Household products I can use in my garden that are natural fungicides?
for mulch, not plants
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Jul
30
2010
30
2010
for mulch, not plants
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Just keep the mulch dry as possible… e.g.: let the grass clippings dry on the lawn before raking and using them for mulch, instead of dumping a bagful of fresh clippings directly on the garden. Fungi don’t start composting it until it’s moist and stays moist.
Neem oil has fungicidal characteristics. By that I mean that it will prevent a fungal disease from appearing if it has been sprayed on the plant before the disease develops. If a fungal disease has already reared its ugly symptoms, then the neem, or any other fungicide for that matter, cannot repair the damaged part of the plant. What it does, if immediately applied, will be to prevent the further spread of that fungal disease.
Just as you used neem to repel certain pest insects, you try to anticipate when a certain fungal disease appears on a certain plant, and then apply the neem a few weeks before. Usually fungal diseases, like pest insects, are active for a limited period of time, seldom more than a month to six weeks.
Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate) has been found to have fungicidal properties. Researchers at Cornell University discovered that a combination of baking soda and Light Horticultural Oil applied to rose leaves infected with powdery mildew or black spot will significantly reduce the incidence of disease. Timing and rates of baking soda application are important as leaf burning can occur if the level of sodium bicarbonate is too high. No phytotoxicity occurs on roses with rates as low as 1 percent sodium bicarbonate (1 Tbl. baking soda + 2.5 Tbl. Light horticultural oil in 1 gallon of water) but experiments are still being conducted on timing of applications.
Copper dust is also good. Can be bought at garden centers and usually the powder can turns into a mini fogger when you push the sides of the can the copper is green so the dust dose not show up too bad on foliage.
Lime sulfur is made by boiling lime and sulfur together. This mixture is used as a dormant spray for fruit trees to control such diseases as blight, anthracnose, powdery mildew, and certain insects such as scales, eriophyid mites, and spider mites.
Lime sulfur’s drawbacks include smelling like rotten eggs, burning exposed skin and eyes and causing plant injury if applied when temperatures exceed 80 F.
Sulfur is probably the oldest known pesticide (fungicide) in current use. Homer described the benefits of “pest-averting sulfur” 3,000 years ago.
Sulfur can be used as a dust, wettable powder, paste or liquid. It primarily is used for disease control as it is effective against powdery mildews, certain rusts, leaf blights, and fruit rots.
However, spider mites, psyllids, and thrips are also susceptible to sulfur. Most pesticidal sulfur is labeled for vegetables such as beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peas, and fruit crops such as grapes, apples, pears, cherries, peaches, plums and prunes.
One the drawbacks of sulfur is its potential to cause plant injury in hot (+90 F), dry weather. The element also is incompatible with other pesticides. Sulfur should not be used within 20 to 30 days on plants where spray oils are applied since it reacts with the oils to make a more phytotoxic combination.
Sulfur is non-toxic to mammals but may be irritating to the skin and especially eyes.