After getting acquainted with the classic agricultural techniques of growing almost any garden or garden culture, sometimes you will be horrified at how much work all this requires. And also often several treatments with “chemistry” from pests and filling the soil with considerable doses of mineral fertilizers are put into the work schedule at once. And only occasionally it is mentioned that the key to a good harvest is living soil. And even less often you can hear that a healthy soil is one in which there is a harmonious biocenosis.
The main disease of crops
The health of the soil is roughly determined by the ratio of major saprophytes and pathogens. Our main saprophyte (a helper mushroom that uses dead plant tissues as food) is Trichoderma. And pathogens — fusaria, as well as mold (Penicillium and Aspergillus). Their work is root rot, a lot of mycotoxins, “soil fatigue”, rotting of beets and grains during storage.
Unlike saprophytes, they are very hot and drought-resistant and are active up to +50°C. And arable soil, devoid of organic matter — is just for them. There is an artificial substitution of useful mushrooms for harmful ones. Trichoderma dies, and fusaria attack plants: there is something and nothing more!
If trichoderms are 3/4, and pathogens are 1/4, the soil is healthy, and the plants almost do not get sick. Our fields in a normal year have a third of fusariums, the same number of molds and a strong set of other pathogens. And saprophytes-crumbs. There are arable soils where, except for fusariums, there is almost nothing! But under alfalfa, the number of saprophytes doubles in a year.
In recent years, the term “dead Chernozem” has appeared. This is a black humus soil, where there is almost no normal microflora: plowed straw does not rot for years. As a result of plowing and chemicalization, the microbial biocenosis of the soil has changed exactly the opposite: not only have all saprophytes disappeared, but many of them have become parasites, and even more, these parasites are being replaced by hyperparasites. The symptoms are confused and cannot be assessed. We lose up to a third of our crops by pouring expensive pesticides in vain-it is no longer clear who to fight against.
Using monoculture, alienating organic matter, wrapping the layer, scattering fertilizers and poisons, we ourselves rigidly impose pathogenic fungal cenosis. Look at this: we’re not creating an economy for ourselves! Man is not only the main pest of the crop, but also the main disease. A fault we have, of course, peaceful fusaria, oidium Yes late blight!
What do mushrooms want
Plant diseases are almost entirely fungi-which confirms the advantages of those over other microbes. We will focus on them. Harmful fungi work in different ways: some eat living plant tissues, others-only pre — killed. Hence the difference in approaches.
Pure parasites
Living tissues are fed by pure parasites-rust and smut, powdery mildew and oidium, false powdery mildew (peronosporosis) and mildew, Phytophthora, curl, fruit rot. It is not easy to digest living things: you need special enzymes. Therefore, most are narrow specialists: they only eat their own culture, but quickly and completely. Parasitic diseases only 5%, and the harm from them as much as 80%!
The primary target of parasitic fungi is abnormal, immunodeficient monoculture plants. First of all-fat, fattened with nitrogen and watered down with water. The tissues are loose, watery, the cell walls are thin, the cell juice is full of nitrogen — well, just a sanatorium! Just such are our “well-groomed and productive” plants. Saying that the better the plant, the better the parasite, phytopathologists mean exactly obesity. In nature, parasites are very restrained and local: they cope only with the weakest, not immune — and poorly protected by saprophytic microflora. That is, they conduct a useful selection for stability and symbiont.
There is another extreme — stress. Any emigrant from other countries in our country is already under stress: he is not immune to the local races of parasitic fungi. Stunted, weak plants, agronomically suffering from thickening, compaction of the soil, poisoning and salinization, from water and air deficits, are eaten no less willingly. But-already dead-eaters.
How do the mushrooms-rounders
Disease-causing fungi-dead-eaters are broader generalists. They can’t eat a live plant, but they can first poison it by injecting toxins and enzymes. Half-digested tissues and feed like spiders. These are many leaf spots, ascochitosis, Anthracnose, and Septoria. In monoculture, of course, they do not really understand who to attack — they mow down everything that is thickly planted. In nature, they mainly inhabit weak or damaged plants, that is, they also work as orderlies and selection supervisors.
And many do not harm at all. Most root rot, causative agents of fusarioses, alternarioses and many spots in the natural soil peacefully chew plant remains, do not suffer from hunger and do not touch plants. And many even collaborating with the roots, forming micromechanism.
Most of the “burying beetles” injurious only to relieve himself. Their need is an acute shortage of their usual feed, plant residues. In the” intensive “fields, you will not find the remains of this day with fire: they are considered a “marriage of tillage”. There is nothing to eat, there is not enough moisture — you have to kill live plants!
Naturally, the vanguard for many fungi is gnawing and” stabbing ” insects. On their jaws and proboscis mushrooms with special comfort enter the leaves and fruits. The more pests there are, the more diseases there are usually. If it weren’t for the fruitworms, we might not have seen the ripe cherries rotting on the tree, the cherries and plums rotting! However, parasites themselves germinate perfectly in water droplets. Rain in the heat and dew after it-mushroom happiness, southern gardens and vineyards “light up” before your eyes.
Of course, fungi have their own predators, their own parasites and antagonists — saprophytic fungi and microbes that decompose dead organic matter. Unable to digest living tissue, they have learned to defend themselves well against aggressors — and at the same time protect plants. In nature, being a disease is just as difficult as being a pest! On the roots, on the leaves, and even in the vessels of plants, there is a darkness of protectors. They spit phytoncides and antibiotics, take away various substances from parasites, catch them in loops and nets, infect them with toxins, or even just eat them. But we also took care of this: we eliminated saprophytes as well as useful insects.
Needless to say, what kind of monsters we created by improving them with pesticides? Only Phytophthora now has about 500 different races! The yellow spot of wheat is 70, and no two are the same. It’s the same with the others. Resistant varieties are slowly but surely mastered by mushrooms. There are fewer and fewer reliable resistance genes, and even immune varieties do not live as long as we would like. Varieties that are stable in one region are easily affected in the other. Mushrooms find new methods of attack. For example, many Fusarium races do not harm with the help of toxins, but simply control the biochemistry of the plant!
What’s smarter: help the enemy in the name of “righteous struggle” — or minimize the need for an attack? Feed nitrogen and pour fungicides or find optimal nutrition? A reasonable minimum of nitrogen with an abundance of potassium, phosphorus and trace elements reduces the incidence at times. But there is also organic matter, humus, saprophytes — what is called a “good phytosanitary background” and “suppressive soil”. The strategy for overall plant health is simple — maximum plant residues for saprophytes, proven optimal nutrition, a minimum of the most effective fungicides, and ideally a roof from rain.
We can get along with diseases
Of course, chemistry is moving forward. There are very safe systemic fungicides of natural origin, the same strobilurins. There are good chemical fertilizers. There are also copper preparations. They are contact, but you need them for a change. But “medicine” for a deliberately ill area is a sedative for the master mind.
The main discovery — if the drugs, in the sense of preserved crops and labor, are effective by 10-40%, then smart agricultural practices without any drugs — by 100-200% or more. This is called agromethod of protection. First of all, it works just with diseases.
You look with a sober eye — just a revelation!
- Sown a week earlier or later — and do not need 2-3 treatments.
- Mixed the right varieties — and canceled the chemistry altogether.
- Sown siderat — and almost no root rot.
- I added nitrogen twice — and the incidence jumped 9 times!
- I missed the sowing period and lost half of the crop.
- Or drove sprayers all month, and in the end it turned out-in vain.
That’s what you need to think about! Let’s define the goal. We don’t need any tomatoes to rot. We don’t need sterile plants that Shine with unsullied green. We don’t need the absence of diseases. We need a stable and sufficient crop. Realize the difference! To eradicate, to exclude diseases – the goal is unrealistic and the work of Sisyphus. But you can not suffer from them, taking your niche and reducing them to a minimum.
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