PM Question

[Coir]

Just a quick question to people that are having PM problems. Are you using bamboo stakes in your rooms?
I ask because this Winter I bought a bunch of them to use as supports for my grafted tomato plants. I noticed that a couple of the bags had stakes that were covered in what looked like PM and I tossed them. I was down visiting some people yesterday that are having a real PM problem and the temp and humidity in their rooms does not look like it's the problem. They are almost too dry and have more air circulation than I have ever seen.
I did notice they have a lot of bamboo stakes and I found the same white PM looking substance on theirs as I saw on mine. Do you think it's possible to be introducing PM into their rooms with these stakes?

 

[ssteely71]

Great question !!!!
I stopped using bamboo and switched to plastic coated aluminum stakes because the place where I would get the bamboo (homedepot) they were always wet on one end and slimy with mildew.
Curious to see what the pros think.

 

[Coir]

After going through their rooms and seeing the issues, it was really the only thing I could come up with. It had to be introduced somehow and I couldn't find any other sources inside or out of their place.

 

[bongobongo]

Dealing with pm for several years I can say it isn't caused from one bamboo stake... It'll come on anything.. Someone's clothes ECt.. Although maybe it could have started like that.

My advice is clean the room, count your losses if some are to far gone and spray green cure up until 20 days in flower from baby's. I use slightly less then reccomended.

Pm is everywhere, especially up here in Montana, always see huge amounts in the early spring when run off and humidity are high. And after you get the infection it's fucking damn near
Impossible to move it out unless your on that shit

 

[Coir]

Thanks for the info. They have a lot of the stakes in there and many of them had a white powdery substance on them which makes me think that is where the infection started. I recommended they replace the stakes as soon as possible with something else to at least eliminate it as a possible cause.

 

[bongobongo]

And PM won't be a white residue on a bamboo... Even the worst problems on non weed plants always has the same staple fluffy white powder that almost looks like powdery sugar but slightly grey . It's a powder that can be washed entirely off, not a white residue that can be scratched off. You can basically blow onto a plant and get the spores off. Or sponge them


I have great heartache because like I said for years I had it.. I first contracted it in early summer with a room way over packed. I spent years trying everything but tearing my grow apart. Then FINALLY after moving into a new location and keeping on it every week I broke through to where I don't see spores developing. However I don't fuck around and spry weekly green cure to. Prevent. I'm also on the cap Bennie train so lets hope that could perhaps switch green cure out

Weekly up till 3rd week in flower. Having a large space helps a great deal... I was in a 10th of the room I had now and looking back I had all kinda of issues(terrible bronchial colds, run down, pot was never where I wanted it). Root aphids spider mites and pm's.... Fuck your life sometimes

 

[GoClutch]

I bet they could be a vector for quite a few pests, with their hollow stems- I wonder if they are pasteurized before being shipped? I like ssteely71's idea of using the coated aluminum stakes instead- something to consider.

I've had great success using a once weekly spray of Safer's 100% Organic 3in1 concentrate as a preventative for p-dew and others. It uses several vectors, including dissolved sulfur and garlic extract, to be a miticide insecticide and fungicide. Heat treatments between crops, general cleanliness in the grow and changing into clean clothes before entering your grow after leaving the house are your best preventatives. And in this case, an ounce of prevention is worth perhaps 5 pounds of cure:)

 

[Seamaiden]

Coir, I've been perseverating on your question, and here's the thing that gets to me when presented with the idea of live PM spores on a dead piece of bamboo that's probably been packaged for some months--to the best of my knowledge powdery mildew lives ONLY on live plants, not dead plant material. IF this is true (right now I'm assuming it is), then how would viable PM spores be vectored on the bamboo stakes?

That's my first thought. The second thought is this--IF we accept, and most of us do, that PM spores are easily found in most all air samples, then again, why would one look to the dead bamboo stakes as the vector? It doesn't make sense.

Now, if my assumptions are wrong, then all associated thoughts go in the toilet.

 

[Capulator]

bamboo produces the white powder that grows on it. You will always see it when a new culm is exposed at the joint.

 

[Capulator]

apparently it's good for the skin..

 

[Coir]

I wasn't saying that it was the source only that it looked like it was covered in the same white mass that was on the effected leaves which is why I brought up the question to see if there was some correlation between them. It appears there is not so that is a good thing and one more item to be checked off the list for their possible causes.
And I do know that it is airborne like so many other fungi that effect plants but usually the correct(or incorrect) environmental conditions need to be present for the spores to grow. They certainly are keeping the humidity and airflow at levels that I have not seen any fungus thrive in. The search for a cause will go on now I guess!

 

[Seamaiden]

I've seen it at 33% RH outdoors. Took some physical barrier treatments to get it under control, only on one particular strain (don't recall the strain).