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Farmington, Utah

We, my friend and I were just told that we probably have Verticullum wilt that hit our plants. It mainly affected my 1260 and his 709 McCallum. I know that this is a soil borne disease. He, the state horticulturalist, told us to rotate and let the soil mend for a 3-4 years or solarize it come next summer. I have heard of fumigation. Does this work and how costly is it?
Kenny Blair

8/12/2003 1:27:17 PM

Montoursville, PA

Kenny...The problem with fumigation is that it takes only a percentage of bad while also wiping out an equal percentage of the good things in your soil. What you have left is the same unballance at a lower level and a soil not able to fend for itself very well. You may find temporary appearing fixes that will, for sure, revert to an equally difficult ballance in time. Fumigation is like a pill that will ease the symptons but offer no cure. Only a healthy soil can cure itself and come back into ballance.

A better idea would be to work with the soil to develop the natural ballances which in time will control all and reballance the good and the bad things.

You need manures, oxygen and natural builders of soil to enable it to make a self correction. When you get back to the point that you have an ample supply of earthworms living and working your soil you will again be approaching an excellent growing medium.

Doing it the Natural Way will cost money too....but the end result will cost less in use as the patch will with continued Natural Management cost less to maintain for all time in the future.

Doing it the synthetic way will keep you in an increasing search for other synthetic pills to fix the problem. They end up costing more because much of it is wasted or short term solutions.

I'll bet you my last dime there is not one grower that is a
heavy synthetic user, who has had to fumigate, who was able to repeat his or her winning performance. Yet I know more than one NATURAL HEALTHY PATCH GROWERS who repeat with the huge fruit year after year.

8/12/2003 1:48:43 PM

Western Pa.

Doc,

Calai and Gibson, as well as, a few others fumigated before last season. Can't argue with those results!

8/12/2003 2:47:55 PM

South Hill, Virginia

I've already bought a bag of Basamid to put on the patch here shortly. Supposed to be good but is expensive. 50 pound bag was about $200, but like kilr said, it's what Fred Calai did last year and look what happened.

8/12/2003 4:15:27 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I am a certified Basamid specialist by BASF. (that;s kind of funny)

Basamid is about $200 for 50 lbs which treats 8,000 sq. ft. for most diseases, insects, weeds, etc. Root Knot Nematodes would require slightly more material.

You can tarp the area after integrating the granules & watering, or just keeps moist. Only works on warm soil. So it must be done immediatelty at the close of the pumpkin season.

The days of gassing with Methyl Bromide are over thanks to the destruction cause to our atmosphere. Think freon & other CFC's here.

Steve

8/12/2003 4:31:29 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

I think basamid with a post fumigation soil innoculaton with some of the good stuff will hasten a return of good soil....most of us have one area to grow in and going four years fallow would be a luxoury most of us can't afford. as a matter of fact seeing some of the results of post fumigation patches might just be a trend setter in the future! I for one would never sit out two years again trying to grow in fusaria or other diseased soil....

8/12/2003 5:41:34 PM

Ann Arbor, Mi

docgipe, you sent your last dime to kilr yet?

8/12/2003 6:23:54 PM

Montoursville, PA

No I'll keep the dime to see if the great years hold up for repeated performances which was my carefully selected point.
Going back over the years there have been very few repeated performances after the temporary fix of the winning year.
...The changing of practices are leaning heavily into the Healthy Soil management not into synthetic fixes. This is not to suggest that a huge fruit was not produced following a soil nuking. My observation was that the nuking was a temporary fix usually for one year that can not or has not been repeated in the same patch by many if any.
....Properly maintaining healthy soil or moving to new soil is the only choice I see. If three or four years would bring about a healty patch that could be maintained in a healthy state it may be the best buy in town.

A good program to move that direction is the AGRO-K line of Natural Products. They have a pumpkin specific program. Craig Lembke has gone 100% that direction and also become a rep for the company. His pesonal best has increased each year to within fifty pounds of the magic 1000. This year will be an exception due to the miserable late start and heavy weather factors in the Northeast. That would not be the fault of a healhy patch.

8/12/2003 7:24:57 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Ahhh...But the beauty of science holds that the beneficial soil bacteria can now be purchased from folks who breed them. Then we reinnoculate the soil with the "designer microbes" that best suits the needs.

I don't think anyone *wants* to have to nuke their soil. But when all else fails it's another valuable tool in the box that can turn a good year (or more, it's too soon to tell) out of a bad patch.

Once cleaned up, if a soil becomes reinfected then the grower really needs to determine *why* the causal pathogens have returned & prevent it from happening again. Nothing happens for no reason. It is a controlled balance we all seek. Those who find it win.

Steve

8/12/2003 10:22:04 PM

Farmington, Utah

Thanks for all the comments. Sorry doc but I think chemotherapy is the way to go for Bruce and me right now. We don't have the luxury of rotating areas.

Kenny Blair

8/12/2003 11:30:42 PM

Montoursville, PA

Yea thou shall have to admit that even NASCAR has confining limits as to what they can do to squeese performance out of the cars.

As time passes we have seen confined limits as to what is available to doctor soil without considering the possible negative result. DDT the scientific greatest answer to the
management of the fiftys and sixtys was banned. The birds of rapture have returned as well as the many other animals in the food chain. Each following year sees a better result in natural ballance.

All soil additives and plant treatments are being observed and weighed carefully today including some of the items presently thought to be organic.

The horn butting between the rights and the wrongs has largely stopped. Quietly in a determined effort both sides are leaning to the Healty Patch that when achieved will need little or no synthetic fixes. Some will say this can never happen while on the front line of vegetable and fruit growing it allready has come to pass. There are thousands of smaller truck farms and market gardeners that consistantly build more and healthier soil each year without much if any synthetic support. More than a few huge farming opperatives and orchard co-ops have already made the changes necessary to be called healthy soil and plant managers. They would not do this if it was not profitable.

These events, conditions and facts do not appear newsworthy and do not come to pass in a flash from a pill technology. They have appeared with the carefull soil management year to year. Your soil, if it has not been hopelessly nuked, is quite able to restore itself naturally.

As long as we maintain a no holds barred management towards the AG anything is permissible. This does not necessarily make our practices right for our soils. The choices have to, at this time, be an individual choice.

8/13/2003 12:14:43 PM

Montoursville, PA

Frankly I errored this year by using entirely to much Urea at pre planting time. Blood meal and molasses will be my better choice next year. Maybe I will be able to bring back a higher population of our most important ally the humble earthworm. My earthworm population was nuked pretty bad by the excessive....thought to be good, for the situation, application of urea. Sadly I discover by reading that a mere few pounds of blood would have created the same result less expensively and resulted, in a condition, much more kindly towards the soil

8/13/2003 12:15:13 PM