When growing vegetables, at some point, all gardeners encounter disease problems of one kind or another. Early blight on tomatoes, powdery mildew on squash, black rot on broccoli, or damping off on your seedlings, just to name a few. While each of these diseases have very specific life cycles, they can all be managed through a good combination of cultural tactics.
Use these tactics in your own vegetable garden to reduce issues with disease and get bountiful, high-quality harvests year after year.
- Scout often and address issues as soon as they are noticed.
- Most disease issues cannot be corrected, only prevented. By addressing the issue as soon as it is noticed you can prevent it from spreading.
- Plan to address issues if they have been observed in the past.
- If you've had issues with Septoria leaf spot on tomatoes the past two years, its very likely to occur again. Be prepared.
- Practice good crop rotation.
- Disease causing microorganisms can only be a problem if they have the right environmental factors and the right host. By removing the host species and planting something that cannot be a host, the fungi, bacteria, or other organism cannot become a problem.
- Accurately identify the problem. You can only treat it appropriately if you know what the problem is.
- Not all things that look like a disease are caused by a microorganism like fungi or bacteria.
- Learn how to distinguish biotic and abiotic issues in this article: Biotic vs. Abiotic - Distinguishing Disease Problems
- Select varieties with disease resistance.
- Water and fertilize to maintain plants in a vigorous condition.
- Provide ideal growing conditions.
- Plants growing in too much shade (less than 6 hours of direct sunlight a day) or poor soils are more likely to have disease issues.
- Avoid fluctuations of too much and too little water. This stress can make plants more susceptible to disease issues.
- Keep foliage dry. Most disease-causing microorganisms, like fungi, require water to proliferate. Dry foliage helps slow or prevent their growth.
- Avoid overhead watering. Soaker hoses, drip irrigation, or watering at the base of the plant all insure the foliage stays dry.
- Don't work in the garden when the foliage is wet (from rain or heavy dew). You can accidently spread diseases.
- Practice good sanitation. Clean tools and start seed in clean containers.
- Eradicate weeds. They can often serve as alternate hosts for diseases.
- Utilize mulch to reduce soil splashing.
- Stake or trellis vining or rambling plants to reduce contact with the soil.
- Remove and destroy diseased plant material. Especially at the end of the growing season after the first frost.
- Disease causing microorganisms can sometimes overwinter on plant debris (as spores, for example) and re-infect plants next year.
- Don't compost disease infested materials.
- Using fungicides appropriately. Fungicides may be used to protect new plant tissue and prevent pathogen infection and spread.
- They rarely help eliminate the disease-causing agents (or their symptoms)
- Fungicide applications should always be used in combination with other management tactics.
- Remember to always read and follow pesticide labels.
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