Is this little thing really what's destroyed my gardens?

[Paradajz]

hi, N.,

hope your results will be done soon, and above all, hope i missed with the R2 thing. that's actually the issue of all issues for you at this point.
also i am curious if anybody here had some experience with Trichoderma products and fungal wilts?
unfortunatelly, we've been testing 3 different products ( made in Italy, Hungaria and Russia ) with no luck at all, that's why i'm curious about it.

br

[z_willus_d]

Hi Ivan, yes I'm a racist when it comes to Verticillium as well. I'm very eager to see the results. In the meantime, I've put off my regular spraying (nothing sprayed for a couple weeks now), and I have been working on building a large 50-gal tea brewing container. This is in anticipation of needing to brew a lot of tea in the future, but also I've wished to build one for sometime now. Unfortunately, we screwed up sizing the 1" grommet to our hole-saw, so I'll have to toss one 55-gal food grade container and try again with the right hole. Nothing comes easy to me lately. :O
-naysen

[z_willus_d]

As I know there might be at least one person following the outcome of the testing on my garden, I will continue to post updates as I have them. I "heard" from UCD yesterday. Here's the update:

"So far we have no foliar pathogen. I do have Fusarium growing from the tissue. I will go on and see what race or species. I might be a saprophyte that outgrow vert on media.
You have two option:
-I am going to do a greenhouse pathogenicity test (10-14 days longer), however this will not rule out vert.
-You can send me some fresh tissue with vascular discoloration. This way, I can rule out vert/fusarium faster. Then greenhouse pathogenicity test to determine the race."

So it looks somewhat inconclusive at present, and we have more testing to refine the results.

Good day.
-naysen

[LDx4]

Hi Naysen,

Yes, I'm following your testing outcome. Can you (or Ivan or Steve) explain what this part means?

So far we have no foliar pathogen. I do have Fusarium growing from the tissue. I will go on and see what race or species. I might be a saprophyte that outgrow vert on media.

Is it conclusively Fusarium, but they don't know the race yet? And the last sentence is beyond me also?

Confused Lyn

[dice]

I read it as "What you brought had at least one or more Fusarium
spores, but that does not rule out Verticillium as the primary disease
afflicting your plants. It may be that the fusarium spore sprouted in
the test media and is simply growing faster than any verticillium
that may be there. We have not found evidence of foliar disease (like
powdery mildew). More testing is needed for conclusive results."

[Heritage]

Originally Posted by LDx4

Hi Naysen,
Yes, I'm following your testing outcome. Can you (or Ivan or Steve) explain what this part means?

Lyn, I interpreted the initial results the same way as dice, and I can't think of a better translation than his.

Naysen, thanks for the update, please keep 'em coming!

Steve

[Heritage]

Naysen, is the sample they tested from the dead Green Zebra plant? Was it a graft? Thanks.

Steve

[LDx4]

Thanks Dice (and Steve) for translating!

Lyn

[z_willus_d]

Yes, I think Dice's translation is dead on.

sap·ro·phyte (spr-ft)n. An organism, especially a fungus or bacterium, that grows on and derives its nourishment from dead or decaying organic matter.

Hi Steve, correct, the sample was taken from my dead Green Zebra (lower stem), which showed characteristic discoloration. The plant had been completely dead and dried up for more than 2-3 weeks, so the test may be invalidated in some way. It was not a grafted vine, rather one of six non-grafted plants. I'm going to send in fresh samples from a live plant tomorrow, Lord willing.

Thanks for following along.
-naysen

[Paradajz]

hi, N.,

nothing ever simple with you

how long has it been since you sprayed Myclobutanil?
saprophytes means that it ''catched'' it after death, in simple words.
ok, try the following:
find a living plant with stem discoloration ( should be showing leaf symptoms too, and i believe you saw the way he made the cut of the stem? ).
pull both the plant and the roots out, pack it in any kind of clean ( sterilized if possible ) cotton cloth, spray some distilled water on it, and if by any chance possible pack it in a styrofoam or any other kind of thermo- protective box.
if you can get the plant to the lab in less than 6h after pulling out ( and temps are not extremely high ) just the cloth should do.
to translate the results you got so far- the sample was dead for to long to be conclusive.
also, Myclobutanil might had something to do with the absolute absence of fungal growth from the leaf tissue if it happened that the sample- plant was sprayed with it up to 14 days earlier.

that's actually why i asked you if they had given you the instructions how to take and deliver the samples
just don't give up on it, please, you need the verticillium ( ) race confirmed, it's extremely important here.

p.s.
it would also be great if you could find more than one sample for them, play it safe

[z_willus_d]

Hi Ivan,

My records show I last sprayed Myclobutanil on the evening of 6/11/2013. I haven't sprayed anything on the plants since that time. I think its very likely that the dead stubs of my non-grafted green-zebra could have provided less than optimal material for the UC-Davis tests.

This morning, I went out to the garden looking for any external signs of darkening around the lower stems of the live plants. Honestly, I could not find any. In lieu of that, I just tried to find offshoot stems that started toward the lower part of the plant and terminated in a bunch of yellow death in the leaves and branches above. Rather than pull the entire semi-healthy, still producing plant out, I went ahead of cut off these dying offshoots from several vines through-out the garden. I couldn't detect nearly as much of the darkening within the stems as I had in the dead Green Zebra, but frankly this is exactly how it was last season (2012) when I was investigating for Fusarium. I ripped out several plants and never saw signs of any significant darkening in the stem. I suspect I'd find the same in the vines this year. I only saw the darkening tissue in plants that had died outright and started to decay/dry.

I was hoping the UCD facilities would be able to use my soil samples to try and isolate the fungus pathogens. I'm not giving up on this, and if necessary I will pull out a living, producing plant in its entirety (sacrifice) in the interest in getting to the bottom of all this.

Take care,
Naysen

[beeman]

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

In the meantime, I've put off my regular spraying (nothing sprayed for a couple weeks now), and I have been working on building a large 50-gal tea brewing container. This is in anticipation of needing to brew a lot of tea in the future, but also I've wished to build one for sometime now. Unfortunately, we screwed up sizing the 1" grommet to our hole-saw, so I'll have to toss one 55-gal food grade container and try again with the right hole. Nothing comes easy to me lately. :O
-naysen

Might I suggest you tread carefully if you intend to use compost etc from your garden to make 'Tea'.
I wasn't aware of pathogens in my compost (turned out to be Corky Root rot) which I then brewed and inoculated my whole garden with it, over a period of 4 years.
A better bet. Brew using Biotamax. The jury is still out, but it really looks as if I have found my cure, as this year my tomatoes are up to 3rd truss and growing wonderfully. Last year after 2nd truss they all collapsed. The 'only' change I have made to the growing regime is to use Biotamax as the bacteria source.

[z_willus_d]

Hi Beeman, thanks for the word of caution, well and fully taken. I'm very suspicious of my worm compost at this point, given it's probably the only thing all of my various plant sites (work, dad's, brother 'n laws, containers, beds, new beds, etc.) have in common. They've all shared castings from my worm bin at one time or another. That seems to suggest I could be hosting a pathogen or two in what should be very nice stuff! I've asked UCD to test the casting, and I hope they can to rule them out as a source for destruction. I really do like the full circle composting I can achieve with the worms. It's quite fulfilling when it's working for you, much the same way I imagine husbanding a bee hive for the local garden might be.
-naysen

[dice]

I wonder if you could dig up a live plant showing all of the leaf
symptoms, put the rootball in a bucket, fill it with the soil it was
growing in, water it of course to keep it alive, and take the whole
plant to the UCDavis lab, showing them everything as you see it
in your garden.

Maybe do this in the evening and set in some shade, so that the
transplanted plant has several hours to rehydrate and less transplant
stress to skew the results before taking it to the lab.

(Just an idea.)

[z_willus_d]

Hi Dice, it's an interesting idea, but frankly I don't think they're interested in my small garden problems any more than they're already engaged. I've probably been less than a major head-ache for the grad student assigned to my case -- what with the constant barrage of photos, info, questions, etc. -- less but maybe a minor one; and I sense any more from me would be writing outside of the margins. Now if Ivan was her eon Sabbatical, something tells me he would take a certain appreciation of the effort and dedication it would take to affect what you described.

No, I think I'm going to have to keep chipping away at this from as many angles as I can cut until I've QED the system myself (w/ all the info I can get along the way).

--naysen