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formerly RGG

I was just reading about Infuse systemic fungicide and it sounds excellent. I know that here in the southeastern USA fungus is one of the major problems a grower has to overcome to grow competitive melons.And I wonder Infuse might work well to help prevent dymella bryoniae ( gummy stem blight ). This could be a huge help to growers of grafted plants. But I think even on regular plants this product could be of great value to many of us. I know that anthracnose is a big problem in my area as I see it (without continual treatment) devastating my plant leaves every year. So do any of you fellow growers use this product and if so what kind of results have you gotten from it ? And have any of you on this forum tried it on a grafted plant and do you think it helped to prevent gummy stem blight or did this disease develop anyway ? It seems that since this is a systemic product and GSB is a systemic disease, perhaps it might be part of the solution to combating this terrible watermelon plant disease. I am sure this has already been tried and I want to know if it helps and how much.

1/19/2015 9:04:25 AM

Bowdon, GA

Switch and Agrifos work well for GSB

1/19/2015 9:58:20 PM

Williamsburg,KY

Isnt Agrifos the same as TKO? And where do you find Switch?

1/20/2015 7:49:27 AM

The North Coast

Control of GSB will allow full maximum of genetic potential. What we do know is that GSB is transmitted by seed, by splashing rain in infected fields, and finally by the wind. Fortunately, it is controlled by the use of fungicides even in the toughest growing areas like Florida. However, fungicides that are listed to be used with watermelon for the control of GSB do not have the same effectiveness in controlling cankers on grafted plants. This is very unfortunate. In fact, there is no listed fungicide that can be used to control cankers. This tendency may be true also with all of the unlisted fungicides we all can use. What controls the foliar expression of GSB may not have an effect at all on the cankers. It truly is an achilles heel in grafted plants. So it is most important that the seed that you start with is free of disease, which CC is not. I know for a fact that there are hundreds of CC seeds that have been disinfected from this previous growing season. You may want to ask around and bubble the seeds owners. Once you have a clean seed the chances are good that you will be able to control GSB in traditional plants and to a lesser degree in grafted plants.

1/20/2015 8:44:42 AM

The North Coast

If there can be more insult to injury, grafted Carolina Cross has a very high affinity to cankers from GSB when compared to other varieties of watermelon. Other grafted melon varieties only canker up at a rate of 15-25% when injected with GSB. Carolina Cross is darn near 100%.

A bit of info on fungicides.

http://www.nationalwatermelonassociation.com/pdfs/Controlling%20Gummy%20Stem%20Blight%20on%20Grafted%20Watermelon%20Seedlings%20with%20Fungicides.pdf

Is there any good news on GSB and grafted Carolina Cross? Why sure there is. I will let you all know how it works out as it is still not known if it is possible nor how effective it will be. I am rather excited about it!

1/20/2015 9:06:33 AM

France

Prestop is an organic product that's very effective against didymella, pythium, phytophtora, rhizoctonia and fusarium.

I did used it this season on Didymella Bryoniae on watermelon with success. It totally stopped that horrible Gummy stem Blight.

I recommend it strongly.

1/20/2015 1:11:44 PM

formerly RGG

Thank you very much Medhi. Now if I can just figure out who I will be able to purchase this product from. As far as I can tell it is not available yet in the USA. Medhi, please let us know who you purchased from and I will find out if they are able to post to the United States.I really want to give this biologic a chance to see if it will work for us growers here in Tennessee. Anyone else know where interested growers can purchase this product ? I know I was going to have a nice melon last year until GSB stopped my plant cold. Perhaps Prestop will enable me to avoid GSB in 2015. But I need to practice my grafting and get it working good. I am interested in using Cucurbita Ficifolia for rootstock and have a supply of seeds that Big Moon supplied me with.

1/21/2015 6:23:34 PM

France

I bought it from Lallemand Group, I believe it's a canadian company.

1/22/2015 5:42:22 AM

formerly RGG

I am talking with a gentleman named Bas Brinkman in the Lallemand Group in Canada to work out a trial shipment of Prestop to here in Tennessee. Bas tells me his company has never shipped to the USA and thus the trial shipment.I am just tired of seeing great potential wiped out by Gummy Stem Blight.I wonder how Nathan is feeling about doing another batch of grafted super plants this year. I mean a man has to have a vision, right ? Oh, and congratulations Nathan on finding the new home you have been looking for.I hope you are able to purchase it. You should be able to have almost unlimited gardening fun on the nearly 3 acres of land.Nathan,please consider grafting plants for your giant growing friends once again this year. I feel that Gummy Stem Blight may be like cancer cells in that it is present in most situations and is opportunistic. If that is true we as growers need to find a way to ward off any opportunity for this dreaded disease to express itself. If we fail to do so then grafted Carolina Cross plants have little room in the future of our hobby. As a side note though, I am aware that the 258 Kent 2014,which was Chris' biggest melon this past season was grown on a plant that was ravaged early on by GSB and went on to grow his biggest melon. This plant may have produced something special if it had not encountered this diseased disease early on. As it was, this melon was on a plant that was very nearly yanked out of the ground only to be reconsidered after Chris noticed a fairly nice melon growing on a part of the vine that had not been too severely affected. How is it possible to grow a 258 pound melon on a diseased plant ? I'm just sayin'...if Medhi is right and Prestop works to stop GSB, then the future looks much brighter and world records will probably once again be falling to melons grown on grafted plants.

1/30/2015 8:33:09 AM

The North Coast

Thanks for the kind words TD. Looks like the house is a done deal and we are just waiting for the paperwork to get cleared up. We are moving to Concord Ohio near Mentor for those who are curious. Well, I got some news from a watermelon pathologist yesterday that threw me for a loop. He said that the gummy exudate may not be GSB. He said that he saw no sign of black spotting on the pictures of the watermelon crowns that I sent him. The black spotting in the area of the canker is very common and he saw none of them. He went on to say that it could be the result of a stem injury to the plant. This is the first time that anyone has hinted away from GSB as the cause. I do understand that some of the growers here have alluded to other causes for the ooze but many of them didn't add up. Well they may of been onto something. Going forward it is recommended to plant the plants sideways in the ground to avoid stem stress and to use contact fungicides on the crown (stump) like Chlorothalonil. I do believe that Chlorothalonil is compatible with Prestop by the way. I am working on something new but the pathologist did not think it would reduce the incidence of the cankers. After some contemplation I am going to continue the project because I feel that there is a good chance that I am right. It would be a shame to discontinue my effort because I may fail, but if it does prove to work out the sky may be the limit. I will keep in touch with you TD and I have no problem sending you plants if I feel good about them. For three years now I have watched many good plants given to good growers that go down. That's hard to take.

1/30/2015 10:05:32 AM

South Bloomfield, Ohio

Glad to see you moving back to the Buckeye state Nathan. Ya need to graft a 296.5 Barber for Susie and let her see what she can do with it. :)

1/30/2015 10:41:02 AM