Essential Equipment Needed by Landscape Managers to Diagnose Landscape Disorders

I have spent over 42 years as a field-based Extension educator troubleshooting landscapes across the Mid-Atlantic states. When I am asked to visit a site, I carry an array of equipment and tools with me to accurately diagnose the problem or problems that may be arising in the landscape. When I prepare for my visit, I first pack a large masonry bag that contains a soil knife, a small masonry trowel, a few wood chisels, a hammer, a small shovel, a pair of pruning shears, an increment borer, a tree caliper, diameter tape, a pruning saw, loppers a pruning knife, and a drywall saw. Each of these pieces of equipment is essential when I am troubleshooting a landscape.

Most of the equipment I carry is self-explanatory, but a few pieces of equipment may seem to be a little unusual to have. When I visit a site to look at recently planted deciduous trees, I always will conduct a root collar exam. To conduct a root collar exam, I will use a small masonry trowel to carefully excavate the area around the trunk to a depth of 4–6 inches. The masonry trowel allows me to excavate the area carefully and will reduce the likelihood of tree injury during the excavation process. Detecting stem girdling roots around the trunk is the primary reason for conducting a root collar examination. Unfortunately, almost 80% of the trees I have examined have had one or more stem girdling roots. In many cases, the girdling roots are small, and with permission from the landscape manager, I can use the drywall saw and the wood chisels with the hammer to carefully excise the stem girdling roots from around the tree trunk.

The increment borer is usually considered a tool that foresters utilize to analyze the growth trends of living and dead trees. When called out to a site to look at oak trees that may be infected with oak wilt, I use the increment borer to pull samples from the trees for submission to Penn State Extension's Plant Disease Clinic for analysis. The branching habit of many large oak trees is such that it is impossible without a bucket truck to obtain quality branch samples for analysis. The increment borer allows the landscape diagnostician to stay firmly on the ground to pull samples from the oak tree trunk to gather samples for submission to the Penn State Plant Disease Clinic.

My second bag per se is an oversized plastic toolbox. It contains an electrical conductivity meter, two pH meters (it pays to be redundant), water alkalinity test strips, pH test strips, an assortment of plastic beakers, specimen containers, tweezers, nitrile gloves, plastic spoons, distilled water, plastic bags, calibration solutions, alkalinity titration kit, nitrate meter, potassium meter, alcohol (for specimen preservation), a multi-tool and a few spare batteries. The various meters and test strips are used to evaluate soils and/or water for elevated soluble salts, low pH, high pH, total alkalinity, soil nitrate levels, and soil potassium levels. These critical pieces of equipment help me to make an accurate field-based diagnosis so that the landscape manager can hopefully begin a mitigation strategy to "fix" the problem before additional plant injury or damage is observed.

The electrical conductivity and pH meter are the most essential pieces of equipment in the toolbox since elevated soluble salt levels can cause considerable plant stress and even plant death. Every plant has a preferred soil pH range. Many nutritional problems observed with landscape ornamentals are linked to low or elevated soil pH. Onsite testing with a soil pH meter allows the diagnostician to obtain immediate answers to implement a prescriptive intervention strategy.

My third bag is a soft-sided, padded roll bag that contains an optical visor, a hand lens, a digital microscope, a white clipboard, and a digital camera. The optical visor allows the diagnostician two free hands to examine the specimen when looking for minute pests. The digital microscope may seem like a luxury, but it will enable the diagnostician to magnify fruiting structures, mycelium, and minute insects and mites on plant samples. Most free-standing digital microscopes also have the capacity to record jpeg images, which can be shared with your state plant pathologist before sample submission or used as a teaching aid when training new employees.

When troubleshooting a landscape, it is critical to have the appropriate tools/equipment on hand to diagnose a problem accurately, timely, and efficiently.