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psylosymonreturns
aka Gym Sporrison



Registered: 10/16/09
Posts: 13,948
Loc: Mos Eisley,
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
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Control for mummy berry?
#17544446 - 01/13/13 09:27 PM (11 years, 4 months ago) |
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So I have some friends who have a really nice organic blueberry patch . But in the past few years they have been gettting infected with mummy berry.
I naturally thought of folks here and how you may have a solution or an idea. Maybe this species has a fungal enemy or something of that nature?
Id love to hear what you have to say about this species. Thanks
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laughingsol
Dirt Farmer


Registered: 01/01/12
Posts: 389
Loc: The beautiful hills of Io...
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I don't have any experience with mummy berry in particular, but my impression is that its life cycle is much like apple scab.
Your #1 priority should be sanitation- the mummified berries have little ascospores of some sort that fruit in the spring and spread the spores. Remove all mummified fruits.
In addition, you can bury the mummified fruits deep enough that spore dispersal is greatly affected.
Encourage earthworms- they do wonders on fungal diseases of this type.
Maintaining a nutritious soil and/or a proper fertilization program will help the plants resist infections.
In cases of severe infections you may consider spraying fungicides- organic or otherwise. Someone out there has calculated a degree days growing model that can help you know when you're going to have a spore dispersal outbreak, so you can time your sprays to be most effective.
Some growers are trying to maintain healthy fungal competitors on the leaves and fruit to help ward off infections- this includes a regimen of compost tea/vermicompost tea/fish emulsion/etc. spraying to promote teeming, microbiotic havens for all sorts of life that supposedly prevent virulent organisms from gaining a foldhold on plant surfaces.
Any way you slice it, your friends are looking at a multi-year battle. The idea is just to get the disease load back to a tolerable level- there will probably be at least some disease pressure there every year.
Oh, and plant resistant varieties. I don't know of any blueberry varieties that are resistant to mummy berry, but I'd be surprised if there isn't one on the market.
And I guess since this is the shroomery I should point out that mulching in the spring and spawning some shrooms to eat the mulch would help with sanitation, it would cover any remaining mummified fruits on the ground, encourage earthworms, and could play a role in the maintenance of a healthy soil.
Edited by laughingsol (01/15/13 06:03 AM)
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psylosymonreturns
aka Gym Sporrison



Registered: 10/16/09
Posts: 13,948
Loc: Mos Eisley,
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
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Re: Control for mummy berry? [Re: laughingsol]
#17552521 - 01/15/13 02:41 PM (11 years, 4 months ago) |
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Wow thank you so much for such a good response Laughingsoi! Ive been seeing your posts around and you sure seem like a knowledgeable person!! 
So 2 things that we did last year , i usually do some work for them every year in my off season, was we put a thick new layer of wood chips and she was spraying with a certain bacteria that was suppose to help. I cant remember the name off the top of my head but I will ask her.
I think the wood chips as you say, need to be spread at the right time. They originally spread cedar mulch which does not support good mushroom growth, although it supported the mommy berrie ) so i suggested getting some fir or hard wood they we could inoculate. I was thinking something vigorous like S ruggosoannulata which rip through the chips fast and digest any mummified berries. They were worried about eating the mushrooms after spraying this bacteria though.
I will suggest doing some vermicomposting to raise some good earthworm populations and using the tea from it and the compost and fish emulsion etc. I like that idea.
I will keep you up to date and maybe get some pics later in the year and document our battle.
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