Damping off

[Billy]

Controlling the disease is a matter of removing the environment that Damping Off disease thrives in. Here are the basic do's and dont's:

Do:

** Buy sterilized seed starting soil.

** Use clean, sterilized containers.

** Provide plenty of air circulation.

Tip: Use a small fan and direct a gentle breeze across the room. The important word here is "gentle"

** Thin seedlings to increase air circulation.

** Provide as much sunlight as possible.

** Let the surface of the soil dry out between watering. Watering from the bottom is preferred.

** Stir the top of the soil around the seedlings.

** Put plants in a sunny location.

Don't:

** Don't leave your seedling trays in the basement. Basements are perfect breeding grounds.

** Don't overwater plants.

** Do not use fertilizer on your new seedlings.

** Don't use tray covers. While it is a popular practice to use them, they increase the humidity level and encourage disease growth.

Did you know? Nitrogen in your fertilizer can promote rapid growth of Damping Off Disease.

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Fish emulsioned seedlings two days ago, based on some knuckle-head's advice. I now have mold everywhere.

[Charlie]

Ahem.....you need to be more specific....of which knuckle-head speak ye? I recall two knuckle-heads stating they do this.

Are you positive it is the fish sauce causing this? I introduced some really nasty mold one year by using perlite that had been stored in my son's basement and I didn't sterilize it.

Charlie, Knuckle-Head #1 or #2?

[Henriette Kress]

Try a chamomile tea spray, properly cooled off, of course.

Henriette

[Charlie]

Thank you Henriette! I didn't know this, and after a quick verification I also found a recommendation to crush a couple cloves of garlic in the chamomile tea. That sounds like a good idea to me.

Care Charlie

[Charlie]

"sniff, sniff"....it was the pink garden tutu, wasn't it?

Matricaria chamomilla and Allium sativum just sound so less.......*chemical*.... than copper sulfate.

'Sides, I'da thunk you woulda been aware of some of the undesirable effects of copper sulfate. Perhaps you *were* aware and just trollin'me in. ;-)

[Charlie]

Hoo boy, just you wait 'til you see this years garden ensemble!

Mycostop is a new one to me, and it looks like a "good thing". Nice find. Bet it doesn't smell as purrrty as the chamomilla/allium mix in my sprayer.

Ahhh.....ya' still likes me....ya' got me purrin' like the cat winding around your ankles while you're inoculating the compost pile with Human Compost Activator.

Ya' probably poured fish juice on your little darlin's 'cuz you was listenin' to some knuckle-head blowin' off 'bout what s/he does. BTW, I have no crud from using fish sauce. ;-)

MSDSs are our friends. No, it didn't have much to say about plants, but it did state what it could do to me and the fishies and such things like that. ;-)

Same here, if you are talking weather; it will not get above 50 for more than a day at a time. I temp probed the soil two days ago and ground temp was 43 F!!!! Hell, they are calling for snow showers this evening!!!!

May try your black plasitc trick and see what happens. If the sun will shine for more that a day!

Charlie

[Charlie]

Oh. *Now* I remember something being discussed about this recently. My brain is like a sieve. Thanks. You just saved me a few bucks. I already have several rolls of clear plastic. And duct tape, lots of duct tape. ;-)

[Charlie]

I may do like I did once last year and cover an area with sheeting to try and keep the rain *off*. I was wanting to get green beans in and it was to rain for several days. Worked just like you would expect it would.

Yeah, starting Sunday the prediction is for next week to be rainy most of the time. The poor bastids south of me are expecting several inches, it's been a freekin' mess for them and up thru the Ohio valley.

But.....the garlic is doing fine, it's up about three inches above the mulch and looking good. Few more weeks and I'll start harvesting garlic "scallions"...I planted several rows of small cloves really thick for this purpose.

Thanks for the heads-up, Billy Stormcrow. :-{

Charlie

[Charlie]

Heh heh...when I had the crud, it persisted....thru transplanting, thru moving outside, thru sunlight and gentle breezes.....until I set them in the ground...they turned out fine. Maybe I should have washed the starting mix off the roots before transplanting.

Seems like you have two options...treat em and see what happens or start over. Make that three options....do both.

Me? I'd let 'em be.

BTW...is your crud tannish brown and when you hit it with spray, it effing explodes in a mini-cloud of spores or powder or whatever it is?

[Charlie]

The times I have had seedlings damp off, I didn't see anything other than a failing seedling that laid over and just below the soil line the stem was "pinched".

Check this out for more information than you want and a simple test to determine a couple of types of pathogens.

Really, I don't know what I'm thinking, I'll nuke 'em tomorrow. Can't

Neighbors gonna have to use plastic and duct tape.

Excellant!! You have just the one what needed vacuuming out?

I sat thru the procedure with one of the folks we support.....all gowned up and peering thru the second set of magnifiers. (Yep, small town horsepistol and good relationship with our opthalmologist....he loves teaching, even us pig-ignorant old sods) Simply amazing to watch it done, even though the procedure is actually relatively simple, in technological terms.

You listen to Lovey and don't be bending over too much and increasing pressure on your peeper.

One of our Heros, yes. "Slow Food Revolution"? It's been on my to-do list for some time. I'm just getting around to finishing Omnivore's D.

So much to read, so little time......so much to learn and so much to unlearn.....

Charlie

[Charlie]

Well, OK.....if we have to do it twice, we'll do it twice......

The times I have had seedlings damp off, I didn't see anything other than a failing seedling that laid over and just below the soil line the stem was "pinched".

Check this out for more information than you want and a simple test to determine a couple of types of pathogens.

Really, I don't know what I'm thinking, I'll nuke 'em tomorrow. Can't

Neighbors gonna have to use plastic and duct tape.

Excellant!! You have just the one what needed vacuuming out?

I sat thru the procedure with one of the folks we support.....all gowned up and peering thru the second set of magnifiers. (Yep, small town horsepistol and good relationship with our opthalmologist....he loves teaching, even us pig-ignorant old sods) Simply amazing to watch it done, even though the procedure is actually relatively simple, in technological terms.

You listen to Lovey and don't be bending over too much and increasing pressure on your peeper.

One of our Heros, yes. "Slow Food Revolution"? It's been on my to-do list for some time. I'm just getting around to finishing Omnivore's D.

So much to read, so little time......so much to learn and so much to unlearn.....

Charlie

[bungadora]

(snip)>

=46rom what I've read, it is excessive fertilizing at fault, particularly but not only nitrogen. I find this interesting because from what I recall of NPK, all excess nitrogen gets washed out of the soil anyway. Does this perhaps mean that the nitrogen gets bound up by microorganisms which use it for their own nefarious growth agendas?

I use fish emulsion, but usually after the plants are well established. I don't usually use it or any other fertilizers when they're small, and I wish I could say it was because I knew what I was doing, but it's actually because I don't like the house to smell of fish. Usually by the time I've potted up it is time to start moving them outside on warm days so they're in less danger of damping off by that time.

The problem with moving them outside to prevent damping off is that it is usually still too cold outside. I have moved them into better light and reduced humidity but that usually only results in stopping the spread of the microorganism. Any plants that were previously infected usually die. Repotting your plants at this time is probably a good thing, since any microorganisms in the soil will be removed.

Knucklehead #2 Dora

[Bill]

G-d Opened My Eyes 2:35 Philip Glass Book of Longing (rough mix) Classical

Seems to me that physical stuff gets our attention. However relationships may be of more import. Cultivated we can deal with physical stuff but mind is where it is. What that is is ..... where should the new deciduous azaleas be placed. Moving things in time and space.

Bill

High tech Vison aid

[Bill]

QUITTING THE PAINT FACTORY

On the virtues of idleness

By Mark Slouka - Harper?s Magazine ? November 2004 issue

"Love yields to business. If you seek a way out of love, be busy; you?ll be safe, then."

Thanks Charlie!

A good read that should be more about.

I've got a book dealing with the virtue of idleness but it is buried some where. A Buddhist text still truth is of course universal.

Bill 48 out today 73 yesterday whew

[rachael simpson]

You sound like me temp wise....48 right now and it reached 81 yesterday...I was out yesterday getting my flower beds ready for spring...weeding, etc. and I made plans to "spring clean" the house today...glad I did it that way or I'd be out there freezing my butt off today! And now on to supper... ~Rae

[bungadora]

Ah well. Big, but not big enough. My sympathies anyway. Been there, done that.

Not sure what you mean there. I meant soil microorganisms (fungi) utilizing nitrogen for growth rather like the way phosphates and nitrates feed plankton. Just speculating - I don't know enough about the process, but for nitrogen to promote microorganism/fungal growth there must be a direct relationship.

Dora still #2

[bungadora]

So are you saying that when there is too much nitrogen, that it promotes growth in fungi. Then once there are enough of them, do they start withdrawing nutrients, including nitrogen and possibly water judging from the cellular collapse usually evident, from the plant itself in order to keep reproducing and growing thus killing the plant? Just wondering how it works.

When you're #2 you try harder. Dora

[Charlie]

Yes.

Midazolam was likely one of the components of the cocktail....wonderful drug for procedural anxiety and sedation, also has the added benefit of destroying your short term memory, which they claim is a benefit for you. Also a damn fine benefit for the hospital, liability-wise.

:-) I know what you mean.

I don't even want to think about *that*.

Later Charlie