Beets.. disease or weed???

[patty_b]

My 80 yr. Mother says she never in her life has seen anything like this, so I tend to believe it might not be all that common in her zone 5 West Virginia garden. I surely couldn't tell her what it was but knew that I could get an answer here. It is only on the beets and there was not a place where we could find the golden strands coming up from the ground. What is this??

[tjg911]

no idea but they appear to be runners/vines of some kind of plant? in the 3rd pix there appears to be a flower of the same color in the upper right. check to see if they are rooted, i am sure they are. pull them off. please keep them down there we have enough problems up here!

tom

[bcday]

It's dodder. It's a parasitic plant. It doesn't have any roots in the ground. It lives entirely off the host plant by using modified roots to penetrate the host plant's stems (in this case, your mom's beets) and absorb nutrients from the host plant instead of from the ground.

More info:

http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopEx...eed/dodder.htm

and

http://www.forestryimages.org/browse...imgnum=5359949

[patty_b]

WOW...........thanks. How do you get rid of it??

[Wi-sunflower]

You need to pull EVERYTHING, host plant and all. Nothing it touches is salvagable.

Pray that you get it out before it has released any seeds that will start it all over again. It can be devastating when it gets into an area.

It's also known as "Swamp Dodder" as it tends to be mostly in swampy or high moisture areas.

If you have never seen it before, it probably came in with contaminated soil or potting mix. I had it the first year we were on this farm when I bought some potting mix for my transplants. Fortunately where it turned up the plants were on plastic row covers and the seeds didn't spread.

Carol

[Wi-sunflower]

BTW, I had it in Eggplant and pepper plants, so it will take over other plants than just those mentioned in the bulletins. I've also seen it in large quantity on the south end of Cancun on the road from the airport to the bottom of the island.

Carol

[Barbee]

I've never seen it either. Interesting reading on the link says it twines only in a counter clockwise fashion.
Sounds nasty.

[patty_b]

It makes me sad to think that the very reason she was proud of how well the beets were doing, probably caused the problem. She bought several bags of soil to fill the row where she plant the beet seed as she did the summer before when the beets did so well. And the did come up good and look wonderful the first time I got to see them. THis all came later in the summer......... Patty

[bcday]

I think you only have to get rid of the beet tops. The roots, if they are big enough, I think could be saved if she is interested in canning or freezing.

I'd bag and burn or landfill the tops.

[Wi-sunflower]

I'm not so sure about the beets either tho. I've seen pics of dodder where it infested carrots and nothing was usable. The carrots were just shriveled up and I think there was some evidance of the threads in the roots too. Not sure tho.

As far as not seeing it earlier on, neither did I, even tho my problem was there in the greenhouse. We didn't see it til the plants were almost big enough to be setting fruit.

The first time I saw it, I described it as looking like a piece of that yellow poly rope that had gone thru the lawn mower. At least that is how it looked to me, as I had seen some of that rope after it had gone thru the mowers we used at the golf course I used to work at.

Carol