Re: powdery mildew on crepe myrtle

Marge,
Thank you, thank you for the powdery mildew recipe.
I printed it out last time you posted it, but this is easier than rummaging through some files.
I bought some lovely phlox at our farmers market about a month ago, meant to plant them right away, ha, ha. (Very busy with family visiting from Germany).
They are still in their pots and covered with p.m. I shall try the solution tomorrow.
I have been off the list for quite a while, but am back with broadband!!!!
Godi, zone 7
Mt. Vernon VA
----- Original Message ----- From: "Marge Talt" <mtalt@hort.net>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 12:52 AM
Subject: Re: [CHAT] powdery mildew on crepe myrtle


From: Theresa <tchessie1@sbcglobal.net>
What works to get rid of this?  My mom in Austin has several plants

that

are severely effected.  Help!

----------

Powdery mildew is usually weather related and seldom does lasting
harm to the host plant tho' it can make them look pretty bad.

You can't really 'get rid' of it easily, but you can stop it
spreading on with the good old baking soda recipe and I understand
the milk recipe also works - have not personally used that one.

Here they are:

Baking Soda - was tested on roses at Perdue  and found to be more
effective than chemical fungicides:

To 1 gallon of water, add
3 tablespoons of baking soda,
1 teaspoon of
horticultural oil
1 teaspoon of
dishsoap (as in liquid, like Joy)
Apply every week to 10 days by spraying ... remove infected
leaves.   Also, spray the ground around the plant.

Milk:
(quotes from posts saved)

An article in the Oct 16th (no idea of what year) New Scientist
describes the use of
milk as a fungicide to combat powdery mildew.

"Milk's fungicidal powers were discovered by Wagner Bettiol of the
environmental laboratory of Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural
Research Corporation, n Jaguariuna, north of Sao Paulo. Bettiol, who
was looking for cheap ways to control plant pests, observed that
byproducts from milk-processing factories killed powdery mildew on
courgettes. So he decided to simply spray fresh milk on the plants to
see if it had the same effect. To his surprise, he found that it did.
In fact, spraying heavily infected plants twice a week with a mixture
of one part cow's milk to nine parts water was at least as good at
stopping mildew as the chemical fungicides fenarimol and benomyl,
Bettiol discovered."

another saved post:

Some people have compared different dilutions and found that
the 1:9 often necessitated a second or third treatment, but the 1:3
or 1:4
took care of the fungus first time around.

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@hort.net
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