Milk and Mildew

[huehueteotl]

I have heard of a dilution of skimmed milk being used as a spray for prevention of mildew on courgettes and squashes and also to stop the spread once it has developed. Does anyone know the proportions of the water to milk mix for these sprays ???

I also remember hearing about a Bicarbonate of Soda mix. Does anyone know how this is mixed and applied ???

If this actually works for squashes will it also work for Cucumber ??? My cukes usually start out strong in the Greenhouse but succumb to powdery mildew after giving about 8 or 9 fruits.

Any help or hints most welcome.

[huehueteotl]

[boris]

All my courgettes and cumbers had a lot of mildew, but it didn't seem to affect the quantity or quality. Was I lucky?

[Icyberjunkie]

May have been but I had the same experience.  Towards the tail end of the season new growth started and I cut off all the mildewed leaves to improve air flow and my ability to find the fruits!   

At no time did the rate or size of courgettes seem to falter - there is quite a long thread on this somewhere

[AikenDrum]

Don't ever use milk !  the proteins in it attract wild yeasts e.g. moulds, as for Bicarb, good stuff  ... one teaspoonful to a gallon is a safe mixture.    {:¬)#

[jennym]

The mildew on leaves of courgettes etc does not seem to affect my crop at all.

[Svea]

i did use the milk solution - no fungal /mould problems - applied on a still warm day so it dried off quite quickly. (outdoors, too). you should use full fat milk (semi- or skimmed wont work) at a dilution of 10:1 with water.

i had mildew really badly quite early on and it did shock my plants - they stopped producing for a while. after treatment (a few times over a two week period) they recovered enough to make more fruit, even though most of the leaves died off.