Quote:
Originally Posted by b54red
From everything I have read about fusarium wilt it is not usually a problem that far north.
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If you're referring to Heather in MA I tend to agree. There are pockets of it up here from time to time, mostly from infected imported plants but Fusarium cannot overwinter where the ground freezes deeply.Another source is seeds, usually obtained via a trade, b'c Fusarium can be seedborne.
I know of one situation where someone sent seeds to a commercial place for trial and the seeds, while fermented, still transmitted Fusarium.
A couple of other comments.
Lee's point about there being three races of Fusarium is one well taken, b'c there's no cross protection between those three races. So unless a person knows what race or races they're dealing with their results may not pertain to folks growing the same varieties in other areas, or indeed their own results as to what's most tolerant, etc.
Race 1 is quite common where Fusarium is a problem, also usually but not always race 2, and race 3 is most often found in FL, along the Gulf Coast up into CA. it's also been Ided in NC, SC and TN.
Another point is that Fusarium is not usually found equally distributed in a growing area and since infection is dose dependent some plants in a plot may go down and others won't leading someone to conclude that the latter were more tolerant, when in fact they weren't. They were just in an arfeas of the garden with no or less Fusarium.
EDited to add that it's also known that Fusarium can be transmitted in dust/soil/airborne particles and Craig in Raleigh can speak to that very well and it's also info that's on the net.