Root knot nematodes!

[rick9748]

Cherokee Purples, Delicious, African Queen and other heirlooms looking great.Treated with Actinovate, molasses and rain water at planting in 1/2 week of April.Have made one repeat application.Will repeat in 2/3 weeks.Usually damage shows by July.Fingers crossed.

[rick9748]

Do you have any idea which of the listed products works or works best against RNNts?For home garden.

[Goodloe]

Originally Posted by rick9748

Cherokee Purples, Delicious, African Queen and other heirlooms looking great.Treated with Actinovate, molasses and rain water at planting in 1/2 week of April.Have made one repeat application.Will repeat in 2/3 weeks.Usually damage shows by July.Fingers crossed.

Did your efforts help with RKN in 2019?

[rick9748]

Saw no major improvement in application of Actionavate. Only grafted plants showed signifance inprovement.Root stock had RKN resistance.

[Goodloe]

That's unfortunate; grafting seems to be a pretty major undertaking. I've been dealing with "todes" for about 3 yrs. I still think they came from pine straw mulch that I bought at a big-box garden center, but the county extension agent poo-pooed that notion...said it's cause I've been growing in the same spot for several years. I'm trying some mitigation tactics this year...mustard cover crop...French marigolds...alfalfa. Only Big Beef and Roman Warrior (hybrids) will be grown in-ground this year. Everything else will be in containers. We'll see....

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Goodloe

That's unfortunate; grafting seems to be a pretty major undertaking. I've been dealing with "todes" for about 3 yrs. I still think they came from pine straw mulch that I bought at a big-box garden center, but the county extension agent poo-pooed that notion...said it's cause I've been growing in the same spot for several years. I'm trying some mitigation tactics this year...mustard cover crop...French marigolds...alfalfa. Only Big Beef and Roman Warrior (hybrids) will be grown in-ground this year. Everything else will be in containers. We'll see....

It is a fairly large undertaking but well worth it down here in the deep south. My production more than doubled with far less plants because they stayed healthy for so long. It is no guarantee with either problem not showing at all but the effects will be minor until very late in the season. I have bad arthritis in my hands and some shaking due to age but am still able to get a fairly good success rate with the technique I have developed through trial and error. It seems that the condition that most affects the graft success is the temperature and humidity. I have had grafts that looked ridiculously mismatched at the join that still worked very well while perfect joints did rather poorly if it was too hot and too dry. The opening of the healing chambers has to be slowed down a great deal when those conditions are present and that can cause damping off in the chambers but opening too soon in those conditions can lead to catastrophic wilting and high failure rates.

I recommend you start practicing grafting with a cheap seed like Big Beef as the root stock until you get a reasonable success rate before going whole hog with the expensive root stock seed. I don't think when you finally start using grafted plants with the correct root stock that you will be disappointed with your results.

Bill