6th Class: Pest & Disease Mgmt – Sat. 10/14/09

Pest & Disease Mgmt - presented by Pam Pierce

Prof of City College
SF Leauge of Urban Gardeners
Blog
Revised Editition
SF Chronicle Lessons for Old Gardeners
Alameda Master Gardeners - Alameda College - 3 seminars - Pam Pierce will talk about the lessons from Old Gardens

Pests, and other problems with vegetables
Problems that a gardener has:
(1) Problem of not expecting failures
(2) Assume all is hopeless, and that problem will spread to other plans

Problems growing food crops = sense of urgency - difficult figuring out what to replace with

Ornamental gardener
Growing food crops - don't want to do anything that is toxic so we think v
Goal -Address Food Gardening Problems Constructively
through IPM



Main Causes & Failure in Local Food Gardens

Least Toxic Solutions

Benefitical Creatures

Other problems not associated with pests

Abiotic Disorder - a-(without life) - no organism causing it

(1) Caused by Genetic Defect in the Plant
e.g. corn pure white (food stored in the seed)

(2) Conditions in which a plant is growing- e.g. lack of water ; too much water (not enough air in the soil) ; way it's grown in the garden (hormonal problems) cucumber turned yellow - ripened
(3) don't have the bees esp. shady foggy areas, not enough bee activity (lack of pollination from bees) -

It's not always a pest; it has a lot to do with growth conditions
curly brown edges on the leaf - mulch ground reduce the amount of salt getting into the soil; wash plant ;

Animals have abiotic disorders - (nutritional dificiencies - environment + genetics diabetes, heart disease)

Basic Issues - Abiotic

Not enough water - plant will be stunted ; under -fertilized if under watered; makes majo. of its food ; get nutrients through the roots through water; not enough nutrients

(4) Too close together - plants will be stunted; to grow large give them room

e.g. Nursery - 6 bunches of seeds in the middle - roots get tangled 6 parsely plants all in one cell - get over crowded ; ability to recognize

Seedlings been in the pot too long; leaves are yellow, dropping of leaves, purple tinge (phosphorus def)

beans squash corns beans, cucumber, not good to buy as seedlings


sqash plant doomed - taller than wide, roots have coiled; sqaush, cucumber, sensitive and get stunted

seed three or four weeks in advance; ask nursery seedlings that just came in

(5) Tall beds, - not a container, it's an area of soil, filled with sandy lome, and ammend at top as you would with soil; use soil that you got; add ammendmants,

trouble with potting mix, planting mix - collapse itself - abilitiy to contain air; don't need that course of a mix above three feet; designed to be fertilized constantly - (containers)

containrs - not ntutirtious organic matter; containers pour fertilizer through them all the time; causes Abiotic problmes such as minitature veggies

Diseases caused by living orgs (viruses, bacteria, fungi)

plant world - virus & fungi

Disease organisms to infect 3 req

has to have a spore / reproductive ______ present

plant - susceptible to that disease

conditions have to be right, temperature environment, ph

disease triangle spore

most diseases affect certain plants; don't have a lot of good cures, efforts go into preventing then curing

animal creatures feed on pants: raccoons dear, tree squirrels, rats

Often a self-limiting problem ; feed on a certain group of plants - cabbage worms - eat exc. in the cabbage family

Two main ways insects & mites damage pests

(1) chewing parts of the plant

(2) sucking parts of sap

IPM - decision making process - deals with gard problems with little environme, garden ecosystem, and health of you and ohters

Agricultural History of Pest Mang

Agriculture - creative solutions - lost b/c of local

biological control 300 AD Chinese Orchardists - predatory ants
Cultures - plant extracts could kill plants

Bad directions - arsenic lead compounds dead end - kill people

Dead Ends - Plastic Gire - bists of plastic broken down

Scientific Revlon - increased undseratnding of natural world -devl & finding pest resistant plants, quarantine plants that had pests, lifecycle of pests - growing out the lifecycle;
understanding the source

1939 - DDT - first synthetic pesticide - the wonder solution; w. drawed 1972 - found in mother's milk and eagles egg

Pesticides - withdrawn for environmental reasons and pests resistancy

b/c of these problems ; solve problems through chemistry; 1970s

IPM - emerged as method as a logical way to deal with pest management; came out of a greater understanding of ecology - the way things are put togeterh -

Ecology - how things work together (network of beings that live together in a physical environment)
Eco-system

Commercial setting you look at how much

STEPS
(1) Examining your garden - and look at what's there
(2) Find out what's causing the problem - and you learn about it

Center for Inegral Studies

(3) Learn the tactics that might control or manage the problem -
(4) Decide to use or not use these tactics ; list of tactics and make a plan
(5) Assess the results and make plan for the next step

Steps 3 & 4 - doing nothing to doing many different types of tactics

Cultural
Mechanical
Biological
Chemical - leave to last (some chemicals - summer oils, soap sprays, hot pepper sprays - they can be made even with biological)

???
Organic farms are restricted by law with certain chemicals - ones permitted - USDA.gov - national organic program

Follow the rules - that the organic program - you're an organic gardener

Zone of confusion - home gardeners who wish to be organic

(1) nat'l list of approved
(2) new products that may be illigal
laws apply to those making 15K; home gardeners outside of this process

OMRI - approving the ingredients

??

First lesson what insect you have

Difft Types of Tactics

Cultural
Mechanical
Biological
Chemical

Predators Spiders - need aphids to survive (few of them; move more slowly) - more susceptible to pesticide; walk around a lot, eating poisoned creatures

Garden is not a place that has plants and pests and us with a spray

The Garden has beneficial creatures

Sprays based on a micro-organism - Bt - Bascillus thuringiensis -
plant diseases different from animal diseases

Benefitical nematode - lives in the soil - nematodes eating other insects - buy a spray do it in the evenings watering nematodes into the soil - article in chronicle
Pest nematodes - make plants stunt

Chemical - Oils - dormant oil sprayed in the winter time (contaminated sulfure compounds contamniates the leaves) - so do it in winter; more effective for killing spids - kills lifecyle as opposed to soaps; kills the eggs

Discovered - Canola - Water - Jojoba Oil; Soy Oil - formulation kills insects just as well ; Summer Oil; Superior Oil ; Physical Properties more than Chemical Properties

Iron Phosphate - Sluggo - Bait - snails, slugs, kills them and acts as a fertilizer; Sluggo Plus - Spinecod - bacterial product ; kills insects - earwigs, cutworms

Controlling a Pest -

Tape
Root Maggot - wrap diagnolly downward - tape Flagging Tape - Floral Tape

Floating Row Cover -

Slide Show

Floating Row Cover Tucked in the Soil tightly ; Create a bubble;
Floating Row Cover - wooden frame staple gun - row cover - fall winter ; summer gets it hot; bolted in response to heat - Harmony Farms Sepastobol - Light goes through
Most of the light and air goes through
Garden Supply
Peaceful Valley - Grass Valley

Generalists French Snail - serious problem in bay area gardens ; most damaging to seedlings - eat most of veggies
daytime - hunt them; hunt them out night with flash light

Use -- as traps

Rove Beetles - imported european eat slugs and snails

baby snails - life cycle - breed when weather warms up, and lay eggs - hemaphrodidic
hunt them before they breed
(chew)

Slug - mollusks - complicated life cycle; slug eggs- more white; cultural methods - grow what they don't like; mechanical hand picking; biological Rov Beetle -
Chemical - Sluggo

Rov Beetle -

Salamanders - eat snails and slugs, and insects

Earwigs - life cycle - make holes - male empregnates

Pincher Bugs - Generalists Trap them;
Sluggo & Spinecad - will kill these - low toxic soln

Daddy Long Legs & Spider (lemon spider) - spiders kills the earwigs

Aphids - Cabbage Aphids - multiple like crazy - leaves curl over them

Tomatos & Potatos - don't let them over-winter (?) on your roses

Aphids have so many enemies - water sprays (hose put your thumb on the hose); use vegetable oil sprays

cabbage aphids on tuscan kale - spray with oil

Neem Oil - makes them less interested in the plant

Artichoke Infested with Aphids - black

wasps eat aphids
beetle - feeds on aphids - attract flowers with nectar to attract these insects

Larvae of a Beetle - eat the aphids more than the adults

Syrfant Fly - Hover Flies - larvae eats aphids

Brown Lace Wing aphid predator - if you have green house - best use of the benefitial bugs; Fennel attracks a lot of features garden

Butterfly - White Cabbage Butterfly - Cabbage, Kale, lays eggs, hatch green catipillers crush the eggs - escape the catipiller

Pupae -

Butterfly net would help

larvea eat leaves, adult eats the nectar

use Bt, that will kill them; use it when they're small - start seeing the eggs - every week spray when plant is young, kill when catipillers

Cabbage Family Plant - Cabbage Root Maggot - Larvae is a maggot; btwn march & october; tape wrap is pretty effective
Beneficial nematodes put down in the spring

Fly lays its egs; wrap it when you transplant it; won't see them until the end of march, after october

Maggots, happen in carrots; fly away carrots resists these (inland not as many)

Onion get root maggos; benefitial nematodes; cultivate the soil in fall to kill the pupea ; ground beetles will help get rid of them

Diseased Tomato - Tomato Late Blight

Juliet
Current Tomatoes

Serenade - spray when plant is six inches tall

Spore is not in the soil; take the plant out of your garden, pick up dead grubby leaves, take it out early november, and grow early

tomato russet mite ; little mites - 8 legs at one end

mites are arachnids - pradator mite and pray mite ; dust spray with sulfur - kill whatever is starting and do it again later

beans - healthy

not getting enough water - mites sucking the sap - more sweet; water adequately; and don't use ___ fertilizer nitrogen - use organic

Spinach Leaf Minor - - eaten out - spinach, & chard - mite - chard only grow it in the winter mid october - plant and take out in march - and put row cover on it
(sucking)
Oil Sprays help smother them; Spinecod - spray on the leaf, neem oil

Pea with powdery mildew - beans, legumes, cabbage family - same mildew - CA poppy, dalias, calendulum; don't grow your peas to late in the year; pottasium bicarbonate - get that one

Varietes- Johnny Seed Catalog - Sungreen ;

take off the leaf with the mildew; pick them off and don't compost them; wash tthe spores of with water, reduce spread of disease

Pull the plant out with the virus; spreads by the insects

Not Caused by a Creature - Natural Spontaneous Abortion
Decay caused by Fungus - flower rotting knock it off and clean with thumb (uneven watering doesn't allow plant to develop propperly)

Leaf Cutter Bea - Rose & Pepper - benefitial creature - polinates

Larvae of Butterfly - put them on the wild fennel - eats parsely and celery

Problems that are Abiotic - buttoning - Cauliflower- stunted -
Leafy Head - too hot - heat spell

Tomatoes - abiotic caused by cold night so that the flower doesn't get fertilized -

Tomato Blossom End Rot - tomatoes - caused by uneven watering

Cat Facing / Cracking = Cold Wet Weather

Sun Scald

Potatos - greening of potatoes -cover with thick mulch - green on the potato - prevent with mulch

Plants out before the weather has Sun & Cold - leeched cucumber seedlings - no creature; not hardened off ; weather too cold

Buy at the nursery hardened; but if you grow yourself - you have to harden

Hail - frost bit onlions, beets, chives,

African Blue Basil - attracts many benefitiial bugs
Dalias - light colored ones
Mustard Flowers
Cianopis - Native plant
Pretty Veggies - Jan. King Cabbage
Over-wintering - Brocholli august - grown in january
Rainbow Chard - winter
Royalty Purple Bush Beans
Snap Peas - happily growing in spring; plant in november

Leeks, Onions, Zuchini

Ellen's Tomato Bruchetta
tomatoes
mint
cilantro
Sweet Pepper Flakes ground
Smoke Salt
Alemany
Tomatillo Tomatos
Brown Rice Vinegar

saturday 10 am

carpool meet at 9:30 Four Barrel Coffee - Valencia St. 375 Valencia