January is a cold, bleak month for a gardener.  However, the cooler temperatures, frequent rains and short days are needed for plants to complete their dormancy resting period.
    This is precisely the reason it is best to establish trees and shrubs now.  From a plant's standpoint, now is a good time to relocate or transplant trees and shrubs in the landscape.

    January is also typically thought of as the month to plant fruit trees.  Technically, container grown plants can be set out into the landscape year round with a few special considerations.
    Most fruit trees are still grown in nurseries that dig them, package them and ship them bare-root.  This must be done during dormancy.  Dormancy is usually defined as a time from the first hard freeze until just before bud break in the spring.  In Lee County, that is usually from about early December to late February.
    When most people think of fruit trees, apples, peaches, pears and plums come to mind first.  All of these fruits can be grown here in Central Alabama.  In order to achieve success though, a rigorous spray program to control diseases and insects must be followed.  Extension has spray guides, varieties which do best in area and other general information on growing fruit trees.  Visit our website at www.aces.edu and go to publications.

    If you are like me and find it difficult to follow a strict spray schedule, try fruits that require MINIMAL spray attention.
 Muscadine grapes, Oriental Persimmons, KIWI Fruit, blueberries and figs all do well with minimal to no cover sprays.
    All fruit, no matter what selection will require supplemental irrigation at least sometime and perhaps MOST TIMES during their life cycle.  Drip tubes with emitters or a drip hose is the most efficient and economical method to irrigate fruit trees as well as other landscape plants.

    No one likes to think what they are eating or feeding their kids is unsafe.  Bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE has dominated the news during the past two weeks.  "Mad Cow Disease", another term for BSE, irritates scientists but excites the public.
    According to Dr. Jean Weese, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System food safety expert and Auburn University associate professor of nutrition and food science, the image of one's brain turning into sponge after eating meat from a diseased cow is enough to leave anyone weak in the knees.  But could it be that this image is nothing more than that- a horrific image with little basis in fact, conjured up largely through media hype?
    The prevailing view is that a mysterious protein like particle, known as a prion, found in the brains of cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease, is linked with what some scientists believe is a new variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
    Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a devastating condition that destroys the human brain in much the same way BSE affects bovine brains.  All forms of CJD are similar to BSE in cattle.  But what is perceived to be the newer form of CJD, typically known as nvCJD for new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, was not detected until the 1990s, at about the same time cattle in Britain tested positive for BSE.  This led some scientists to conjecture that eating beef from animals with BSE could result in an increased risk of developing nvCJD.
    But what began as speculation has never been proven conclusively, Weese said.
    "With the evidence we have now, I'm not willing to say that eating beef from cattle infected with BSE causes a variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans," she said.  "In fact, there is no conclusive evidence that CJD is caused from eating beef of any kind."
 

Chuck Browne is a county agent with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System in Lee County and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.  He can be reached at 749-3353 or cbrowne@aces.edu