Cambistat and Verdur
Cambistat & Verdur Produce Positive Results In Your Trees
By Russell Peters
As most of our long-term clients are aware, we are very cautious about trusting all the literature and rhetoric we read and hear from manufacturers/ vendors when contemplating new products for your trees. We always try these products for a year or two in our soils, trees, and environmental conditions of north central Texas. We must feel confident these products will do what we are telling you they will do and provide the value to your trees that we promote.
Some of you may have had conversations with your Arborist about growth regulators, or iron treatments, or possibly both. Now that we have been offering these treatments for a few years and have had the opportunity to observe the results, we wanted to provide an update of these products.
The first product we made available, Cambistat, is one that limits a tree’s growth rate. The final results relating to your trees have all been consistent with the expectations we promoted.
A growth regulator’s behavior of slowing or stopping a tree’s annual increase in canopy size has been useful when applied after the pruning of trees for utility line clearance. The small delay in effectiveness after application allows a tree to re-grow a soft appearance in the portion of the canopy that has been pruned for electrical line clearance. These products then begin to dramatically slow or stop the rapid re-growth that can occur, thus reducing or eliminating the future need for utility line clearance by the electric company. NOTE: It is important to keep the re-treatment schedule current at 2-4 year intervals.
Cambistat has also proven useful to reduce or slow down the re-growth after pruning trees away from pools, structures, or desired open areas. These are only two of the many benefits a tree growth regulator can provide for your trees, and we encourage you to contact your Arborist with any questions you may have.
The other new product we offer is an iron treatment called Verdur. A full year has passed since we began offering this product, and we are very pleased with the results observed in your trees. Because this product is applied in the fall and winter, positive results are enjoyed in the spring.
The iron treatment is useful when encountering yellowing or chlorotic trees. Many of these ailing trees are marginally to poorly adapted to alkaline (high pH) soils found in most of our service area. Some trees immediately show chlorosis after planting while others take years to be affected. For those of you who have these mature trees and can not bear to part with them, this is an effective treatment to keep the tree looking greener through its maturity. Many of you may want to try this treatment on younger trees before giving up on a tree that you have already invested a few years in establishing. In both cases, Verdur has reduced or masked the iron deficiency symptoms. There have also been positive results on well established trees that become yellow after some significant disturbance in their root environment. Note: It is important to keep the re-treatment schedule current at 2-4 year intervals or as soon as the positive greening effects begin to slowly fade.
We need to mention that if a tree is yellow because it is poorly adapted to our soils or sustains significant root disturbance, the iron treatment should not be used alone but with a deep root fertilization program to improve the entire root environment of the tree. The iron treatment does not change the condition of a poorly adapted tree species, but it does improve the color. There should almost always be a discussion about tree replacement when considering the treatment of very young trees. There are other situations where the iron treatment may be beneficial to your trees. Contact your arborist to discuss these and many of the other services we provide.
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