Insidious Infectious Disease

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

If under a tree, near growing heads of white cabbage, on tomato beds, near gaining strength sunflowers or in another secluded place of your possessions, a pretty inflorescence of two-lipped attractive flowers suddenly appears, completely devoid of green leaves, do not rush to rejoice in it. Perhaps it was the insidious Bug, parasitizing on the roots of other plants

Rootless but very prolific

I don't know what the plant with cute two-lipped flowers, similar to Snapdragon (Antirrinum) flowers, was guilty of before the Creator, but he deprived Barazikha of its true roots, without which no plant on Earth can survive.

But that is why she and Barazikha, that even without roots, she managed to survive, and now she harms other plants, and, consequently, people, reducing vegetable yields, or even leaving them without a crop.

Numerous seeds of a scanty-sized plant can wait for a suitable prey in the soil for a long time to dig into it with their haustorium suckers. Indeed, over millions of years, a rich family of Infections has bred on the planet, in which each species specializes in the roots of a particular plant, which it recognizes by smell.

Disaster for the Sunflower

Several years ago, in the Rostov region, people who grew sunflower plantations sounded the alarm. The bred Infectious Disease destroyed up to 50 percent of the usual harvest.

There were several reasons for this situation. The main reason was the increase in the area occupied by the cultivation of Sunflower. This entailed the cultivation of this crop in the same place for several years in a row, since it was simply not possible to use free land due to their lack. And it is recommended to return the sunflower to its original place not earlier than after 4-6 years.

This situation was very favorable for Baraziha specializing in Sunflower. Her seeds did not have to search long and painfully for food, when every spring people sowed seeds in the same field. By the time of the flowering of the Sunflower, Barazikha, having pretty much feasted on the juices of the plant, showed its leafless flower stalks to the world and took away food for its flowering, leaving no chance for the sunny baskets to be filled with benign seeds. But her seed pods were full and ready for procreation.

Control methods

* Use of seeds of varieties that have proven their resistance to broomrape.

* Change landing site every year.

* Alternate crops with crops of corn, alfalfa, bogatyr sweet clover, which provoke the germination of Barazikha seeds. But, not meeting the roots of the Sunflower on the way, the germinated seeds die.

* Sowing of Sunflower, for example, with alfalfa or the same melilot, which, after harvesting the main crop, still continue to grow, clearing the soil from the Barazikha, enriching it with nitrogen (alfalfa) or turning into an excellent fertilizer (melilot) in spring, easily embedded in the soil.

Other victims

The broomstick willingly feeds on the roots of white cabbage, inhibiting the growth and formation of heads of cabbage. People who do not know about the insidious nature of the plant, seeing cute blue inflorescences near vegetables, are touched by their beauty and are in no hurry to remove them from the garden like other weeds.

The signal for the grower should be a leafless, pale stem. After all, only in Mother and Stepmother flowers appear before leaves, but this happens in early spring. The broomstick, on the other hand, reveals its leafless peduncle, decorated with cute flowers, in the summer, when it is already decently feasting on other people's juices.

Broomstick and cornflowers

There is a species of Zarazikha, or rather, her relative in the family, which has its own name - Red Diphelipea. It parasitizes on cornflowers, littering the fields of cereals. Such a "bunny" is a person's helper, clearing crops from the malicious, albeit blue-eyed, weed.

This species seems to rehabilitate the existence of such aggressive vegetation as Barazikha. And her flowers are beautiful, bright red, although they are devoid of the usual accompaniment - green leaves.