1. Good Organic Gardening - January-February 2016

Disease distress | PLANT HEALTH
Grow plants in the right season.
Keep plants well watered and fed —
stress on the plants invites trouble.
*** Watch for the yellow-and-black
fungus-eating lady beetles, Psyllobora
vigintimaculata. Believe it or not, they actually
eat the mildew but, even though
they do a good job, these little guys are
never quite enough to get on top of a
full-blown outbreak.
Rust
Once again, rust is a broad term used for a
group of fungal species that attack a large
variety of plants.
The common symptoms of rust are the
circular fruiting bodies or spores, which will
generally appear on the undersides of the
leaves and can be yellow to orange to brown
in colour. The tops of the leaves will often
have a yellow mottled appearance and in a
severe enough case of rust the foliage may
even drop off.
Beans, geraniums, snapdragons, orchids ...
there’s a long list of plants that rust can affect.
Control
Organic registered fungicides are worth a
go. Remember to spray the undersides of
the leaves.
Watering early in the morning rather than
late in the evening gives plants time to
dry out before nightfall. This can help
reduce the incidence of fungal problems.
Make sure any susceptible plants have
good airflow.
Give regular feeding and applications of
seaweed to strengthen cell walls of plants.
Sooty mould
This disease appears on plants as a black
soot-like mould covering all parts of the plant,
from leaves to fruit and stems. A multitude of
plants are susceptible to sooty mould issues,
from citrus to gardenias.
The reason you have black sooty mould
on your plants is a little tricky because the
mould doesn’t just show up on its own;
there’s also a secondary infection from the
presence of a sap-sucking insect. The insect
attacking your plant is literally sucking the
goodness out of it, then excreting a sticky
honeydew substance all over the plant. It’s on
the excretion that the sooty mould grows.
And as long as the particular sap sucker
is in place, the sooty mould will keep being
a problem. Indentify the sap-sucking insect
and remove it to break the cycle and rid your
plants of sooty mould.
Control
Here, the insect needs to be identified and
then the appropriate organic control used or
preventive measure put in place.
A lot of sap-sucking insects such as
scale, aphids, thrips and mealybugs can
be controlled with Eco-oil or other oilbased
plant sprays.
Eco-neem is registered to control a variety
of sucking insects on ornamental plants.
Keep your plants healthy with adequate
feeding and water to make them less
prone to insect attack in the first place.
Remove the sooty mould once the
insect infestation has been dealt
with. This is relatively easy as a lot
of the sooty mould will flake off. Any
residual mould can be hosed off. A bit
of warm soapy water before hosing
will help.
It hardly needs reiterating that prevention is
always better than cure. The best prevention
includes seasonal growing, good soil
preparation, regular watering and mulching,
fertilising for optimal growth and applications
of helpful substances like seaweed and
gypsum for strengthening cell walls and
general good health.
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Good Organic Gardening | 57