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Anamosa, IA BPIowegian@aol.com

The last 2 years I have lost my long gourd plants to a brown fungus. The leaves and vines start turning brown from the bottom up. Then it gets on the gourds and wrecks them too. The weather both years was excessive. I moved the plants to a spot that would get better air circulation in 2010 but that didn't help. I used Aliette and Daconil for fungicides but they didn't help. I pulled off affected leaves to try to slow the spread but that didn't help either.

Does anyone know what the fungus could be and how to control it? Would a copper based fungicide help? Or do I just need to pray for less rain?

12/23/2010 9:15:57 AM

Mt.Pleasant,Iowa

Mark, Not sure if this helps,you may need to disinfect the trellis with bleach water. If it was a new trellis try Clearys, Just a shot in the dark.I get it also on trellis Clearys seems to slow it down but weather the last 2 years has not helped.

12/23/2010 5:51:49 PM

Anamosa, IA BPIowegian@aol.com

The trellis was new in 2009. All galvanized steel, so it shouldn't soak up any pathogens like wood. The weather has been extremely wet.

12/25/2010 3:15:47 PM

Gays Mills,WI

Our long gourd plant had something similar going on with it. Our trellis was built in 2009 also made of galvanized steel. The plant was planted on top of a compost pile and our ph was to low. The plant looked like hell for a month and thought it was a goner. Fungicides did not seem to help after applications. We had to lime the site 3 times through out the year to keep our ph around 7. Once our ph was up around 7 our plant looked great and the death began to slow down and then stopped. We burn the old plant material off our trellis during the winter so it is clean come spring.

12/27/2010 11:51:34 AM

Anamosa, IA BPIowegian@aol.com

No PH problem. Even though the site is on a creek bottom that would normally be a little acid, we are right on a gravel road and get lots of lime dust. PH runs right around 7. Burning the plant material is a good idea: I will do that. I'm thinking the high humidity is a big problem. In 2009 even the tall grasses and some of the trees on our acreage had brown rust-like fungus on it. On the garden plants it only seemed to affect the long gourds and bird house gourds.

12/27/2010 1:40:49 PM