Message Board - BigPumpkins.com

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Is there any way to prevent Fusarium root and stem rot? Everything that I have read has indicated planting in a new location for two to three years. Will moving the planting area in a suburban back yard make a difference?

Has anyone tried using soil solarization in the off season, or is there a way to fumigate 1,000 to 2,000 square feet?

Thanks,

TomV

10/23/2006 7:20:34 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Solarization may be effective.

One of our club members used Basamid this fall to knock Fusarium down.

Recent dialog I've had with Soil Food Web & SSI indicates that the correct Compost Tea brew will control Fusarium.

10/23/2006 11:00:47 PM

Frank 4

Coventry R.I.

hi tremor, frank4 nice to finally meet you. the correct compost tea brew is ?

10/24/2006 6:21:45 AM

UnkaDan

Since "prevention" was the initial question of this post here's some of my thoughts on the plague that seemed to run rampant in so many patches this year.

When patches become waterlogged from excessive water, be it from over watering from irrigation, flooding from prolonged rain (as was the case in many parts of the country this year) and the OM levels are high as many patches are. The soil looses the necessary oxygen levels to maintain its "good critters" and goes anaerobic. Therefore making the plant more susceptible to disease of all types.(root system stops growing and decay begins)

Now what to do to correct this situation,,hmmmmmm.
Let me list a few things that I think would work and please feel free to correct or add to any of them.

First and foremost, keep the stump area and the main vine cleared of weeds and any excessive growth to allow good air flow and drying when weather(sun/wind) allows for it. I for one, upon advice from a HH removed the first 2 secondary's when they formed to allow at least a foot of open space at the bend and tunnel of the stump.

Try to get the tilth of the patch soil correct so that it will drain easily, simple for us with sand based loams,,but can be done with research and work in any soil. Heavy soil in a flood plain situation will require some form of slope, ditching, or drainage system under the patch in order to work.

Aerated teas are a lay down simple solution, if used right out of the brewer(as a drench) they resupply oxygen and oxygen related microbes/fungals direct to the area that has been robbed by the "drowning" effects of waterlogging.

10/24/2006 7:45:32 AM

UnkaDan

I had 6.5" of rain in a 5 day stretch this summer, it seemed odd to drench the patch on the next day,,,but I had no ill effects and no disease problems occured from doing so. Maybe my good draingae,,maybe not.

I guess some of my thinking boils down to the fact that I see many posts showing excessive OM (and extensive use of manures) on the boards and in the diary's here. There comes a point where that will bite you,,,and alot of good patches got bit this year.

10/24/2006 7:53:54 AM

Fredericksburg, Virginia

I have planted pumpkins in the same location for four years, and the last two seasons I have had issues with the vascular tissue turning reddish brown. I suspect this is due to fusarium wilt or fusarium rot.

I have clay soils that have been amended with compost, and the patch is sloped, so the drainage is good. I am also working to replentish the OM and improve the soil tilth this fall by rototilling in as much composted horse manure and tree leaves as I can get my hands on.

Tremor, do you know if Basamid is available to hobby growers, or licensed pesticide handlers only?

Soil solarization and compost tea are available, and easy to do, but I am open to any & all suggestions.

TomV

10/24/2006 12:03:29 PM

gordon

Utah

I have heard that Banrot works well in helping to control Fusarium. I don't think that it can be 100% eliminated.

I know a grower near me swears by it.

http://www.scottsprohort.com/_documents/tech_sheets/H4521_Banrot_40WP.pdf

10/24/2006 12:23:45 PM

gordon

Utah

I did a quick Froogle shearch and came up with these two links.

http://www2.yardiac.com/long.asp?item_id=1861

http://btgrowersupply.stores.yahoo.net/banrot2lb.html
$128 for 2 lbs.

To be applied as a drench application for root and stem diseases of bedding plants, foliage plants, interiorscapes, container grown and bed grown herbaceous and woody ornamentals. Diseases: Pythium • Phytophthora • Rhizoctonia • Thielaviopsis • Fusarium • Damping Off.

10/24/2006 12:32:54 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

It is exseedingly difficult to manage Fusarium properly with fungicides. Treating the soil under these elephant ear leaves is darn near impossible. A surface drip system with a fungicide inujector would work but you then can't bury vines. Then again, burying vines in Fusarium tainted soil is a real effort in futility anyway.

The best thing is to rotate into a new patch if that option exists. Leave the disease lay fallow for a few years.

Otherwise I think that a grid system of near-soil-surface mounted Tee-Jet Conejet tips might be effective (though expensive) at creating a workable delivery system.

The diligent use of a Solo or Stihl mist blower has worked wonder for some of the "hitters". Timing & fungicide selection are critical.

I don't yet have the CT recipe yet. It seems to be a closely guarded secret made available only after one has signed onto a $600/year Tea testing contract.

10/25/2006 12:24:20 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Basamid is available to hobbysist in some states. Check the registration status with the Virginia DEP Pesticide management division or a decent Agriculture Retailer. The local garden center won't have a clue but a good farm store would know.

10/25/2006 12:27:15 AM

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Basamid is available according to the VA Dept of Agriculture, but I need to find a knowledgeable agriculture retailer.

I think it may be a better option to make a new location ready for next year, and leave the original area fallow for three years.

Is it better to pick a new bed location as far from the original as you can get?

10/25/2006 1:01:52 PM

Montoursville, PA

Anyone who would like a compost tea method can give those two words to Google and be reading immediately. The simplicity is just that....learn to make good finished compost and then make compost tea.

Worm cast tea is also very good wherein one starts with worm casts. The Soil Soup web site gives a number of ways to work with casts.

There is no consistant compost tea method because there are a million ways to make it. Does not matter because if it truly finished it will be compost. It may or may not include animal manure. People go all kinds of directions and if the pile matures it is compost. Half done anything is not compost.

Compost Tea and Worm Cast Tea are both good for the early fungal problems. The only way to have biological ballance and elimination of fungal problems is to have a stronger soil. You can only get weaker soils and temporary fixes using the chemicals. Those chemicals kill the very biology one needs to strengthen for a stronger soil that self controlls the bad fungi which is there all the time anyway.

The chemicals will kill both good and bad leaving a weaker soil condition.

10/25/2006 7:09:05 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I am inclined to agree that the best teas would come from one's own home made compost provided only the cleanest crop debris is used to make it. I had a client lose several acres of EXTREMELY VALUBLE turf last summer to Fusarium that was supposedly brewed on site with from a purchased compost. I don't know that I trust the source entirely, but someone "in the know" is supposed to have proven this by way of costly lab analysis at SFI/NY. I haven't seen the "evidence" but that's the story I got from the guy after he paid for the new sod. Sod that was thoroughly fungicide treated too. He's back on the CT but with a different compost supplier.

10/25/2006 9:44:30 PM

Montoursville, PA

I willing to bet the North Forty on the fact that the Fusarium came from filthy equipment handling proceedures.
Two and two does not add up to four in the above report which is all sloppy hearsay anyway. Why in the world use CT with all that poison in the patch to kill off the fungi side he needs to build a stronger organic base that will subdue the bad fungi on site?
...The truth has not yet surfaced here unless I nailed it.

11/2/2006 5:48:58 PM

Fredericksburg, Virginia

If you compost pumpkin plants that have been affected by fusarium are you increasing your chances of a fusarium problem next year?

I have composted the vines in previous years, and most of the time my compost does not get hot enough to kill off any pathogens.

11/6/2006 8:06:56 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Tom,

Fusarium overwinters in crop debris, soil & seed. Even if the compost pile get's hot enough the chances are that at least SOME part of a diseased plant will stay behind in the soil. The soil itself poses the most likely harborage of the causal pathogen.

11/6/2006 9:56:18 PM

Montoursville, PA

OK...the BS has been spred ten miles high and five miles wide and nothing much has been solved.

Let's go back to basics. All suggested cures including one organic method not mentioned are some form of killing down the biology or steriliaztion. Problem is the methods that do this are all non-selective. What you end up with after treatment is something less of all living biology into which some then add petro based manufactured fertilizer and insecticides or fungicides which adds more killing salts that are non-selective. This approach never worked to build stronger soil and never will work, to build stronger soil.

When soil is spoiled it is actually poisoned, by the additives it was nuked with. Only time and biological basic rebuilding will offer any real help.

This then is pure basics....add as much manure as is reasonable, use leaves and elements of compost to build organic content, use cover crops as green manures, address the use of remineralization and patch drainage if needed. The use of Endo Mycorrhizae, molasses into the soil and aerobic worm cast tea or compost tea are major soil building elements. During the first two or three years corn meal supports the rebuilding of good fungi as well as being stongly fungal in nature itself. Humic Acid if used properly may be a very worthy consideration.

Mulch plays a major role in rebuilding when used even when tilling during the rebuilding process.

When being this agressive tilling is very much needed in the spring and fall until such time that ballance is rebuilt in the patch. When organic content reaches the higher levels like 15% notill methods may be considered.

My guess is that most ruined or poisoned patches will come back in three to five years even when being used during the rebuild. My own patch took three years to recover from a dose of insanity I delivered to it the first year four years ago. My weights were 710 - 410 - 480- 763. If the proof is in the pudding.....there is the pudding!

11/7/2006 11:33:25 AM

Montoursville, PA

MORE..........I did not mention the use of organic based fertilizes both in the ground and in foliar feeding. They are often talked about on this site. Use them and get as far away from manufactured fertilizer as is humanly possible.

As far as insecticides and fungicides are concerned look to organic products like Neem Oil. Go to the more harsh proceedures only when the lessor methods are not enough to satisfy your needs. Just using less is a major key in rebuilding soil.

11/7/2006 11:45:01 AM

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Does Neem oil have an effect on fusarium in the soil, or does the plant uptake the neem oil?

I purchased some this summer but did not use it because the plants were already in decline. Some of the posts that I read this summer said that the pumpkin plants were injured by using Neem oil at the labeled application rate.

11/7/2006 7:56:01 PM