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RESOURCES
• Biocontrol Network.
Try them for information:
http://www.biconet.com/disease.html
I buy their soil care products such as
ThermX 70,
Mycorrhizal
Root Growth Enhancer,
BioHume Humic
Acid, and
Maxicrop seaweed.
• Peaceful Valley Farm Supply is located in California's
Grass Valley. Get it? It is fine if you like self rightgeous
Macintosh computer users, dyed in hemp hippies, slow service, and
high prices. I've tolerate them as best I can for almost 2 decades.
Their paper catalog is wonderful-an education in itself in organic
growing. They carry good products you can buy for less if you shop
around. |
Dusting with sulfur
Scab on the tip? Are your cactus being scarred with tan, beige color
scab like stuff? You may have
thrips and/or
spider mites.
Thrips
look like tiny white moving specks, but you need a 10X magnifier to
see spider mites. To understand these bugs better you can websearch on the
names. You'll learn that spider mites damage a wide range of crops
and that spraying with pesticides can be ineffective.
But plain elemental sulfur is their enemy, yet harmless to
us (don't breath it as you should not breath dusts in
general). Elemental sulfur is always allowed in organic
agriculture since it is just a chemical element not
particularly bad in small amounts. |
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Sulfur as a Fungicide
Sulfur is the only fungicide used in organically farmed
apple production against the main disease apple scab under
colder conditions. Sulfur is also a major fungicide in
conventional culture of grapes, strawberry, many vegetables
and several other crops. It has a good efficacy against a
wide range of powdery mildew diseases. Sulfur is one of the
oldest pesticides used in agriculture. In organic production
sulfur is the most important fungicide used. Biosulfur
(biologically produced elemental sulfur with hydrophillic
characteristics) can be used well for these applications. |
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ADVICE: If your plant is sick, talk in person (not email)
with a local gardener or plant store owner. Sickness in plants may
be as complicated to diagnose as it is in a human. Medical Doctors
are highly educated—yet even they misdiagnose patients all the
time.
The Cactus & Succulent Society is nationwide with local chapters.
The member can be very helpful. But anyone who tries to help you has
to speak with you in person to determine your level of knowledge and
experience.
Please do not look for easy cures such as a chemical insect poison.
First you need a complete diagnosis that includes understanding why
the plant got sick in the first place. For example; insect problems
may be natures way of telling you something else went wrong. The
bugs are simply there to do their job. With vegetables, as one
example, too much nitrogen fertilizer can bring on aphids who then
suck the overly rich juices for the sugar.
The diagnosis is not where you end. It is where you begin your
understanding. Nature will teach you all her secrets if only you
ask, observe, and learn.
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My plants
This website is all about how I grow healthy plants. Yet only
people with sick plants email me.
Why, why, why, why...do I get emails month after month asking what
to do for diseased San Pedro? Is my entire website serving no
purpose? Is the attention span of the visitor so superficial that
the only thing they find is my email address? Apparently so.
Your plants are sick because you make them sick. You treat them like
"things" and not like living beings. The sickness in your plants is
a mirror of the sickness in you.
See how healthy my plants are? Would you believe I talk to them,
praise them, thank them, touch them, kiss them and compliment each
new bud? My plants are friends--part of the continuum of
consciousness that we inhabit with animals and other people. You
don't get it?
Your plants
A stranger emailed these photos (sick plant at right). Of the five tips I see one
normal and 4 that don't look right.
How can anyone do this to plants?
Look at the tall, spindly one at right. It is held up by a twist
tie? Are you serious?
Do you tie up your dog in a yard where it lives in its own waste
without proper light, air, food and exercise?
Do you lock your children up in a dark room and starve them, then
wonder why they are sick?
Disease is natures way of killing off the weak. Disease germs such
as viruses, fungi, etc. are always present in the environment.
When a plant, animal, or human is weakened by age, poor nutrition,
environmental stress, etc. the immune system can no longer protect
itself and it becomes "sick."
So if your plants are sick, that is because you made them sick. You
think soil is a "mix" and that super fertilizers, hydroponics, grow
lights, etc. lead to huge healthy San Pedro. You think a tree sized
plant can grow out of a flowerpot, right? It doesn't need root
space, it doesn't need drainage, it should do great in a pot sitting
out in the blazing sun all day, right? Why would a cactus need shade
netting, large root space, and regular watering? What does that
guy with the website know anyway, right?
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| (above) My plants are healthy |
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| (below) Your plants look like Hell |
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The disease
If you want healthy San Pedro you need to understand that plants are
living beings. They are not "things." You should not force them to grow
during the Winter dormant period with artificial lights,
hydroponics, heated greenhouses, etc., etc. unless you really know
what you are doing.
I let my plants go dormant in the cold winter and stop watering them
until Winter ends. Then they grow like rockets in the Spring!
Plants have immune systems that can protect them from disease if you correctly
care for them. My website is all about that; it is about
compost & soil, large containers for healthy roots, 30% shade
netting to prevent sun scald, respecting the winter dormant period,
etc., etc.
How can you ignore all of that information?
How can you grow such lousy looking specimens and then ask me what
to do to fix them?
Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there? Do you really think you can
ignore all the rules for growing healthy plants; and then "fix" them
with some chemical spray? Yes, you do. I find that to be
disturbing. |
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| Where do I go from here? |
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008
Subject: Peruvian Torch Woes
I am having an issue with a torch and you seem to be the most
knowledgeable and generous person on the web to ask for help. My
torch started browning this winter and eventually it got all black
on the top.
I was advised by someone on a forum to cut the whole thing down to
where it isn't brown and I just did that in my kitchen only to find
that it looks perfectly healthy on the inside of the cactus. So my
question is: would it be worth it to try and graft that long, brown
middle section back onto the base? If so, what are the steps
involved? If I decide to just let the base grow back again, do I
need to take it out and let the top dry? wash the cut surface with
alcohol?
I took out the loose soil and gravel on top to make sure the roots
weren't infected,
it looks a little yellow but it isn't too much softer than the green
part.
Where do I go from here?
Thanks so much for any help!
PS. Since I last emailed you I put the cut part in the freezer, has
this ruined any chance of re-attaching? probably------------------
Where do you go from here?
The health or sickness of the plant is a reflection of yourself.
Reality itself is a like a dream in which everything is created by the
self.
Plants are living beings
Learn about the life force by getting up from your computer—visit a
home & garden store to understand creating healthy conditions for plants
in your home.
Buy any inexpensive cactus at Lowes or Home Depot along with a book on
container growing. Try to raise a healthy "any old kind" of cactus. Can
you keep it alive and see it thrive?
Learning is a lifelong activity
Read, talk to gardeners, learn, observe.
It is not the plant, per se, that is sick; it is us. Its demise
is a manifestation of our own inner darkness.
Verne |
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