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San Jose, CA

Hello All,

Well... my patch got demolished by powdery mildew. Man, that stuff spreads fast! I ended up making the decision to cut the dead, dying, and mildew covered leaves... which was over 50% of the leaves. The remaining leaves I sprayed with milk/water mixture. Is there any hope that the plant will survive and my pumpkin will continue to grow or is this pretty much the end of my season? If the end, I'm assuming that I should harvest the pumpkin immediately and keep it in a cold, dry place.

One other question... check out the shape of my pumpkin...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_J6OEiPjRa5s/SM3-dse92uI/AAAAAAAAAGc/571ofJSiMXs/s320/IMG_0352.JPG

Did I do something to cause this or is it just the way that some pumpkins turn out?

Thanks!
-Dave

9/15/2008 2:39:41 AM

South East

Hey dave, Pm sucks yes. Instead of milk spraying a fungicide like daconil or immunox would help you more. This slows the spreading a bit and this way your pumpkin might grow a bit longer. Your pumpkin has a severe dill ring by the way. It happends and cant be prevented.Sometimes in a shape like it wil make the pumpkin split.
Next year spray the milk before you got pm, it can work preventive. It would also be a good idea to take two diffrent fungicides and alternate them. Before you get disease.

Once your plant is done growing get rid of all plant material and dont compost it. The disease might live thrue the winter and haunt you next year again.

Good luck.

9/15/2008 8:04:13 AM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

9 cups water to one cup (2% at least) milk and spray every three days helps a lot on preventing PM....

That is one extreme dill ring... at the ribs where the ring crosses is often where the pumpkin will split. Some lines are more prone to dill rings than not. You might look for different seed for next season and not grow that particular one again.

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=266404 has more about dill rings...

9/15/2008 9:32:47 AM

Frisco, TX

I learned a hard lession about preventive spraying. My plants just looked fantastic for the first couple of months and I thought I was on hallowed ground or something... I should have been spraying fungicide and insecticides! My plants were almost totally lost to SVBs and then powdery mildew, and now to end the season, I have whiteflies. I can not believe I even have a pumpkin but I have four small ones, 32lb, 145lb, 88lb, and a smaller one. I lost a 175lb to a split. For my first year I have learned a lot and will be more diligent next year. I have to admit I shed a tear when I lost the 175 since it was my very first pumpkin. OkieGal, and Cooks, I have learned a lot from your posts, thanks for shareing your information. OkieGal, you should make a calendar with your pics of you with you 'kins!

9/15/2008 7:08:57 PM

San Jose, CA

Cooks, OkieGal,

Thanks so much for the info! I've learned so much this year... can't wait until next year to give it another go!

9/15/2008 10:14:17 PM