Fungus amung us
For the past 3 years, our Crenshaw melons have succumbed to a fungus that wilts the leaves and vines just about the time the fruits are ripening. My pumpkins aren't getting quite that far. I have used a fungus-cide. Even when I use something to keep the squash bugs at bay, the vines wilt down. We are considering putting our brush pile of branches and tree clipping on the area so that when we burn the brush, it might superheat the soil eliminating some of the problem. any thoughts?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Marsh on -
Sounds like Fusarium Wilt. Have you tried resistant varieties?
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Permalink Reply by joyce on -
With heirloom tomato's, this is always the problem. Those darn yellow leaves, I keep pulling them off. But obviously that does not solve the problem. Last year I lost a lot of my tomato plants because of the fungus. I'm completely organic so I don't want to use any chemicals, but this fungus is really hard to fight. Don't know what to do either. Anyone out there know how to fight this? Or maybe what can be done to prevent it.
joyce
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Permalink Reply by Phillip on -
Have you tried rotating your susceptible crops to a different part of the garden? If you keep planting cucurbits in the same space every year, you'll likely have the same problems every year. If you have room (and it sounds like you do), try moving your squash, pumpkins, melons, etc. to another section of your garden and/or separating them with crops from other families to help prevent the spread of common diseases. Annual rotation of various crops helps keep plant-specific pathogens from building up in the soil and attacking their favorite host plants from one year to the next.
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Permalink Reply by Morrell on
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I have this same problem with cumcumbers every year and I think the same thing happened to my squash last year. I would like to know how to prevent this also.
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Permalink Reply by savvy-teecher on -
looks like these might be our culprits:
1. fusarium wilt
2. squash beetles
3. squash vine bore
geez. so many culprits. I do work on squash beetles and bores. they are quite a pest. those eggs on the underside are a challenge. I am thinking, that in my case, wilt might be the main problem.
our garden isn't that large, and rotation is a problem. So, I'm probably going to find another spot in the yard for melons and pumpkins. Hope all the replies might help you, too. Good luck!
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Permalink Reply by kctomato on -
my guess is you are probably seeing bacterial wilt. so its not a fungus but rather a bacterium.
its brought in by cucumber beetles. it doesnt take the beetles long to infect a plant so they dont have much opportunity for the insecticides to make a big difference. insecticides can still reduce problems.
bacterial wilt can be spotted easily if you break an effected stem and a sticky ooze comes out. Usually it "strands between the ends of the breaks like "snot" (for lack of a better term).
you have to control the cucumber beetles (two kinds striped and spotted). one way to do so is with floating row covers. the problems with floating row covers and melons/squash is that you still need to let bees in the AM to pollinate or hand pollinate them yourself (which isnt hard to do just a matter of timing and gender ID).
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/hortcrop/pp656w.htm#wilt
rotating crops for this disease doesnt help that much. cucumber beetles are what bring it in and they are mobile.
Be careful using insecticides on crops which rely on bees for pollination.
If anyone is intrested in hand pollinating cucurbits I made a page years ago when at school. It also has a list (somewhat dated) of pesticides that are toxic to bees.
http://kdcomm.net/~tomato/xcuc.html
Though it can effect squash, if a squash plant suddenly wilts it likely the result of the squash vine borer. The stems wont ooze. Rather somehwere near the base you might find what looks like a pile of sawdust and a hole in the hollow stem. Inside will be a worm/borer that is causing damage. Sometimes you can make a slit in the stem and remove them if its not too late. One easy way to prevent sqaush vine borers is to apply a reflective mulch to ANY place a stem touches the ground. The SVB adults land on the ground, back up to a stem and lay their eggs. Reflective mulches are thought to work by confusing the SVB adult as to which way "up" is and they dont tend to land in these bright places. White plastic mulch works fine for this. Ive seen some wrap the stems in aluminum foil.
Squash vine borers are not the same as squash bugs.
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