Mealy dew on gooseberries - how to save the harvest?
Powdery mildew is one of the most dangerous plant diseases. In particular, gooseberries are very difficult to treat and often beginner gardeners simply lose their plantings.
Unfortunately, the berries cannot be saved this season. They are absolutely unsuitable for food: not only are they still immature, they are also covered with an unpleasant bloom. And in the absence of treatment gooseberry may eventually wither away completely. However, do not give up - if you follow the recommendations of experienced gardeners, then the next season you can enjoy delicious berries. Read about gooseberry disease!
Signs of powdery mildew
Plants affected by the disease can be seen with the naked eye: absolutely all the berries very quickly become covered with a solid white-gray bloom. In this case, not only fruits are affected, but also leaves with shoots. This plaque is composed of many spores that can be carried by wind or small insects. Over time, it turns brown and is practically not removed when trying to peel the berries.
Most of the fruit falls to the ground, and the leaves themselves begin to spin and crumble. Even the shoots straighten and die off, and soon the bush completely disappears.
Usually, the disease begins to develop actively in May, when the weather is favorable, warm, and the bush itself is actively growing and blooming.
How to deal with the disease?
First of all, you should collect every single leaf that has fallen from the bush and be sure to burn them. Indeed, on each leafy plate there are many fungal spores that can infect the gooseberry tree trunk circle.
If only a few branches are affected, you can try cutting them off and burning them.
To treat a fungal disease in a plant, it is necessary to double-treat the bush with a concentrated solution urea;
- the first - in late autumn (600 g per bucket of water);
- the second - in March (700 g per bucket of water).
In addition, such drugs as Topaz, Cumulus, Vectra have proven themselves well.
As a prophylaxis for powdery mildew disease in healthy plants, they can be sprayed with a 1% solution of Bordeaux liquid.
Traditional methods
Of the folk methods of combating plant disease, spraying is used:
- Soap-soda solution (for a bucket of water, 50 g of each ingredient).
- Ash solution (3 kg per bucket of water).
- Urine (1 tbsp. For 5 liters of water).
Gooseberry leaf processing must be carried out before and after flowering. Several sprays are required.