For most growers, the main thing is the exact definition of the disease. However, in most cases this causes difficulty. To establish the cause of the disease, it is important to collect as many symptoms of the observed damage, changes in growth and development as possible. First of all, you need to decide on the conditions in which your flowers were. For example, most diseases of fungal and bacterial origin develop in conditions of high humidity and high temperatures. However, this does not mean that if the plant was not sprayed and kept cool, there can be no disease on it. They may be, but they will spread much more slowly than in greenhouse conditions. In other words, the disease can pass in a chronic protracted form, and can cause the death of the plant in just a few days.
Sooty fungus settles on sticky pest secretions.
Yucca got sick because her leaves "fried" over the hot air of the battery
Rose fell ill from excessive watering and lack of light.Often, manifestations of care disorders are mistaken for plant diseases. If flowers suffer from drying of the earth or dry air, this is manifested by drying of the tips of the leaves, blanching and loss of turgor, and may be accompanied by the appearance of a tick that causes twisting and deformation of the leaves, the formation of characteristic puncture spots. Plants affected by a lack of moisture in the air and soil rarely suffer from diseases (bacterial and fungal), but due to weakness they are at risk. But plants affected by overflow, located in conditions of high humidity (in a warm or cool room), sprayed several times a day, planted in non-disinfected soil, as well as exposed to the open sky, growing in a large group, or in poorly ventilated rooms - the first will be infected with fungal or bacterial diseases.
There are diseases that are very easily identified by characteristic symptoms - for example, powdery mildew, gray rot, phylosticosis - see diseases of indoor plants. Other diseases can be identified by the presence of spores, sometimes large and easily visible to the naked eye, and sometimes (especially in the initial stage), visible only through a magnifying glass. Bacteria in general can only be considered with a large magnification of the microscope in the laboratory. Most often, it is very difficult to recognize the pathogen by the nature of the spots, so bacterioses cause various types of spots, necrosis and wilting (damage to the vascular system of the plant), but they can be distinguished from verticillosis or fusarium wilt only by a section of the stem at the site of the lesion.
From systematic dampness, bacterioses develop in the pot.
Watering without drying leads to the appearance of such spots.
In peperomia, from too frequent watering, dropsy of leaves appears - spots of a non-infectious nature.Plants that are not rarely weakened by lack of light or other violations of keeping conditions (especially after being kept in dubious shops) suffer not from one, but several ailments at once. For example, tick and bacterial spotting. At the same time, when they begin to intensify the fight by spraying against the tick, bacteriosis begins to develop on the plant, but at the same time gray rot (fungal disease). Ultimately, the plant dies because it is not able to deal with several misfortunes at once, especially if it has not yet acclimatized in the new conditions. Therefore, you should not go to the extreme, and dramatically change the conditions of detention. And just remember that if there is high humidity around the plant, it can be threatened by all possible diseases. After all, pathogens are carried with the wind, splashes of water, are easily carried with tools, hands and feet of insects, as well as with water from natural sources. A microscopic crack on the skin of the plant is enough for the bacterium to penetrate.
When a plant may be seriously affected by a fungal or bacterial infection:
- If the plant is planted in non-disinfected soil;
- If the plant is purchased from a store;
- If the plant was (is) in conditions of high humidity;
- If the plant stands (stood) in a crowded group, in an unventilated room;
- If you have examined the entire plant with a magnifying glass and have not found a visible pest (if you do not have a magnifying glass, you may not even try to identify the damage);
- If the plant is watered with water from natural sources (rain, pond, river), and also stands in the open air.
- If the plant receives abundant (frequent) watering and the soil inside the pot is swampy.
- If the plant has not been transplanted for a long time or planted in unsuitable soil (with nutritional disorders, similar symptoms may be observed - spotting, chlorosis, stunting).
- Exacerbates the development of all diseases lack of light!
How to cure a houseplant
As for treatment, very often it is enough to remove the leaves damaged by the spots, improve the conditions of detention and the disease goes away. If this does not happen, the disease is launched too much, then you have to resort to the use of fungicides. Garden stores offer us a lot of fungicides, which can be divided into two groups (conditionally):
- safe, i.e. you can wash fruits, berries, vegetables and eat: Fitosporin, Agat-25K, Alirin-B, Gamair, Gliokladin, Previkur Energy, Trichodermin, Trichofit, Fitolavin, etc.
- chemical, after spraying you cannot eat fruits and leaves for at least 30 days: Bordeaux liquid, Bravo, Vitaros, Vectra, Discor, Quadris, Maxim, Oksihom, Ordan, Hom, Copper chloride, Rayok, Skor, Topaz, Fundazol, etc.
From the point of view of indoor flowers, it seems unimportant how toxic the fungicide is, because we can eat a small number of plants from the windowsill, for example, laurel, citrus fruits, potted greens, balcony peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers. But all these drugs leave toxic fumes after spraying, so do not forget about protection measures (spraying in a respirator and airing). At the same time, safe biofungicides are not poisons, and therefore are quite weak in neglected cases of diseases of flowers and plants.
- But do not forget that in the first place is the right agricultural technology, in the second - treatment with fungicides.