What is Verticillium Wilt?

Every vegetable gardener, planting certain crops on a private plot, wants to get an unprecedented harvest as a result of his work, which would compensate not only money costs, but also time and energy spent. However, there are situations in which healthy plants are affected by various diseases, for example, verticillium wilt. This problem can appear when growing strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers. Verticillium wilt is one of the most pernicious diseases, which most often affects greenhouse plants.

How is the infection going?

The causative agent of this disease is a special imperfect mushroom that is found in the soil. This pathogenic microorganism enters the plant through the roots, in which there may be microtraumas. Also, penetration is facilitated by the presence of a large number of root hairs. Further, the fungus lives in the root neck or in the conducting processes of the stem, where they exert their negative influence on the entire plant as a whole.

Features of the defeat of tomatoes

The first symptoms, which indicate that the verticillium wilt of tomatoes begins, appear in the period of active flowering. At the same time, the lower leaves begin to turn yellow, most of them become dry and as a result fall off. The upper leaves remain green, but they twist at the same time.

In the early stages of the disease, the root system looks healthy, but the first impression is deceptive. Roots with the course of the disease die, and this leads to the appearance of secondary phytopathogens.

When examining the cut of the stem, even with the naked eye, one can see the ring of vessels that are affected. They have brown color. With time, when the tomato wilticidal wilt progresses, the necrosis of the vessels spreads further down the stem, reaching a height of 1 m. It is this feature that distinguishes the disease from a similar root rot.

Vertical Stem Wilting Strawberries

The first symptoms appear, as a rule, on new plantations during the formation of the mustache. If the disease affects the old plantations, then most often problems begin in the period when the harvest time is approaching.

Symptoms can be different, because they depend on whether a particular type of strawberry is susceptible to the causative agent of verticillosis or not. However, it is the wilting of the above-ground part of the plant that distinguishes this disease from other similar fungi that affect the roots. But it is still better to ask for a proper diagnosis, and then choose treatment to go to a specialized laboratory.

Infected leaves of strawberries look drooped, withered, devoid of moisture. Their color on the edges varies and becomes red-yellow or dark-brown. New leaves on this plant, although formed, but in small quantities, and almost immediately twisted along the veins. If the plant is too much affected, it ceases to grow, whiskers and petioles may form bands or spots of brown or bluish-black color. Slowing growth affects the roots of strawberries, in addition, they can blacken at the tips.

In case of severe damage wilting and death of plants is observed mass, if only some parts of the plantings die, then the lesion is not too serious and proper treatment will help to get rid of the pathogen.

Methods of struggle

If the diagnosis of "verticillium wilting" is diagnosed, treatment will only help if you start it early in the course of the disease. But it is better to destroy an infected plant. It is also necessary to carry out soil disinfection. For this, fumigation (fumigation, destruction by poisonous vapors or gases) and solarization (biocidal treatment) are carried out.

Methods of prevention

Popular agrotechnical techniques capable of protecting plants from the action of the causative agent of verticillosis:

• Use of varieties and hybrids that are resistant to this genus of fungi;
• When growing crops in a greenhouse, before planting new plants, the old substrate must be sterilized or steamed, not only the surface layer;
• During the vegetation, if the plant is still affected by verticillosis, it should be removed along with the root system, then in this place it is necessary to install a container with soil in such a way that the new land does not come into contact with the infected one.

And one more tip: in open ground conditions the soil needs to be healed, for which it is necessary periodically to plant such crops as rye, vetch, white mustard on different sites. Sowing them is recommended almost at the very end of the season, and in the autumn carefully plow the garden. The resulting plant residues will eventually rot, resulting in the accumulation of saprotrophic organisms in the soil, which, in turn, inhibit the growth of pathogenic microflora.