Plant Pathology Infobytes
November 12, 1996
Off-Season Vegetable Disease Control Strategies
Home gardening is a lot more fun when you don't have to give up part of your hard earned vegetable yields to disease and insect pests.
While it's not possible to eliminate vegetable pests, there are off-season practices which will help to reduce losses from diseases and insects in next season's garden. Let's focus on disease control, since the earlier you get started on this group of pests, the better!
Here are some of the home gardening disease control strategies which should payoff in 1997:
* Determine the diseases which caused damage this past gardening season. Did early blight cause tomato production problems? How about root-knot nematodes? Or, was your pea crop lost to viruses? These are examples of some of the diseases which caused problems in vegetable gardens across the state this past season.
As you identify specific disease situations, begin to develop a program designed to help you do a better job of handling these problems next year. Your County Extension Office has supplies of home gardening publications which may be used to identify diseases you may be uncertain about. One very useful publication is the Garden Tabloid (Extension Service Publication 1091). For a free copy, drop by the County Extension Office.
* Continue a garden sanitation program. Remove and destroy debris from last season's crops. Keep in mind that debris from diseased plants should not be added to compost piles. Turn under (deep plowing is preferable) gardening stubble. This will speed decomposition and cut down on the amount of disease inoculum that could cause problems in the next crop.
* Plan a rotation strategy. Rotation is one of the oldest disease control measures available. It's also effective and inexpensive. To set up a rotation strategy, begin with last year's garden plan and group the different vegetable types. For example: Cucurbits (cucumber, cantaloupe, squash, pumpkin, etc.), Crucifers (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower), Solanaceous plants (tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant), Legumes (beans, southern peas, etc.), and miscellaneous crops (sweet corn, lettuce, carrots, etc.).
For rotation to be effective, it's important to avoid placing similar vegetables -- those within a group -- in the same areas of the garden from one year to the next. If all five groups of vegetables are being grown, adopt a five year rotation plan.
* Repair sprayers used in fungicide and insecticide application so they'll be ready for use without delay next season. After tomato, cabbage, and other transplants are set, it's important to be ready to provide protection from early season diseases and insects through timely applications of fungicides and insecticides.
* The off-season is a great time to check gardening catalogs for disease resistant varieties of vegetables which could be included in your 1997 garden. If resistance to a particular disease isn't mentioned in the catalog, it probably means that the variety is susceptible.
* Other off-season disease control activities. Have the garden soil tested for nutrients and pH. Balanced nutrition and pH levels help maintain healthy plants. Collect a duplicate soil sample for parasitic nematode analysis. For information on the procedure for fertility and nematode sample collection, as well as other information needed in planning your garden and orchard pest control programs, check with your county Extension office.
Infobytes newsletter was written by the late Dr. Frank Killebrew, Extension Specialist.