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josko021

Cucurbits and powdery mildew

14 years ago

About a month ago, I got powdery mildew on my zucchini. It quickly spread to cucumbers and winter squash. I tried keeping it at bay with a mixture of baking soda and horticultural oil (dissolved in water) and that kept the leaves sort of green, but the fruit looked miserable. I switched to Neem oil, which also kept the leaves green; fruit production all but stopped. I stopped Neem, and plants shriveled up within 2 weeks.

So I'm wondering what a more appropriate response to PM ought to be. It's also possible these plants stopped producing for a different reason. I got a great crop of zucchini and cucumbers for ~ 6 weeks before PM hit. Winter squash grew ridiculously fast (and far) but only put out 3-4 fruits per vine.

What should my strategy be next year? Just take the 6 weeks of production, fight PM some other way, or look for PM resitant cultivars. My PM-resistant cantaloupe (Halona) is still going great and didn't seem the least bit affected.

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