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Southeast

I have recieved many emails encouraging me to continue growing and I thank everyone. I guess the question is and I think I kmow the answer? Is ther anyway to completely eradicate fusarium 100%? Thanks Dave

8/23/2005 8:12:57 PM

Topsfield, Ma.

For what it's worth David, 3 years ago I lost my two plants
to some soil ugly...mushy vines...oozing goo. Pulled both plants and discarded. Continued adding cow poop, leaves and tilling. The uglies are always around in some numbers, they just prosper when conditions are ripe. I didn't do any fumigation or other major correction. I may have just gotten lucky, who knows? Give it another shot, what's to lose? Best wishes, Duff

8/23/2005 8:31:13 PM

Southeast

I got it at the end of last season and man did it multiply despite buying all the clearys in the world.

8/23/2005 8:58:55 PM

Western NY

i'm one of those believers in the organic way, so i'd go with a drench of the highest quality compost tea you can get your hands on. plus the usual cover crop rotation.

8/23/2005 9:06:46 PM

Montoursville, PA

To whatever else you do this fall add twenty to thirty pounds of corn meal to the 1000 sq. feet. Standard manures, minerals and leaves blessed with lots of fish and molasses is the cure. If you can get it a light application, of fowl, chicken, turkey and so forth does very much support your good bacteria and good fungi. On the foul....don't get carried away. Two wheelbarrow loads would be my suggested limit, on a 1000 sq. ft. patch. Finally get a cover crop, in there, and growing, by the second week ,in October.

8/23/2005 9:52:58 PM

Follansbee, Wv

The following if from: http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Cucurbits_Fusarium.htm and is a very good read on Fusarium.

"Both races can be internally or externally seedborne. But F. solani f. sp. cucurbitae apparently survives for only one to two years in seed. Infection does not appear to affect seed viability or germination. Although the fungus produces abundant chlamydospores, it apparently survives for only two to three years in soil, which is much less than F. oxysporum or even other formae speciales of F. solani.

Fusarium crown and foot rot occurs sporadically in most areas, and disease severity depends on soil moisture and inoculum density. In the two cases where fruit rot occurred in New York in 1995, needed moisture was added by trickle irrigation, which is not a normal grower practice. This undoubtedly provided more constant moisture for the fungus to develop on the rind in contact with the soil. Because the fungus survives in the soil for only two to three years, a four-year rotation is usually adequate for disease control. Planting fungicide-treated seed also reduces disease initiated from infected seed."

8/24/2005 8:41:17 AM