Trouble shooting with chrysanthemums
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All infomation on this website is in laymans term's for ease of use.
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Slugs
First let’s look at slugs… slimy little critters..
They are easy to control if your house is kept in good order throughout the year, the best time to start to eliminate slugs is in the Autumn, as you are cleaning your ground, they have laid their egg’s just under the soil and walk board’s, this is where a mate come’s in that’s got a flame gun, burning the eggs is the best way of eliminating the next generation, and if you are lucky you will see mum and dad, blast them too. Also go over the underside of your walk boards (as the added advantage of killing any other beasties hiding away under there). At the start of the growing year (for you), when we start moving on our first flush of cuttings, before you place them where they are to go, we scatter Aluminium Sulphate. How Aluminium Sulphate works… its simple really… it works by blocking up the slugs secretion gland, so they can no longer produce the slime they need to move, and dry up and die. Pellets can be scattered on to walk boards and paths after planting out, to draw any remaining slugs away from your plants, or Aluminium Sulphate, this as the added advantage of being Hedgehog friendly.
Aphids
At cutting stage, in greenhouse conditions they tend to appear a tad earlier than on the out side, I use moth balls in my greenhouses at all times, and it dose help in deterring them at this early stage, as the year moves on it is advisable to water in Admire aprox, two weeks before planting out, this should take care of our Aphid problem for the growing year. But if your like me (safe not sorry) you can also dust your growing tips with Derris dust, this also as, yet again the added advantage of deterring and killing a range of other bugs we don’t want.
Caterpillars
These usually arrive around mid June, and can easily be conquerd with routine spraying (remember to keep your sprayer pumped up correctly as the pressure kills the smaller bugs as well as what’s in the sprayer) it’s the underside of the leaf we are aiming for, as this is were most if not all our bugs decide to live. If you’ve found your leaves rolled round each other on you growing tips, in your greenhouses, this is a little moth caterpillar, so moth balls help again.
Capsids,Froghoppers and Shield bugs
And hard to kill, but thankfully we have Decis, This is residual and contact spray, which means if you don’t hit them directly, the residual product that’s left on our leaves will, and just to be safe, continue to dust growing tips with derris.
Earwigs
For those of you out there that supposed to use glasses? But are to proud to wear them…. PUT them on for this job. We do not spray for earwigs, as if you are vigilant, vigilant and more vigilant you will find them easy enough, just look for little holes on your top leaves and their droppings ( its is as small as this full stop . ). They live in the end of our canes that support our plants, No don’t even think it! If you block the end of the cane up… where will they live then? In our blooms. If you see the tell tail signs get a peace of strong wire and poke it in the end of the nearest cane, wiggl and stab, draw up slowly, and if your lucky you will have killed it, if not ,do the same in the next cane, eradicating them in this way will slowly decrease the population for the ensuing year. pictures of adults and baby.
Leaf Miner
This little chap is like a mini house fly, but causes a lot more upset and damage. It starts the damage by puncturing our foliage, so it can insert its eggs, these eggs hatch, and create unsightly tunnels in our leaves. Most pesticides, used on a regular basic will take care of this pest
Spider Mite
This little blighter needs an insecticide called… Dynamec… which will, with three weekly sprayings, cure it, but I must impress strongly, you must make sure you spray every nook and cranny of your plant.
Thrip
White Rust
Well…. Lets talk about White Rust…It seems most of us have suffered from it at one time or another, the thing that surprised me the most about it, in talking to people, is, not every one knows what it looks like in its different stages …. This article is aimed again at the newer grower, as the more experienced grower will know about white rust in all its stages.
The first thing you will see is a pail greeny, creamy spot on the top of your leaf… about as big as this… O…. if your VERY observant you may see it smaller, if you turn the leaf over there will be a small blister on that side, when the rust is becoming more established you will see a pustule ,creamy white in colour,then as it becomes more mature, it turn’s more of a pinky orange colour, then as the pustule bursts it turns a brown colour, if it goes that far…. Oh boy we’r in trouble… “its spread“…. There are thousands of spores if not millions in one spot on you leaf, so now you know why I look at every leaf,…… I don’t want it to get that far, If you see any of these stages best thing to do is ,……if it’s a lower leaf… take it off… if it’s a main leaf on the upper part of you’re break just rip that part off, you MUST then check all you’re plants leaf by leaf.. As I do, and I mean I look at ever leaf. If I say observation … I can not say it enough…. By being observant you can help you’re self, and stop it spreading as much, or as bad as it could be.
Now to the fun bit….spraying…. Its hard work if you growing a lot of chrysanthemums, but I find it very rewarding, because I know I’m killing the stuff, the recommended treatments are……
First … systemics, these are absorbed by the plant, and travel through its sap stream.
Systhane and Bumper, these two must NOT be used within fourteen days of each other, or ANY other systemic, such as ….. Admire etc….
Then there are the contacts …
Amastar and Thiram, these are contact treatments, that means they kill on contact, the way they work is…. They cover your leaf with a very fine film of powder, which stops the rust from ….. How do I put this..? Breathing,…. is the easy way to put it, so in turn, kill’s it, but the down side to contact treatments is if your leaves are still growing they will out grow the contact treatment, and will need to be sprayed at regular intervals of twelve days.
Leafy Gall....... The Shroud is lifted
Our aim as a society is to help us recognise it, but most of all control it.
Fascians….. He’s the big boy that’s causing our problems… he shows himself in three different ways…
1st lets look at fasciation
This is were our plant produces two growing tips, but they grow as one and flattened, looking at our infected plant from one side it looks pretty normal, but on closer inspection the newer growth is flattened… this is fasciation .
This is were we get a gnarled mass of cuttings coming from the same place on the stool, we initially think ooooh goody look at all those cuttings… but make no mistake they are not healthy cuttings, some of us break the gnarl off and think that’s the end of that, but its not, the fascian virus is in the rest of the stool, it travels through our soil water, so where ever there are roots and water it will travel,
3rd is crown gall.
This manifests its self in the form of a tuberous like growths at the base of the plant, and or on the roots, resembling a string of pearls.
Now to the preventatives
In an ideal world we could all afford basamid, but sadly that’s not true… so the second best thing is formaldehyde… this needs to be put on your ground after you have removed all your stools, and left to over winter, if there is any way you can obtain basamid this is the best thing to use, again this needs to be dug in after removing your stools.
that’s the hard and expensive bit done, the rest is very simple……every time you water you need to add to your water jet 5 or common household bleach…… yes you read that right……bleach…… don’t worry it will not harm your plants, and in your soil, it just turns in to nitrogen, and has the added bonus of killing slug eggs, and deterring other soil pests. You must carry on using bleach all the way through the growing season , even after planting out, a large desert spoon per two gallon of water, this is the only known preventative.
If you have any questions or queries please contact Julie on samold@sky.com
25/4/09