From

Location

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Date Posted

Brooklyn Corner, Nova Scotia

I read an article a while back about an organic grower who sprayed a diluted mixture ( no more than 10% ) milk and water to fight WPM. Anyone out there try this and if so was it effective at all? Also for fun I looked up the ingredients of skim milk powder and here is what minerals were found:
Minerals (mg/100 g)

Calcium-1248.00
Sodium-494.00
Potassium-1674.00
Phosphorus-993.00
Iron-0.40
Magnesium-110.00
Zinc-4.08

3/14/2008 4:44:27 PM

nOVA sCOTIA

Andy.I have never sprayed with milk for PM but i have read many articles on Google about it and from what i understand it stops PM in its tracks.I'm going with it for sure. Carl

3/14/2008 5:36:45 PM

Western NY

I have done it to slow down PM. It works. Mine came fresh from the cow, then diluted down.

3/14/2008 5:47:25 PM

Brooklyn Corner, Nova Scotia

That's good news to hear. I would like to avoid fungicides as much as possible. I ordered my mycorrhizae today and got thinking about fungicides.... another topic. Thanks for the input.

3/14/2008 5:51:24 PM

nOVA sCOTIA

From what i read the rate is 1 litre of 2% to 10 litres of water.OH.I almost forgot. Andy the milk should be SCOTSBURN. Farmers or Baxters will kill your plants. LOL Carl

3/14/2008 6:42:15 PM

Brooklyn Corner, Nova Scotia

I don't think the others get that but I do lol

3/14/2008 6:49:48 PM

Wallingford,CT

At Niagara this year, Team-Pumpkin had a poster presenting research done by Matt DeBacco showing the effects of various concentrations of milk on powdery mildew. It should be posted on the team-pumpkin website soon.

3/14/2008 8:08:25 PM

Connecticut

Over last winter I read many articles about milk and its effectiveness against Powdery Mildew and over this last growing season I conducted some field trials. It seems from the literature that 10% milk will give you some, but highly variable effectiveness. I selected 40% milk for two main reasons...

First, since most of my applications would be in the morning and there is still dew on the leaves this will reduce the concentration of milk. (So 40% applied may only be 35% or 30% on the plant, once the dew is accounted for.)

Second, the literature I saw seemed to show that there is an increase in milks effectiveness up to about 40%. Anymore concentrated and you are wasting the milk, which is not cost effective.

I also did some compost tea sprays that increased Powdery Mildew suppression. I think it is important to note that I did my trials with Dill Atlantic Giant plants, not another type of pumpkin variety.

Also, www.Team-Pumpkin.org will be posting some of my data soon so everyone can see the details of the trial. The information provided here should give you a start, but once the data is posted I will let everyone know.

Since I plan on scaling up the trials for this year any suggestions you have I will take into consideration as I begin to set-up for this year.

3/14/2008 9:32:23 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I used 10% milk at my son's elementary school a couple years ago. Outstanding results with weekly sprays. Went to 10 days once & 13 days another time. Still no PM until I laid of for 2 weeks.

Since I cannot access the courtyard in the morning or evening, many of the milk sprays were made at midday. Even with the temp at 90 there was NO STRESS or damage.

Pretty cool.

3/15/2008 11:46:08 PM

Macomb County

read about disease under the growing section at http://www.bigporchpumpkins.com/ for more information.

4/3/2008 2:43:32 AM

Williamsburg,KY

Cant wait to read about this..I was wondering about what my choices would be for PM..I have also read about baking soda and water..has anyone used this with success? thanks, Croley

4/9/2008 8:56:23 PM

Williamsburg,KY

Opps, just took a look at team pumpkin and read about the baking soda vs milk..question answered..Love the site! Now if I can just get the next to my neighbors cows and get me some fresh milk..Croley

4/9/2008 9:04:40 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

It doesn't need to be fresh milk. I thought that was the case too but have only used processed & it works fine. In fact one of the researchers thinks that LOW FAT milk might be better since the fat does the leaves no good &once removed, apparently the portion that controls PM is still there.

I'd like to know more about that study but never saw the full text version, just a garden magazine side bar referring to it.

4/9/2008 11:02:04 PM