Garden Spoiling Diseases – Maintenance is a vital component of gardening and whether you do it on a hobbyist or professional basis, it is something that you can’t compromise with. From the soil, plants, nutrition to your tools, everything needs to be selected carefully. But how do you deal with the diseases? Find out how you can diagnose the common complaints and protect your garden:
Also Read: Effects of Whiteflies on Tomatoes and Preventive Measures
List Of Diseases That May Spoil Your Garden
1. Alternaria Blight involves brown-black spots with rings on the leaves that end up dead as a result. Fruits, tubers will show cadaverous sunken spots thus use organic seed treatment as a precautionary measure.
2. Anthracnose is largely seen in tomato, beans, cucumber, etc and is identified by the appearance of dark, sunken spots on the fruits. During wet weather, the spots may even grow a spore mass in the middle of the spot that may appear pink in hue. Using sulfur spray prior to and after the infection period will help and as a preventive measure, you can spray as soon as your leaf buds break. However, if the infection is severe, consider total destruction to further prevent spreading.
3. Late Blight, a fungal disease, usually strikes during a later part of growing season so may not even see the symptoms until it is too late. Nevertheless, check your plants for any water-soaked spots and white hued fungal growth on leaves. The complaint notoriously influences tomato, potato and does so frequently during wet weather. So follow precautionary measures by selecting resistant cultivars and use copper sprays at the beginning of the outbreak to control the damage.
4. Bacterial Leaf Spot is characterized by tiny, shady spots on that leaves that seem water soaked and as these water-soaked spots dry off and drop off, they initiate “shot holes” within the leaves, ruining the plant. You may also see certain spots or cracks on the fruits so watch out for the symptoms among tomato, cabbage-family crops. As a preventive measure, spray copper-based fungicides once a week as soon as you see the symptoms and reduce usage of high-nitrogen fertilizers.
5. Powdery Mildew infects the leaves and covers them with a whitish-gray powder culture on the upper side. If infection turns severe, the plants may even grow brown and die and trigger the fruits to ripen prematurely. This problem is the most commonly occurring issue that infects vegetable crops and preventive measures include using organic production, fungicide prevention, application of baking soda with water or sulfur for infection control.
6. Club Root is largely witnessed among cabbage-family plants that often show signs of wilting with high temperature. It distorts the roots and makes older leaves fall so look for a resistant variety of crops for prevention.
7. Mosaic Virus is frequently seen impacting beans, peppers, tomatoes, etc and often turns the plants mottled green (yellow foliage) and may curl or shrink the leaves while stunting the plant growth. Since this viral issue doesn’t have a cure, it is best to invest in prevention by using resistant varieties crops, keeping pests, insects, etc at bay and limiting the contact of cultivation with infected plants.
With systematic maintenance routine, such problems can be easily avoided so ensure that you devote sufficient time to watching over your crops and act soon as you notice the symptoms.
