Melon diseases and their treatment: methods of struggle, how to process with a photo

Dangerous melon diseases deprive the harvest, nullify all the work of planting and caring for them. Damage from melon pests is no less. If the cause of the disease can be a viral, bacterial or fungal infection, then the list of pests is longer:

• melon aphid;
• spider mites;
• wireworm;
• scoop;
• melon fly.

Prevention of melon diseases, timely control of them and insect pests help save the crop.

Melon pests

Any insects that settle on the melon cause damage to it. Symptoms of infection should not be disheartening. Having information about dangerous melon pests and effective ways to destroy them, you can save the crop.

Melon Fly

For our harsh climate, the melon fly is exotic. She has recently adapted to our cool climate. Before that, the habitat was warm countries (India, Egypt) and our Transcaucasia. The fruit, along with the seeds in it, suffers from the larvae of the fly.

Melon fly is one of the most dangerous pests of this melon crop. In the southern regions, the damage from its invasion is enormous. Insect can destroy up to 50% of the entire crop. Insect lays eggs in the pulp of the fruit, gnawing holes in the skin and penetrating inside. Numerous larvae bring further damage.

How to deal with melon fly?

A natural question arises: how can you deal with a melon fly, what preventive measures save you from a pest? First of all, you need to know what such a dangerous melon fly looks like. This will help to learn about the infection at the initial stage and prevent mass infection of melons.

It is easy to recognize a dangerous insect, the fly has wings with yellow transverse stripes, the body is small (5-7 mm), oblong, yellow. If you saw a yellow insect and it has wings with four transverse black stripes, then you have an imago of a melon fly in front of you. Almost all members of the insect are yellow in color, only rounded spots of dark color are visible on the back.

Females lay up to 120 oblong eggs, narrowed at one end, milky white, up to 1 mm long.The years of the melon insect coincide with the time of the formation of the fruits of gourds, and lasts from the first days of June to October. The female lays her eggs under the melon skin of the fetus 7 days after mating.

The larvae penetrate the melon and feed on the juice of the fruit. When pupation time comes, they leave the melon fruit and penetrate the soil. In the pupal phase, the insect stays for 3 weeks in summer, up to 1.5 months in autumn. For a year, one female will spawn up to 3 generations of the pest.

The culture affected by the melon fly has external signs: holes in the peel and brown spots on its surface. Subsequently melon fruits:

• lose their usual shape;
• rot;
• smell bad;
• suffer from secondary infections.

Obvious danger to humans from eating fruits affected by melon fly has not been identified, but they are not recommended to use. It is impossible to exclude the presence of infection in infected fruits. The most harmless disease after eating infected fruits is diarrhea.

Melon aphid on melons

Adult aphids are not so much terrible for a melon as gourd larvae are for a melon. The question of whether it is possible to eat fruits if aphids are on the melon should not arise. The larvae do not live in the melon (fruit). They live on the inner surface of the leaves, just like adults.

How to treat bushes if aphids appeared on melons:

• karbofos - for 8 liters of water 60 g of the product;
• soapy solution - add 100 g of soap chips to 10 liters of water;
• Aktellik - according to the instructions.

Aphid must be de alt with in the early stages, preventing its active reproduction.

Spider mite

Melons and vegetables suffer from spider mites.Small pests live on the inner parts of the leaves. A large number of pests inhibit the development of plants. Due to the large loss of juice, they gradually dry out. A sign of a spider mite is yellow foliage and white cobwebs on the leaves.

The first infected plants can be removed to prevent the insect from spreading to he althy plants. Sick bushes can be treated with acaricides or preparations containing sulfur and phosphorus. Means alternate to maintain the effect. Spray all parts of the plant, even in the most inaccessible places.

Broomrape

Broomrape is a parasitic plant. It has no roots, they are replaced by suckers, with the help of which the broomrape can stick to the root system of gourds and feed on their juice. The plant is very prolific - 1.5 million seeds per season. Moreover, they remain viable for more than one year.

Ways to deal with broomrape:

• crop rotation;
• use of virgin land for melon;
• deep plowing;
• keep the land clean;
• biological control methods.

Biological variant of the fight - phytomiz fly. During the period of active flowering, broomrape is launched on melons. Larvae hatching from eggs laid in flowers destroy the seeds of the parasitic plant.

Gnawing Owls

Scoop - a butterfly whose caterpillars are of an unpleasant gray color, live in the upper soil layer and cause significant damage to melon bushes. They gnaw out the flesh of the stems, which causes them to wither, gradually dying off, leading to the death of the plant.

Standard ways to deal with the nibbling cutworm:

• loosening the row spacing reduces the population of pupae and larvae;
• use of chemicals according to the instructions and within the allowed time;
• use of Bazudin during seedbed preparation.

Decis Profi is used from the gnawing cutworm, 0.4 g of the product is diluted in 5 liters of water for spraying lashes. No more than 2 treatments can be carried out per season (before flowering and after). The product is toxic to bees.

Bazudin is added to the soil during the planting of melons. Use the recommended concentration - 15 g per hundred square meters. This dose is mixed with 0.5 liters of river sand to evenly distribute the product over the entire area of the ridge.

Melon diseases

Melon is susceptible to various infections that affect the yield, marketability and taste of the fruit.The main sources of infection: poor-quality seeds, contaminated soil. Additional factors that provoke diseases are bad weather conditions and poor-quality plant care.

Fusariosis wilt (Fusariosis)

A dangerous disease spread by fungal spores. At risk are melon varieties of medium and late ripening. Fruits with a low sugar content, not juicy, have lost their aroma and keeping quality, are formed on diseased plants.

Young plants in the phase of 2-3 true leaves and already fruiting bushes are infected. Symptoms indicating that the plant is affected by Fusarium wilt:

• light leaves;
• sluggish stems and leaves;
• gray spots on leaf plates.

Sick plants should be destroyed, and the soil should be disinfected with any fungicide. Prevention helps reduce the risk of infection:

• observance of crop rotation;
• deep autumn digging of the soil with complete removal of all plant residues;
• preplant seed treatment in 40% formalin solution for 5 minutes;
• foliar treatment with potassium chloride during bud formation.

Experienced gardeners advise planting melons on high ridges, this significantly reduces the risk of plant infection and pest damage.

Grey mold

Cold damp weather is ideal for the spread of gray mold, a fungal disease of melons. Signs of the disease appear on young ovaries in the form of mold. Infected fruits become soft, watery.

Note that the disease is more intense if the outside temperature is kept within 15 °C. With the advent of heat, it slows down and, with proper care, disappears. Sick melon care:

• weed removal;
• removal of damaged leaves and stems;
• moderate watering of treated plants.

Solution for the treatment of melons infected with gray mold: urea 10 g, copper sulfate 2 g, zinc sulfate 1 g. Proportions are given for a volume of water of 10 liters.

Powdery mildew

You can learn about the disease by the symptoms: whitish spots at the initial stage, brown at later stages. The fungus infects the entire aerial part of the vegetable crop. To prevent disease and treat diseased plants, the following measures help:

• keep the beds clean: timely weeding, removal of crop residues at the end of the season;
• crop rotation;
• colloidal sulfur treatment of all plants with powdery mildew symptoms.

Recipe for preparing a solution: water (10 l), preparation (100 g). Processing - spraying the leaves, must be carried out weekly. The last - no later than 20 days before the mass harvest of fruits.

Downy mildew (downy mildew)

Young plants suffer from downy mildew. On tender leaves, yellow-green spots appear. Their size increases with time. High humidity leads to the formation of a gray coating on the bottom of the leaf blades.

To avoid illness:

• pre-treat melon seeds - immerse them in water heated to 45 °C for 2 hours;
• treat with urea solution (1 g/l);
• every 10 days use Topaz, Oxychom.

Treatments carried out exactly according to the instructions will not harm plants and human he alth.

Cucumber mosaic

A viral disease that has no cure but can be prevented with simple preventive measures:

• observance of all crop rotation rules;
• treatment of seeds before sowing by heating method;
• use a 5% solution of potassium permanganate to process working tools;
• keep rows and spacing clean;
• destruction of aphids when they appear on plants.

You can learn about the disease by mosaic spots on the surface of leaves, deformation of leaf plates, fallen flowers, death of large leaves, ugly fruits with warts on the peel.

Root rot

Difficult weather conditions, poor care weaken plants. With weak immunity, they develop root rot, in which the color of the stems and roots first changes (shaving), then they become thinner. At the last stage of the disease, dark spots appear inside the melon, and it loses consumer qualities, becoming inedible.

Fight rot as standard:

• organize proper watering;
• loose aisles;
• prepare the seeds for planting by dressing them in a formalin solution (40%) for 5 minutes.

White Spot (Septoria)

Septoria is spread by fungal spores. The peak incidence occurs during the rainy season, when the humidity is high. The causative agent of the disease remains in the soil for a long time where unharvested plant residues and plant seeds remain.

In the initial stage, the diseased plant develops white spots that gradually turn dark.

The main control measures include deep autumn tillage to a depth of 30-35 cm, removal and destruction of diseased plants, preventive spraying of tops with Bordeaux liquid (1%), crop rotation.

Angular spotting (bacteriosis)

Bacteriosis can affect a plant in any phase of development. The disease causes more damage to leaves and stems. Brown spots appear on them, having an irregular shape. Small, oily, sunken spots appear on diseased fruits.

Factors contributing to the development of the disease:

• night temperatures of 18°C and above;
• dew.

Ascochitosis

The fungus infects the root neck of the melon. The onset of the disease is pale spots on the neck with many dots (pycnidia), the progression of the disease is an increase in the area of the affected areas. The disease spreads to the fruits and stems, they darken and dry out.

Provoke disease low soil temperature and excess moisture. Disease prevention and control:

• deep autumn tillage (plowing);
• crop rotation;
• cleaning the site from old plant residues;
• timely soil disinfection;
• removal of affected areas of plants;
• potash fertilization;
• treatment of the aerial parts of plants with Bordeaux liquid.

Anthracnose (verdigris)

Brown or pink spots on the leaves are signs of melon anthracnose. First, the spots increase in size, covering the entire leaf plate, later holes appear in their place, the leaves are deformed (twisted) and eventually dry out.

Whips are damaged: they become brittle, thin. The flesh of the melon is covered with brown spots and rots. Anthracnose prevention and control measures:

• regularly loosen the soil the next day after watering;
• dusting plantings with sulfur powder;
• spray the plants with 1% Bordeaux liquid every 10 days.

Processing tools

There are no modern varieties of melons that can resist the melon fly. Control methods: prevention;

• destruction of infected instances;
• treatment with special preparations at the stage of flowering and ovary formation.

The cardinal methods of control are insecticides. Melon fly afraid of drugs:

• Confidor.
• Karbofos.
• Fufanon.

Control methods come down to spraying plants during the formation of ovaries. A single treatment will not give the desired result. Spraying is repeated at least 3 times. Their treatment is carried out with the help of other drugs (insecticides) for melon diseases:

• Sherpa.
• Decis.
• Arrivo.

So that chemicals do not cause the accumulation of harmful substances in fruits, plant treatments are stopped a month before the mass harvest.

Processing technology

In Transcaucasia, an original method of combating the melon fly is used. When the ovaries reach the size of a chicken egg, they are buried in the soil to a depth of 14 cm.There they are not afraid of fly larvae. Damaged melons rot and are unsuitable for further use. If passages that damage the skin of the fruit are found, the melon is destroyed by digging into the ground to a depth of 0.5 m or burned.

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