding beetles are not active, so it is unlikely that oak wilt will spread as a result of an initial ice storm event.

If you did have limb breakage from ice or snow loads, pruning may be required now.

Prune safely within your ability and DO NOT remove limbs on or near power lines.

For work you cannot complete safely or that is beyond your ability, find a Certified Arborist. https://isatexas.com/for-thepublic/find-an-arborist/.

Be sure to immediately paint any new wounds on oak trees that are created during cleanup using wound dressing or latex paint. Immediately means make one cut then paint it before making the next cut.

Clean all pruning tools with a 10% bleach solution or Lysol™ before pruning a different tree. Additional cosmetic pruning of oaks should be delayed until summer, once the threat of oak wilt spread has decreased.

Avoid pruning oaks February through June! Any trees that are not oaks can be pruned at any time and painting the wounds is not necessary.

Healthy Texas Youth Ambassador Program Announcement

The Healthy Texas Youth Ambassador program is seeking motivated, passionate, and hard-working teens to improve the lives of Texans! Are you or do you know a teen that is looking to make a difference in their health and the health of others or possibly has in interest in a health-oriented career?

If so, the HEALTHY TEXAS YOUTH AMBASSADOR PROGRAM is the perfect opportunity for them to become trained in health, wellness, and safety while acting as a student assistant to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension agents, helping to provide leadership with programs. Become knowledgeable and skilled in the healthy lifestyles subject matter.

Learn to coordinate and present educational events that will encourage better health in your community. Give 40 hours of service to improve the health of your community.

This program is designed for high school age youth (grades 9-12) who have a passion for health and wellness.

These youth will be trained at the regional level to become youth health experts who can motivate others to make a change in their lifestyle to improve their health. Ambassadorship is a 12-month commitment, beginning June 2021 to May 2022. For more information call the office: 325-356-2539 and/or check out the Healthy Texas Youth Ambassadors website: https://healthytexas.tamu.edu/resources/youthambassadors/.