Re: [compost_tea] PLUM CURCULIO ?

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 11:13:48 -0500

To understand how to alter the outbreak capacity of any insect pest, you need to look at the pest's life history cycle.

Where in that life cycle could you put in a competitor, or a consumer, that would effectively keep that pest in balance?

Does curculio have a soil stage? If it does, one part of the strategy would be to make sure you have fungi in the soil that will parasitize the larval stages of the curculio.

Make sure you have bactera and fungi in the soil that will consume the eggs of the curculio as it overwinters in the soil. Or if curculio is one of those insects that lays eggs on the leaves, when those leaves fall to the ground in the autumn, get the diversity of bacteria and fungi on those leaf surfaces. Soil applications of compost or compost tea are called for.

If you have good, healthy soil, with the microarthropods that will "taxi-cab" the bacteria and fungi from the soil onto the fallen leaves (but you have to have a goodly number so the job gets done fast enough), then you don't have to be out there applying compost or compost tea. If the biology that spreads the beneficials around has been killed, then you get to perform the function of the critter you killed, or you will suffer the consequences of that function not being performed. Diseases and pests will get out of hand.

So, a disease or pest is just a message from mother nature telling you that the biology in your soil isn't what it should be. Don't blame compost or compost tea as "not working" because you don't instantly get the biology back to balance. Look again at your soil. You have a chemical residue, most likely, that the added organisms can't deal with. They need some help.

Oh yeah, and for the folks that keep applying round-up despite the facts that are coming out about the break-down products from glyphosate? That's why compost tea "doesn't work so well" in your situations. Until the herbicide is done away with, you are going to have to use compost twice a year, or compost tea weekly through the disease-intensive part of the year. Your choice.

Weed using toxic chemicals, and you will have weeds forever. Weed by undercutting, or flaming, along with getting the beneficial biology into the soil, and using a cover crop, establishing normal nutrient cycles and you will, after a few years, not have weed problems.

Same with insect pests.

For immediate, you-have-to-deal-with-it-now control of foliar pests, try an biopesticide such as Beauveria bassiana. Entomophagus is another fungus that will likely also help. Some of the entomophagous nematodes like Heterorhabditus can do teh job too.

If you want SFI to help you isolate a fungus that will work in your specific system, we can do that. Send in a specimen of the insect which has been attacked by a fungus (it's a white fuzz ball), and SFI can work on culturing that fungus for you. We'll send you a plate culture of the fungus, and you add that fungus back into your compost or compost tea.

Now, please realize that there's an assumption being made here, that there will be no adverse side effects on other things by multipying that fungus in this way. Thus it is better to put the fungal inoculum into the compost, and let normal microbial interactions have their way before putting it into your garden.

But something like commercially available Beauveria, if Beauveria actually attack curculio, can be added as spores into the compost tea. Beauveria will germinate and grow in the compost tea during the 24 hour brew cycle, IF YOU HAVE FUNGAL FOODS IN THE TEA RECIPE. When you spray the tea with the actively growing Beauveria onto the soil, the fungus will colonize the soil, IF YOU HAVE FUNGAL ORGANIC MATTER IN THE SOIL. Active Beauveria fungi will colonize any curculio it comes in contact with, and as long as you don't have something that will kill the fungus in the soil, or on the leaves, then you should see the adult curculio turning into fuzz-balls.

If you have a fungus-killing factor on your plants, or in the soil, you won't see this happen. So, do not spray round-up or other fungal-killing or not-fungal-friendly herbicides or pesticides after using Beauveria or using compost tea, if you want the tea to work. Copper sulfate is a serious no-no if you want to keep these biological control measures functioning in your soil and on your leaf surfaces. Anything with sulfur in it is a no-no. Sulfur in most any form except a protein will harm fungi.

OK, if all you have is pathogenic fungi, then have fun with sulfur compounds. But you will never get out of disease mode until you let the beneficial fungi grow. And that means leaving the toxics behind, making your soil a habitat that allows the good guys to live and grow, remiving the habitat that lets the bad guys have a place to hang-out.

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com

 

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Received on Fri Jan 02 2004 - 12:04:21 EST

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