by Wally Richards
PLANT DISEASES
Plants, like ourselves, catch a disease or fungus problem when they are in stress; like us they are more susceptible to a cold or other illness when in stress.
If fact we are told one of the major contributing factors to heart disease, cancers and mental disorders is stress.
In Nature pests and diseases are Cleaners: their job is to take out the sickly plants to make room for the healthy.
So plants need a good foundation to thrive in, which means a growing medium or soil that has an abundance of soil life: microbes, beneficial fungi and lots of earth worms.
With our chemical NPK fertilisers, chemical recovery sprays and watering with chlorinated tap water during dry times, it makes our plants more prone to problems.
We know that using natural products such as Wallys Neem Tree Granules or Powder and Wallys Super Neem Tree Oil plus Wallys Super Pyrethrum will safely keep most insect pests under control.
But what to do it a plant gets a fungus disease which mostly happens during a period when temperatures are fluctuating and it’s moist or humid? Temperature changes cause stress in plants and thus we see some problems like black spot, rust etc.
Lack of sufficient sun light also and that can cause stretching and a weakening of plants.
To control and prevent plant diseases we have some safe to use products which I will describe:
Wallys Perkfection can safely assist the home gardener with many problems of their plants.
The active ingredient of Perkfection is ‘Phosphite ion’ or Phosphonic Acid. (Potassium ions are also present).
Perkfection is safe to handle and spray, though all care of oneself should be taken, it is a product that you do not have to use extreme measures, as one should do, with many other garden sprays of a chemical nature.
The next important thing is “There is NO WITHHOLDING PERIOD” when used on food crops. I would suggest, however, if you pick something that you have sprayed that day, wash it as you may get a ‘tainted’ taste. Perkfection is used extensively by commercial growers (as PerK Supa) on produce and fruit as it’s safe and effective control; excellent for root rots and silver leaf disease.
We have suggested Perkfection for roses and other plants as an alternative to more toxic sprays, for the assistance in recovery from/or prevention of, the following problems, Black spot, downy mildew, phytophthora root rot, canker, heart rot, damping off, crown rot, leaf blight, silver leaf, late blight, collar rot, pink rot, brown rot, armillaria, and gummy stem rot.
Now, that’s quite a list of diseases and it also means that many of your disease-related problems can be overcome with this safe to use product.
Besides using Perkfection over your roses for the likes of black spot and downy mildew you can also use it as a spray over all your fruiting plants and trees including your strawberries. (dry berry is downy nildew by another name). It can be used also over your potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, beans, cucurbits (cucumbers etc.) lawns, onions, passion fruit, cauliflowers, cybidium orchids and ornamental plants and vines.
In fact there is nowhere you cannot use Perkfection to advantage.
Being ‘Synthetic Organic Phosphates’ what you are doing is placing this valuable material, onto the foliage of your plants, where it is very readily absorbed and transferred through the whole of the plant.
This fortifies the plant’s cells, increases the plant’s immune system and makes your plants less susceptible to invading pathogens. Try it for garlic rust and stone fruit leaf curl.
There is, however, a downside, as with any good thing, you can have too much and the recommendation is to use Perkfection at 5 ml per litre of spray once a month and only for about 5 times in a season. (Note a season is the normal period of time for that crop or plant. Roses are from Spring till Autumn. Most annuals are 5-6 months.)
The reason is that you can overload your plant with organic phosphates, causing a clogging of the cells and halting growth until the system clears.
Prevention is better than cure and by spraying your plants in the spring you give the greatest protection to leaves and fruit, autumn spray will give greatest protection to roots and tubers.
I have suggested that on the 1st of the month to spray your roses and other plants with Perkfection, Wallys Mycorrcin and Raingard. 14 days later (15th) spray with Wallys Mycorrcin, MBL and Raingard.
Another most effective spray to control diseases spores is potassium permanganate commonly called Condy’s Crystals. The 125 ml spoon that is inside the container measures the right amount to add to 1 litre of water. That makes a purple color which you can spray over plants and soil underneath to neutralize disease spores. Potassium permanganate is not expensive to buy the 150 gram or 200 gram containers that we sell and has many uses such as fungus toenail and athletic foot on people. It’s also very good for staining wood or dear antlers (which is the only reason we are allowed to sell it for.)
We used to have a recipe to use it to help control club root on brassicas but another company that has a chemical product for that purpose complained to the Government and we had to remove the information from the label. It was simply dissolving three quarters of a tea spoon of potassium permanganate with a tablespoon of salt into a litre of water and then adding that to another 9 litres of water making up 10 litres which you would put one litre into the planting hole where you were going to plant a cabbage etc.
It would sterilize the immediate area and give the brassica a chance to reach maturity before its roots became too badly affected by the club root disease.
Of course, we can’t have that at point of sale and this information is for your interest only as things like this are interesting if you are a gardener.
Other safe disease controls we have are Wally Liquid Copper which can protect plants from the outside and the new systemic copper; Wallys Super Copper Nutrient which works from the inside of the plants.
Wallys Super Neem Tree Oil also has fungal benefits and it is the best one I know to clean up powdery mildew immediately turning the white on the leaf back to green immediately.
Use Magic Botanic Liquid regularly on preferred plants and food crops as it helps prevent diseases by keeping plants extra healthy. Add a table spoon of molasses per litre of spray to increase Leaf size and plant growth and have better results. It’s ideal on garlic to get bigger bulbs at harvest time.
It is a good idea to have potassium permanganate and Wallys Perkfection on hand in your garden shed so that when a problem happens you can treat straight away.
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