Effective ways to combat powdery mildew

Powdery mildew: ways of spreading

Most often, powdery mildew can be found in cucumbers, onions, grape plantings, cabbage and beets. In general, almost any horticultural crop can be exposed to powdery mildew, so you should carefully monitor the state of the planting material. This ailment can also occur in pear and apple trees, which require further long-term treatment.

The causative agent of powdery mildew is not one, but several at once, and each of the fungi is responsible for the spread of dew on a particular plant:

1. Erysiphe cichoracearum and Sphaerotheca fuliginea - fungi that spread on pumpkin crops, infect the deciduous part, and then very quickly destroy the trunk and the crop itself, causing rotting;

2. Uncinula necator - this fungus can be found on grapes, on its vines. They should be removed immediately, since the fungus very intensively spreads to the entire culture;

3. Erysiphe communis is a beetroot fungus, powdery mildew actively infects the tops.

As for the spread of powdery mildew, it should be said that the fungus is quickly transferred to new parts of the plant, and this happens due to the fact that the transfer is carried out by airborne droplets. Also, plants can be infected in some other ways - mixing fungi with rainwater or liquid that gardeners use to water the plants later; also, the fungus can appear on gloves if the gardener has already processed them into an infected plant, and in them he continued to process other plants; the fungus settles on the surface of the pruning shears with which bush plants are treated, which is also a way of transferring powdery mildew from a diseased plant to a healthy one.

Manifestations and treatment

As practice shows, powdery mildew is not so difficult to identify, its signs are obvious even not to the most experienced gardener. Let us consider the most characteristic signs of the manifestation of powdery mildew using the example of cucumbers:

1. The leaves of the cucumber plant are gradually covered with spots of whitish or gray shades, which are distinguished by their roughness. If initially these inclusions are small, then over time they increase, covering more area and affecting the plant almost entirely;

2. As the spots grow, the leaves turn gray-whitish, begin to dry rapidly, curl up, acquire a clearly unhealthy appearance;

3. Lesions can go beyond the leaves if treatment is not started on time. This leads to the capture of flowers, fruits that quickly rot. Thus, powdery mildew does not give a chance for recovery if the disease is not detected in time and the fight against it is not started.

Of course, the sooner the grower detects the presence of powdery mildew, the greater the chances of saving the plant. If the spores get to the fruits, then no solutions, top dressing can help him. In general, today there are several methods that allow you to deal with powdery mildew in the early stages of its detection: the use of biological products, the use of chemicals (both methods can be implemented by buying special products in stores) or alternative methods that mainly exist in everyday life more professional gardeners.