Learning new tricks to fight diseases

[steev]

Sometime around the 80's, all sorts of useful things were "banned" due to their potential harm, such as silver nitrate solution as a swab for newborn's eyes (prevents blindness due to VD carried by the proud mama) since silver nitrate is poisonous, which is exactly why it worked although in too dilute a solution to harm the baby.

I think this frenzy of safety regulations coincided with the tipping of the ratio of engineers/lawyers graduated from our colleges toward the latter.

There is an iodine solution called Povidone iodine which is an excellent antiseptic and sealant for small owies; I always like to have it in my first aid kit, and I think it's the brown stuff they swab you with prior to surgery or drawing blood. Kills those bacteria buggers dead, and a fine thing it does, in my opinion. If it damages some of the healthy cells in the wound, tsk. A spreading infection can do so much more damage, so much more widespread.

"Titratable" just means is in a form that can react with some substance of a known concentration to produce a distinct change of conductivity or pH so that from the amount of the reactant needed to reach that point, you can calculate the amount of the titratable substance that there was in your sample. This will be on the test.

"Cats-ass-trophy", what a fine addition to my collection of pungent American idioms!

[Hristo]

Interesting find/share Michel! I may try it this year for the Powdery Mildew on my squashes and see if it works for this (nasty) fungal disease.

[canadamike]

i have had success against PM on squashes by diluting the normal dose of sulfur by a factor of 3, without any harm to the plants. It might be worth it to try that too.

[Hristo]

So far sulphur is the best I used too, but requires very frequent spraying, because it leaches easily and I'm afraid to not burn the leaves. I also used sodium bicarbonate with some medium success. On my Atlantic Giant plants I have used all available non-organic fungicides in all possible combinations/mixes and concentrations and the result is always the same - PM wins. At lest the good thing is that PM is not problem every year and even in bad years only lowers the yields (and the quality), but at least is not completely devastating.

[grunt]

What about trying an epsom salts spray? The sulfur content (magnesium sulfate) might do the trick, with less chance of sulfur damage.
Just a thought, with nothing to justify it.

[Hristo]

I wish sulphates can be as effective as pure sulphur, but I doubt. Also magnesium sulphate is kind of hard to find here. Calcium/Potassium/Iron/Copper sulphates are much easier to find.

Speaking about sulfur does anyone uses Lime-sulfur/Sulfur-lime? This fungicide mixture used to be very popular long time ago, but nowadays it's largely forgotten and nearly no one use it (at least here). Probably the biggest reason for this is because it's harder to prepare than lets say Bordeaux mixture and much, much harder than the commercial pesticides. I like the Bordeaux mixture's persistence (hard to wash off by the rains) thus does not need to be sprayed very frequently, but it does not work for PM and I wonder if Lime-sulfur is as hard to wash off?

[steev]

I like lime-sulfur, because there are suggestions that too much copper isn't good, especially for apricots. I only use either of these as dormant sprays, though. Given that PM is a mold, I wonder whether dilute vinegar would be as effective as bicarb, although I would expect either would need frequent application. although both would be pretty harmless and inexpensive. Maybe alternating them would be more effective than either.

[Hristo]

Not sure if vinegar can help, probably it can given it's acidity, but since it's used as organic herbicide I do not know how thick is the border between it's fungicide and herbicide concentration.

[canadamike]

I sure would not use vinegar, what it does is dissolving the links between cells in leaves. Lime sulfur seems like a good idea from where I stand, I will trial it this summer if need be, which is a probability.

We sare using yucca extract to make our vinegar stick to the leaves better, it might be a good idea with sulfur too. It is mainly made of saraponin, a very potent phytosteroid, it makes plants hungry, hence they open their stomatas more for a better delivery of whatever it is mixed with.

I have seen pictures of fields of alfalfa sprayed with kelp, then with a mix of kelp and 10% yucca. You would hardly believe the difference.

It might be a good idea for giant vegetables growers...

[Hristo]

When we still had sheep I used whey (5-10%) as surfactant and it was excellent even on onions and cabbages also I was told it has some other benefits like creating a film which gives some additional protection, but I'm not sure if this is only theory or it's something significant enough.
This Yucca thing sounds interesting. Last year I realised that in one of my gardens freely grows Saponaria officinalis. As the name imply it's rich in saponins and can be used as 100% natural washing soap by just rubbing the plant (especially the flowers) with some water. I wonder if it can be used as substitute for the Yucca extract as it's not common at all here. But Yucca's saponins are steroidal while Saponaria's are triterpenoid saponins and now I wonder if this makes difference, i.e. does it can make the plants hungry too?!

"It might be a good idea for giant vegetables growers..."
- Ha, ha this is true. I'm sure many of them would give it a try. I do not consider myself as a serious giant vegetable grower.

[seedywen]

Hristo,

When you used to use whey, on your vegetables, what do you mean by 5%-10%? Portion of whey to water, perhaps or other?

Asking because I make goat cheese and generally drink, cook or make chicken food with the whey. However if there were big benefits to using it in the garden, make try using whey, this way.

[steev]

At the very least, it should provide some nitrogen from protein, besides perhaps just making things distasteful to pests; on the other hand, it might be attractive to wild pigs or bear, if you have such.

[12540dumont]

Less than 3 years ago, researchers in South America discovered a new alternative to controlling powdery mildew. Wagner Bettiol, a scientist from Brazil, found that weekly sprays of milk controlled powdery mildew in zucchini. Bettiol found that a weekly spray of milk at a concentration of at least 10% (1 part milk to 9 parts water) significantly reduced the severity of powdery mildew i

NZ farmers are using skim milk on melons. Don't increase the dose. It doesn't help. And if you can get your hands on raw milk...go baby.
As for the bears, you'll find them sitting in the beary patch.

Last year the wild boars went wild for sweet potatoes...which I am not planting this year.

Later this week I'm going to trial skim milk on peas. What I have never been able to find out is if the pea seed saved from plants with powdery mildew perpetuate the disease. Anyone?

I'd forgotten about the baking soda. Thanks for that!

[Hristo]

Jun 20, 2011 19:03:45 GMT -5 seedywen said:

Hristo,

When you used to use whey, on your vegetables, what do you mean by 5%-10%? Portion of whey to water, perhaps or other?

Yes. When I spray plants with waxy leave coating (most brassicas and alliums) used 10% whey (1 part whey per 9 parts water) for the non-waxy leaved plants - 5% (1 part whey per 19 parts water).

[canadamike]

Funny we talk of whey, I just met a farmer who uses it or even yogurt to fight PM.

Ijust visited a very large greenhouse grower and it seems we have to fine tune iodine with tomato bacterial canker. Bacterias come back, which confirms it is a contact germicide and all of them need to be killed, but we already knew that. These things fuck like rabbits...Now, it is about killing them all, and it is not easy in an operation that runs 12 months a year......

Does anyone in Europe or else has a trick against phytophtora capsiici? We will trial iodine later when it shows up, but meanwhile,,,