2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Every spring, both children and adults are looking forward to when the sweet berry - strawberry - will ripen. I would like to quickly feel its aroma and taste. But sometimes even the most inveterate gardeners are in for an unpleasant surprise and disappointment - the berries begin to become covered with a "fluffy" bloom, then rot and the yield is rapidly decreasing. What kind of attack finds strawberries and how to deal with them?
What does gray rot look like?
First, let's take a closer look at exactly what gray rot looks like in order to distinguish it from other strawberry diseases. First, small brown spots appear on the berries, which grow rather quickly and gradually become covered with a "fluffy" bloom of gray. Neighboring berries that diseased strawberries come into contact with become ill very quickly. In addition, spores of gray rot are very light, almost weightless, and any gust of wind carries them around the site. At the present time, unfortunately, a strawberry variety that is resistant to this disease has not yet been bred. Therefore, it will not be possible to simply change the variety. You will have to try to prevent the disease or fight it.
Methods for preventing strawberry disease
First, carefully choose where to plant your strawberries. The bed with this berry should be located in the sun. If you have a plant from the shade, then urgently change the place and transfer the strawberries to the sun.
Second, don't thicken your strawberry plantings. The garden bed should not only be well lit by the sun, but must also be ventilated to avoid moisture stagnation. If your plants are too close to each other, then thin out and transplant excess bushes. If all the transplantation terms have already passed, then at least tear off the leaves for now to ensure access of the sun and air to the soil.
Thirdly, try to avoid the ripening berries coming into contact with the ground. To do this, you can put planks or cover the distance between the beds with a special film.
Fourth. If watering is necessary, pour water only on the soil, avoid getting it on leaves, flowers and berries, this can also provoke the development of gray rot.
Fifth, if you decide to fertilize with organic fertilizers, for example, manure, then in no case use fresh manure, only rotted, since fresh manure is an excellent medium for the propagation of gray rot.
Sixth, immediately pluck and destroy (not in compost!) The berries that have begun to rot. This will prevent rotting of nearby berries on the bush.
Last but not least, always remove last year's mulch! It is also a good "home" for gray mold.
Methods for dealing with gray mold
Perhaps the main rule in the fight against any fungal diseases is to create conditions under which the fungus cannot develop and infect other plants. These measures are described in the previous section, Methods to Prevent Strawberry Disease.
In addition, you can spray the strawberry bushes with chemical and organic agents. Chemicals can be purchased at any garden store and used strictly according to the instructions (I do not specify the names, you can choose any tool that is suitable for the intended purpose).
In addition, you can spray the strawberries with a mustard solution, which is very easy to prepare yourself: you will need 1 cup of mustard powder for a bucket of hot water. Pour the powder into water, stir well and let it brew for 24 hours. The infusion is ready, you can use it as directed. Another infusion is an infusion of garlic. For a bucket of hot water, you will need 1 glass of carefully chopped (you can use a blender) cloves of garlic. They also insist for about a day, then process the strawberries.
If you follow all the above recommendations, then gradually gray rot will disappear.
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