Fungicides Organic Gardening 101

Fungicides

pointsevenout 14 years ago

Has anyone heard of using cornmeal as a fungicide?

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

Has anyone heard of using baking soda as a fungicide?

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mystic_river1 14 years ago said:

From Garden Web:Here are a few guidelines that may help you:

1. Please use only grocery store purchased cornmeal in vegetable gardens.

2. This experiment uses only cornmeal/ground corn. I have no idea if other corn products such as masa harina, grits, etc. will give the same results. Your reports/results on the subject will be of great interest, especially to those gardening in other countries.

3. How to use cornmeal as a fungicide? It is easy. Just scatter a handful of it lightly around any plant which is prone to fungus or mildew problems beginning in the early spring. Repeat this treatment once a month. Try it on roses for blackspot, tomatoes, hostas, zinnias, hollyhock rust, lawn problems such as Red thread, Brown patch, Southern blight, etc.

4. DO NOT USE cornmeal as a fungicide on young seedling growth to prevent damp-off. Recent reports indicate that this use of cornmeal is harmful to the very young seedlings.
Wait until the plants have grown strong enough to be planted in the garden and then begin a cornmeal treatment, if needed

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mystic_river1 14 years ago said:

From the Natural Gardener:

Baking Soda Fungicide
Use for Black Spot or White Powdery Mildew

Ingredients needed:

4 Level teaspoons or 1 1/3 tablespoons of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Mild Soap (Dawn, Ivory, should be biodegradable with no phosphates)
1 gallon of Water
Mix all ingredients thoroughly and keep agitated. Then spray plants.

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mystic_river1 14 years ago said:

I know these have worked in my garden. The baking soda on the gardenia bush is fantastic.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

OK I'll try the baking soda but not sure the best tact to agitate it. Maybe holding up a bottle of vinegar menacingly, or, or, or, calling out, your mother was a block of salt. : D

Thanks for the input.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

Sprinkled some cornmeal around one tray of my plants (about 12 plants). They are about 10" tall so I think they have moved out of the seedling status. Will water them tomorrow. From what I have read today, the cornmeal attracts a good type fungus that battles the bad types of fungus. Sure hate to be the one that does the experimenting for this organic gardening group.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

Watered the cornmeal in this morning a tray of some yellowing plants.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

Closing in on seed planting day. Need to finalize what organic tact to use for fungicide and insecticide.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

Think I'm going with your baking soda recipe, Mystic, for the leaves and cornmeal for the dirt when the plants get big enough. But what is big enough? And also scatter some diatomaceous earth on the dirt to stop the crawling pests.

Where is Trigger? I thought he would have something to say about these organic control methods.

Also sent a message to the organic farm where I bought all the seeds for more input.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

Am making up a solution of half a cup of cornmeal in a 2 liter soda pop bottle to ferment overnight. Then strain and spray my month old tomato plants, the healthy looking ones. This will be my prevent fungicide spray test.
Dissolving 2 teaspoons of baking soda and half a teaspoon of Dawn liquid detergent in a 2 liter soda pop bottle to spray on my month old tomato plants that look like the lower leaves have some sort of developing disease. Leaves are yellowing with brownish tints on the highlights. This will be my fungicide test spray for the sickie plants. The baking soda mixture is supposed to work the fastest on actual fungus.
I'm still up in the air about adding a horticultural oil to the baking soda spray. So for the time being am omitting it unless someone else knows better.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

Both of these sprays are leaf sprays.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

First application of baking soda foliar spray today.

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pointsevenout 14 years ago said:

Noticed some singeing of the outer edges of a few leaves on the healthy plants this afternoon. Curious if it's from the foliar spray or just from the water on the leaves.

Took a quart of baking soda spray to do seven trays of plants. That's from 80 to 90 plants.

Made up a second half gallon of baking soda fungicide with soap and horticultural oil. Plan to use this sparingly. The next application will be the cornmeal foliar spray in two weeks.

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pointsevenout 11 years ago said:

Well................. this string seems to have dropped dead.
It's been so long I can't remember any results of my dabbling.
Have been re acquainting myself with the organic recipes.
Did find out that the corn meal should be whole corn meal. Store bought corn meal meant for baking cornbread is not whole corn meal.
Corn gluten meal is different from corn meal or whole corn meal.
Corn gluten meal is a byproduct of a wet grind process at the mill and can be used as a weed pre-emergent if used in a specified manner but can also prevent any garden seeds from thriving too. It lets the seedling grow but kills the roots. Plant will wither and die.
Store bought corn meal doesn't have the endosperm or outer shell of the corn kernel.
Whole corn meal is just that. The whole kernel ground. It is used to feed microbes in the soil and can act as a fungicide, although the test data is little understood.

The closest cheapest source to me is cracked corn. I will try using this as a soil amendment at 20lb/1000sq' to boost microbe activity in our garden and give it a go as a foliar spray at 1c/gal water, strained.

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