Silverback discussion about Mould.

Got Mildew? Get Milk! I've Stumbled Upon this What Ya Think Of that?


By: Arzeena Hamir ( who evr you are Thanks for the Info )

Less than 3 years ago, researchers in South America discovered a new alternative to controlling powdery mildew. Wagner Bettiol, a scientist from Brazil, found that weekly sprays of milk controlled powdery mildew in zucchini just as effectively as synthetic fungicides such as fenarimol or benomyl. Not only was milk found to be effective at controlling the disease, it also acted as a foliar fertilizer, boosting the plant's immune system.

Powdery mildew in the cucurbit family is caused by the organism Sphaerotheca fuliginea. It is a serious disease that occurs worldwide. For decades, organic gardeners had to rely on making a spray from baking soda to control the disease. Now, instead of measuring out the baking soda and combining it with a surfactant (a "sticking" substance) of either oil or soap, gardeners need only head for their refrigerators.

In his experiments with zucchini plants, Bettiol found that a weekly spray of milk at a concentration of at least 10% (1 part milk to 9 parts water) significantly reduced the severity of powdery mildew infection on the plants by 90%. While some gardeners may be tempted to increase the concentration of milk for more control, Bettiol found that once concentrations rose above 30%, an innoccuous fungus began to grow on the plants.


How does milk control powdery mildew?

Scientist aren't 100% sure how milk works to control this disease. It seems that milk is a natural germicide. In addition, it contains several naturally occurring salts and amino acids that are taken up by the plant. From previous experiments using sodium bicarbonate, potassium phosphate, and other salts, researchers have found that the disease is sensitive to these salts. It is possible then, that milk boosts the plant's immune system to prevent the disease.

Milk used around the world

The benefits of using milk to control powdery mildew haven't been isolated to Brazil. Melon growers in New Zealand are saving thousands of dollars every year by spraying their crops with milk instead of synthetic fungicides. The melon growers in New Zealand have been so successful that the wine industry is taking notice and beginning experiments using milk to control powdery mildew in grapes.

What kind of milk should be used?

In Bettiol's original experiment, fresh milk was used, straight from the cow. However, this is obviously not feasible to most home gardeners. The research work in New Zealand actually found that using skim milk was just as effective. Not only was it cheaper, but the fact that the milk had no fat content meant that there was less chance of any odours.

Wagner Bettiol's original article was published in the journal Crop Science (Vol. 18, 1999, pp. 489-92). It can be found on-line at:
http://147.46.94.112/journal/sej/ful...908_180801.pdf
© Copyright Arzeena Hamir
Arzeena is an agronomist and garden writer with Organic Living Newsletter.
__________________

I have Not tried this Myself How about anyone Else in the Land of Green Gals?

Peace

HI all
Just back from vacation and feeling good.

I wanted to pass this on as I meant to do it before I left and forgot.

Trichburner reported discolored hairs just before I left and this was something I had never noticed, so I went out back, mixed up a little and sprayed a plant or 2 - no hair discoloration. Puzzled, I looked at the greencure and read. I quickly realized after reading the inside instructions that I am actually using 1/2 tablespoon, or half of the recommended dosage. I immediately mixed up a batch of 1.5 tablespoons and sprayed and every hair turned red. I looked at the buds that had discolored hairs 2 weeks later and I detected no damage to the bud and hairs that were produced after the application were white

REDUCE YOUR DOSAGE TO 1/2 TABLESPOON PER GALLON.

Slapstick said:

Hi guys, i have been looking for something like greencure, in europe but have had no luck.. Anyway on a coincidence i was checking a local wine-homepage (wine is a new thing in our country due to humid-and cold climate.. which is perfect for mold/mildew). anyway, on this wine-homepage (www.vinperlen.dk yea sorry its in DK..) they talk about mold, and give examples on how they fight it! The thing thy do is mix some milk with water, one ninth (1:9) milk to be precise. And spray it on.. i think i have read it somewhere here on icmag as well, but at that time i thought it was just some hippi storie.. Anyway, it supposedly is better than any other remedies..

Now i have not tried it.. and would i not have read it on this wine page, i would not have believed it! Anyway, since i cant find any greencure stuff in europe.. i think ill try asprin + milk and water, this year.. hope it works!

Also, seaweed (tang) makes plants healthier and able to resist mold a bit better... been using that here for some time with some succes.

Anyway, my 5cents on the subjekt.. ill be testing the milk-aspirin this year, if i have no mold u bet it works, no one gets trough a season here withouth mold!

slapstick

Click to expand...

Slapstick bro..buy some baking soda.it's the same active ingredient..0ne tsp/gal water..good luck

thickening of the plant has less to do with rott then of the fruit itself; regarding ganja toping, theoretically more average sized buds would hold less moisture after a nights rain then a huge ass top cola the side of a milk jug.
-indoors i have powdery mildue @ 6 and 8 weeks every cycle and early in flower too, i agree with silverback that crop density can creat favorable conditions for desease to occure. toping plants when their young with 7-8 nodes then tieing the taler nodes over opening up the canopy has proven effective aswell as discontinueing the strains that allways got pm the worst, wraped around stems and thick on leafs like danduf allmost
that training/toping imporuved lumination and airflow, better fruit set and consistant indoor bud too; less untrimable bottom nugs for the hash bin is all.

also, and im still reading about the cure; ive had to remove any infected and deseased buds meaning if its half way up a main top bud then i snip the top at the next healthy node. cut out any uneffected bud from the tops removed and spray (so far a product called sarinade but im still reading as youve got me interested in the cure for bud rott) haveing one big ass bud have some rott half way down could be disastorious. if theirs a half dosen big ass buds, one toping down fro huge ass buds then your recovery rate is much better, two topings is the most id do.

im useing sarinade for outdoor budrott, indoor powdery mildue also mildue cure and safer garden fungicide for indoor powdery mildue. i havent used the sulfer based safer spray yet but have switched back and forth from sarinade to muldue cure for PM cause of something i read about mold/mildue being resistant possably to a consistant fungicide so altenats are used for broad control.i havent found yet what sulfer based fungicides do to tast and aroma of ganja but im reading more...

lost about 30lbs to budrot, botrytis, last season. Mainly affected my Indica (Granddaddy, Bubba, Deep Chunk) plants, but some Sativas were affected, and some Sativas were totally unaffected. All in the same garden, with indicas blowing spores of botrytis everywhere, everyday, some sativas STILL held out and resisted the rot. The indicas started to rot with 4-5 weeks still to go, very early... Sativas that did get a little bit of rot started with 1-2 weeks left, and others lost just a few grams off each 1+lb. plant. Coastal growing, lots of fog in my area. August is commonly referred to as Fogust by local growers... thick dew each night, dripping wet plants by morning.

c99
casey jones
kali mist

all resisted the mold until the final days of the season, when it was time to harvest anyway.
I am skeptical that a simple baking soda spray will stop such a powerful adversary... but will give it a shot this year, indoors and out.

anyone besides silverback have any experiences with these bicarbonates?
I have a hard time trusting a product with only 1 positive user review, and lots of burned buds so far it seems.... ????


WHAT ELSE do folks use to stave of bud rot?

30lbs must have been hit hard no saving any of it?

I have used both Green Cure and Serin both seem to work it’s just a matter of staying on top of it if the rain/fog continues each day. I can’t say positively but nothing can work 100% if you can’t get out and spray on a regular basis.

I had some Shaman that I would hit with serin every week but still had a lot of mold but the stuff works its just that unless you are growing in your back yard kind of hard to keep an eye on the plants to spray at optimal times. Mold is always an issue and I try and minimize by removing dead vegetation or any thing that can attract moisture for long periods of time during flowering. I guess if I were in your shoes I might try keeping the plants real airy pruning the inside branches real good for air flow.
Sounds to me like strain selection is the key for you and I would stick with the ones that worked.
Good luck this season
PEACE

So, anyone using milk heh? I noticed my humidity was 60-70% in my grow room now that I have expanded to add another 1k watt. Dehumidifer isn't in the budget or the elctricity grid right now. So I need to prepare for the indoor mold fight. I am going to try to find some of this greencure and hope it works.

How is the packaging from megagrow? No company name hopefully etc heh...

You know 40Amp, as ive re read this thread it has come to me that i left out a very important piece of information.

hamstring is on the right course. The effectiveness of greencure comes from understanding how it works and when to apply it in your particular setting. For example, i have found it to be very effective when used in very early flowering before buds become heavy and then a few repeated applications of a 1/2 dilluted solution. The effectiveness of the product increases as the user learns how to apply the product in a manner that is effective for the strain and their grow enviroment . It requires some tinkering to really be effective and the aid that so many growers need..

For example, one would have to stay on top of Big bud with several light applications with the most important one comming before the buds thicken and hide the branch nodes inside and under the thick buds. This keeps mould from forming inside the bud where it cant be seen after the buds become thick.
On the other hand, i usually only have to apply one light application to sensi star, prior to the thickening of the flowers to prevent mould.

However, if mould is seen on the plant, a direct application of GC will stop it in its tracks.

And this greencure is not bad for the health? if sprayed on the buds??

Non toxic THC. Potassium Bicarbonate or something, (super dooper purified baking soda). The product creates a bit of an acidic surface on the plant which mould cant tolerate.

Except for barfing, I think you could drink it without ill effects. Depending on rainfall amounts and dew, the application can last from a few days to a couple of weeks. It my view that its best used in early and middle flowering anyway, but it will stop mould on contact if its observed on the plant.

tnx for the valuable info

i have some powdery mildew problems in my greenhouse now and needs to fight it
money is low so ill make some witchbrew from what ive learned in this thread
i think ill use some baking soda and add some soap and cooking oil as a sticker
also ill try adding some hydrogen peroxide, some alcohol and a little bit of chlorine and a few aspirins as a test also
ill take some pictures later

The stuff works great, but it takes some testing to get it right for cannabis. I use half the dosage as recommended and have learned when to apply it.

I have some great white sharks growing now that i will treat with GC because the strain really needs 10 weeks of flower but after 8 weeks the buds are so large and dense that only in the driest enviroment could mould be avoided inside the bud. At 2-3 weeks after flowering starts, i will give 2 treatments about 2 weeks apart so that the product is actually inside of the bud as opposed to on the bud.

Anyone have some good pic's of Bud Mold! Just in case.

Hey Silverback,
I ordered a small container of Greencure back in the beginning of summer for this season. Last season, I had horrible problems with bud rot and stem rot. In my area, we get a lot of overcast mornings with hot sunny afternoons.
So when flowering does start, when do I recommend spraying, especially for strains you are unfamiliar with? I know I've seen you mention the 2-3 week and 5-6 week before in here, but I'm just checking. Also, the dose should be 1/2 of what Greencure says?

I have some smaller plants from clone that are flowering, and I'm thinking i should probably give them there first spray...as they've been outdoors for 4-5 weeks now (and I assume they started flowering about 1-2 weeks in).

Below Frigid:
Here's a pic of Stem rot (brotytis), I don't have any pics of the bud rot, but it looks sort of similiar within the buds...

bud mold:

more mold



sorry for double post but it didn't want to insert this pic to previous post...

Was the buds too wet??? or external source??? That sucks..RIP little bud

that was a bit over-ripe white widow cut oct. 25th... it was threated with Green Cure but at the end it got little mold, less than 10%... it got moldy because buds were very, very dense...Usually mold sets in here at early oct or so but g cure delayed it till end of oct and on other, not so dense strains prevented it completely...

re: milk - I've fooled around with using milk for powdery mildew & blight on my "civilian" plants (that's what I call non-cannabis plants in the garden).

I read that you're supposed to spray a 50-50 milk and water mix.

Also neem oil is supposed to be anti-fungal, so I mixed the neem oil right in with the 50/50 milk/water mix.

It does seem to be somewhat effective, I don't know how long it will last though. Here in New England we've been having a ridiculous June that's been cloudy and rainy nearly every day, so it keeps getting rained off within a few hours of being sprayed.

From what I've read here the milk/neem mix will not be as effective as the bicarbonate products. However, Neem is always good to spray as it keeps spider mites & other bugs off for a long time. I can say the milk/neem mix is low impact and did not affect the health of the plants I sprayed at all.

It interesting to read this discussion - I think everyone should start off by saying where they're growing, it has a HUGE effect on mold. Here every month of the year averages rain on 1/3rd of the days, with a little more in May and June and a little less in Sept. and Oct. And usually humidity is only bad from 6/15-8/15, Sept. and Oct. are low humidity, so we have it easier than a lot of places, of course frost can come early too, if you're away from the coast Sept. frost is not unusual.

The situation in Northern Cali with the heavy dewing at night sounds awful! At least there's very little rain until fall out there.

The UK and Thailand sound like an absolute nightmare for outdoor growing. I wasn't even aware it was possible to grow outdoor in the UK! In Thailand you'd have to think that growing local landrace sativas is the best way to avoid mold, there must be some local sativas that are mold-hardy.

I jus t treat my plants 2 times preventive with a bayer product when they are vegging and min a month before flowerin and i dont have mildew anymore(since few years)

Sulfur also works