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As a gardener, fungal diseases probably cost the most each year in plant loss. They are very difficult to eradicate once established and fungal spores are micro
by cityofdelusion 2y ago
As a gardener, fungal diseases probably cost the most each year in plant loss. They are very difficult to eradicate once established and fungal spores are microscopic and very good at spreading. I’ve had years of 100% loss on tomato’s, peppers, and apple trees, all from tiny fungi.
- xolox 2y agoI grow mushrooms as a hobby and in that context my number one enemy is trichoderma, the green mold. This is because trichoderma is parasitic on other fungi, i.e. it doesn't colonize the substrates that I grow my fungi on, it directly colonizes (eats) the fungal threads (mycelium) thereby killing it off before it has a chance to "fruit" (produce mushrooms). This is how I initially learned that trichoderma is used as a natural "fungicide". In your specific case it might be interesting to investigate this in more detail, e.g. you can "inoculate" your soil with copious amounts of trichoderma to fight off other fungi. For more details here's a pointer to a rabbit hole: https://www.google.com/search?q=trichoderma+fungicide https://www.google.com/search?q=trichoderma+fungicide Sorry if you know all of this already, I was hoping it might help :-).
- mrweiner 2y agoAh right, I was just thinking of aiming to have fungal-dominant soil. I wasn’t even thinking of fungal disease above ground. Makes sense.
- hinkley 2y agoMonocultures have a multiplying effect on this, and if you really want to avoid problems you also have to worry about closely related plants. If you avoid monocropping cherries by mixing four different stone fruits, you don’t achieve much. And apples are rosaceae, as are many many other plants, and a lot of pathogens can hop between them. And every common garden invertebrate loves to nom on fabaceae.