WHAT TO DO ABOUT POWDERY MILDEW
This discussion on beating powdery mildew in the
growroom begins with a trip to the Netherlands.
Traveling to the Netherlands is always an eye-opening
experience. The Dutch grow nearly all of their
vegetables in zero-runoff hydroponic systems in
sophisticated, computer-controlled greenhouses, and
they are famous for high yields of gourmet-quality
produce. Impressive. They are also strict about the use
of pesticides and fungicides.
In the year 2000, the Dutch government made the
use of all synthetic fungicides illegal on food crops.
Many of the strawberry growers began losing 40% of
their crops overnight due to powdery mildew, gray
mold and similar diseases. The hydroponic growers
had to do something, so they began experimenting
with organic biostimulants in tiny dosages.
Amazingly, they worked.
In 2001, I was invited to the Netherlands to interview the strawberry growers who were doing the first
biostimulant trials for the Dutch government. They
reduced their losses from 40% down to zero, enjoyed
a 10-20% increase in yields over any past year, and
experienced top-of-the-line sugar content in the
fruit—all through the use of a completely organic
product with no harmful chemicals.
Unfortunately, the scientists I interviewed in
Holland told me their formula was proprietary and
wouldn’t tell me how it worked. But that only made
me more determined to solve the mystery. At the
time, strawberry growers in the United States were
fumigating the soil with methyl bromide, a chemical
that kills life in the soil and destroys the ozone in
the atmosphere at the same time. I was inspired and
motivated, and knew there had to be a better way.
After all, I had seen it with my own eyes.
“
Certain amino acids
stimulate root cells to open
up calcium ion channels,
allowing the plants to take up
calcium thousands of times
faster than simple osmosis.
94
Maximum Yield USA | November 2015
”