Ascochitis Of Plants

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Ascochitis is a dangerous fungal disease that attacks cucumbers, soybeans, peas, beets, watermelons, melons, pumpkin, beans, chickpeas, buckwheat and other crops. The tissues affected by the disease dry out quickly enough, and as a result, the plants may die, which will entail a significant decrease in yield. As with any other disease, ascochitis must be fought

A few words about the disease

The causative agents of ascochitosis are imperfect fungi belonging mainly to the genus Ascochyta. However, the disease can also develop from other types of fungi: for example, in chrysanthemums - from the fungi Didymella ligulicola and Ascobita chrysantemi, and in alfalfa - from the fungus Phoma medicaginis.

Symptoms of such a misfortune can be observed on almost all plant organs. When infected with ascochitosis, black spots consisting of the bodies of the pathogen fungus appear on the leaves of plants and on their stems, as well as in the nodes of the shoots. When the mass fruiting of garden crops starts, the spots increase noticeably. Root hairs darken and die off quickly, and plants soon weaken. If the plants have tubers, then you can often see depressed rounded specks on them. On the beans, the heels are convex, dark brown. Fruits affected by ascochitis look extremely unattractive, as if they were boiled alive, turn black and dry out over time.

In cucumber, the disease manifests itself in the form of large spots on the leaves (and the lesion starts from their edges) - at first these spots are yellow-brown, and after some time they become whitish, surrounded by a chlorotic border and densely covered with pycnidia of a black fungus.

The spread of ascochitosis occurs through infected planting material (seeds, seedlings) through the spores of the pathogen fungus. Crop residues on the soil and in the soil and numerous weeds also serve as foci for the spread of infection. To a large extent, the infection with ascochitosis is facilitated by excessively abundant watering, excessive nitrogen content in the soil, wet weather, too thick crops, sudden changes in temperature and heat (in the range of 24 - 28 degrees). On the open ground, this disease is less common than in greenhouses and greenhouses.

How to fight

One of the main measures to combat this unpleasant ailment is the observance of the rules for growing garden crops, as well as the rules of crop rotation. All infected vegetation must be removed from greenhouses or garden beds.

Before sowing, seeds should be treated, and during the growing season, seed crops should be sprayed with fungicides. In greenhouses and greenhouses, it is necessary to reduce the humidity of the air as much as possible: abandon spraying with water, reduce the volume and frequency of watering, and also carry out ventilation more often.

It is recommended to water lawns not in the second half of the day, but in the first. But their haircuts, favorable to the development of ascochitis, cannot be completely abandoned - an unkempt lawn can become a provocateur of a huge number of many other diseases.

If ascochitis nevertheless struck the plants, fungicides are used. The most common treatments are Bordeaux liquid. 10-14 days later, a similar treatment is repeated. In relation to the treatment of roses, a rather high efficiency of such drugs as Ridomil GOLD MC and Profit Gold was noted.

The wounds formed on the stems are either powdered with crushed coal, or coated with gruel prepared on its basis.

It is possible to increase the resistance of cucumbers to ascochitosis (more precisely, to its stem form) if, at the end of planting, the soil is mulched with plastic wrap.

Heavily infested plants should be removed and burned, and the soil should be cleared of their debris along with weeds.

At the end of the harvest, all wooden elements of greenhouses and greenhouses must be thoroughly disinfected by dissolving 200 g of bleach in ten liters of water.