The Heat Therapy sheet below shows the sap flow in heat treated trees compared to untreated trees.
Source: UF IFAS Extension
The measured time frame was between 10-Feb and 24-Jun.
- The lowest line in the graph colored blue blue shows the sap flow in untreated trees with greening and is pictured with almost 0 (zero) value
- The next line pictured in black shows the sap flow in greening trees that have been treated with steam in the month of May.
- The red line shows the sap flow in greening trees treated with steam in the month of October.
- The green line shows the sap flow in greening trees treated with steam in February.
The up spikes show when the tree was flushing and the spikes down show when the roots were flushing. The month of April is best visible as it shows the highest tree flush. May shows the highest root flush. The steam opens up the plugged phloem so that the sap flow can nourish the tree.
The lowest blue line shows untreated greening diseased trees that are well fertilized and well managed. These trees have almost no flushes as the sap or phloem can’t move water and nutrients because of the HLB bacteria plugging everything up.
When the bacteria are destroyed with heat, the tree gets back into production.
According to William Kanitz with ScoringAg this is the recipe to save trees and cut down cost to about $ 1,100/acre:
1. ScoringAg TreeSteamer© to kill the HLB bacteria in the above ground portion of the tree to increase SAR’s.
2. ScoringAg’s all natural high carbon Soil Amendment applied for one week to the soil before steaming helps roots to get SAR production up.
3. GreeningGard as a Soil Amendment applied one week before steaming produces a faster response for SAR production to combat HLB.
4. Treating irrigation water to keep the ph at around 6.7 for good root production.
For more information:
William Kanitz
President
ScoringAg
Tel: 941-926-3400