Quest for mold-resistant strains, Hawaii outdoor greenhouse grow

[cbdhemp808]

A then sprayed all my phenos with Willow Tea in foliar feed with no dilution, I had no cases of mold, rot, or fungal problems.

Salicylic Acid from willow tree kills fungal spores; its natural way to prevent and cure some fungal maladies in my case was mold, bud rot and PM.

Great, I will check out your Willow Tea recipe. I'm totally with you on natural and DIY.

So, in my post above, I identified that what I'm seeing is likely downy mildew, which is an oomycete mold which grows inside the leaf and produces spores out the bottom of the leaf. Downy mildew is not a true fungal disease. .. "Oomycetes are more closely related to algae and green plants than to fungi. Oomycetes cause some of the most destructive diseases of crops due to their ability to spread and defoliate plants rapidly." [ source ]

Another thing I'm observing is that this disease infects lower down on the plant. The higher up the plant, and the closer to the roof of the greenhouse, the less disease is present. I think this directly relates to the amount of humidity present. Up by the roof, there's more heat and less humidity. This may be why my Blueberry in flower seems to be mold-resistant – because it's so tall. This is also consistent with what I've observed with bud rot in past harvests – buds closest to the roof have less or no bud rot.

I just took some more photos... I have some cool examples of a leaf that is infected with the oomycete, but hasn't sporulated yet (dark spots under the leaf). I'll post them soon.

 

[cbdhemp808]

@danishoes21 Hmm... I don't know if I'll be able to find willow leaves. How about white willow bark? That's easy to find in the natural food stores.

I just looked up other sources of salicylic acid, or salicylates, and this website was super helpful...

Salicylate Content of Foods List - Hungry to Heal

To help keep salicylate symptoms at bay, I’ve created a table that enables you to filter foods based on their salicylate content.

hungrytoheal.com

Dried basil leaves have 34.0 mg/kg.

The big winners are (dry powder):

Cumin: 450 mg/kg
Curry: 2180 mg/kg
Thyme: 1830 mg/kg
Rosemary: 680 mg/kg

It looks like thyme cumin is the best natural, single-ingredient source for salicylates/salicin, aside from willow bark.

EDIT: cumin powder beats thyme by far... Cumin has a range of 30-16,300 mg/kg (median 450). Thyme has a range of 13-1,830 mg/kg (median 28). [ source (2010) ]

See my next post on willow bark...

 

[Melville Hobbes]

@danishoes21 Hmm... I don't know if I'll be able to find willow leaves. How about white willow bark? That's easy to find in the natural food stores.

I just looked up other sources of salicylic acid, or salicylates, and this website was super helpful...

Salicylate Content of Foods List - Hungry to Heal

To help keep salicylate symptoms at bay, I’ve created a table that enables you to filter foods based on their salicylate content.

hungrytoheal.com

Dried basil leaves have 34.0 mg/kg.

The big winners are (dry powder):

Cumin: 450 mg/kg
Curry: 2180 mg/kg
Thyme: 1830 mg/kg
Rosemary: 680 mg/kg
(I'll list some more later)

White willow bark should be a lot higher in salicylic acid than the leaves.

 

[Danishoes21]

White willow bark should be a lot higher in salicylic acid than the leaves.

@danishoes21 Hmm... I don't know if I'll be able to find willow leaves. How about white willow bark? That's easy to find in the natural food stores.

I just looked up other sources of salicylic acid, or salicylates, and this website was super helpful...

Salicylate Content of Foods List - Hungry to Heal

To help keep salicylate symptoms at bay, I’ve created a table that enables you to filter foods based on their salicylate content.

hungrytoheal.com

Dried basil leaves have 34.0 mg/kg.

The big winners are (dry powder):

Cumin: 450 mg/kg
Curry: 2180 mg/kg
Thyme: 1830 mg/kg
Rosemary: 680 mg/kg
(I'll list some more later)

That is correct bark has higher % than leaves. And I may add that you can find Willow bark grounded and willow leaf at organic food stores/places where they sale bulk for herbs.

I used fresh leaves allowing me to ferment the solution (anaerobic= maison jar closed lid)
the liquid (rain water and a spoon of molasses)

I haven’t tried using store bought dried material.

A key factor here and @Azimuth would totally back it up is I used the fresh or wild Willow because I also wanted the leaf mold stuck to that willow material I picked up, I made sure to grab lots pf fresh and from the foot of the tree that had leaf mold. I take those and jammed it into a 1ltr maison jar add a spoon pf molasses and top with rain water.

We try to fight fungi with bacteria, and vice versa in some sort..?

If I have extreme cases of PM, or mold I have tried a more intense way essential oils from cedar or tea tree “maleluca” oil. A couple drops in your water and foliar.




Oh I forgot to mentioned (got carried away with Pineapple Express )

The idea of Willow tea comes from the not so popular idea that some people use aspirin to fight mold, and in many cases they over due the aspirin and creates toxicity for the plant.
The base of aspirin is salicylic acid.

 

[cbdhemp808]

White willow bark should be a lot higher in salicylic acid than the leaves.

Tagging @danishoes21 as well. It turns out that willow contains salicin and/or salicylates. When we consume those, our bodies turn them into salicylic acid. Would an anaerobic tea or ferment accomplish the same thing?

There are hundreds of species in the willow genus, Salix. One source says around 350, another over 500. Salicin content depends on the species, and on other factors. One source states a range of 0.08 to 12.6% salicin in the bark. It appears that around 10% salicin in the bark is best-case.

White Willow contains something like 0.05 to 1% salicin.

1% of 1 kg = 10g or 10,000mg. So, white willow bark contains 5,000mg to 10,000mg per kg salicin. Compare to thyme (dry powder) at 1830 mg/kg. So, dried thyme has 0.18% salicin.

EDIT: The median for thyme is 28 mg/kg. The max. is 1830 mg/kg. The interesting one is cumin, with max. at 16,300 mg/kg (1.63% salicin)... better than white willow bark.

 

[cbdhemp808]

I made some edits to my last two posts.

 

[cbdhemp808]

Wow...

Harrells | Blog Post | Experience the Benefits of Salicylic Acid in Your Crops

Harrell’s supplies agronomic solutions for golf course management, lawn care, greenhouse and nursery and specialty agriculture.

www.harrells.com

 

[cbdhemp808]

I just took some more photos... I have some cool examples of a leaf that is infected with the oomycete, but hasn't sporulated yet (dark spots under the leaf). I'll post them soon.

As promised...

Some leaf examples I took today from the flower house, showing lots of chlorosis on the top surfaces, while the bottom surfaces have limited areas of sporulation (i.e. dark mold spots). This shows the leaf is infected with the downy mildew organism, internally, not on the underside of the leaf.

Closeup of the left 3 leaves showing splotchy chlorosis, which is interveinal.

Closeup of the 4th leaf from the left. The light-colored area on the upper-right, on the margin, corresponds to a sporulation area on the underside.

Leaf from above flipped over to show the sporulation areas.

Closeup of the 3rd leaf from the left, showing detail of splotchy, interveinal chlorosis. This is the infection – where the downy mildew organism – an oomycete microbe – is growing inside the leaf. It's known as an obligate parasite.

Mirror image of the above leaf, showing the underside. It's harder to make out the chlorosis here, but it roughly corresponds to the chlorosis on the top side.

False color image of the top side of the leaf above, showing areas of infection (dark purple) on normal leaf background (pale purple), areas of sporulation (turquoise), and necrosis (bright turquoise/black).

 

[Danishoes21]

Wow...

Harrells | Blog Post | Experience the Benefits of Salicylic Acid in Your Crops

Harrell’s supplies agronomic solutions for golf course management, lawn care, greenhouse and nursery and specialty agriculture.

www.harrells.com

Lovely information.

I was on this exact theme research last year, it’s all in my thread but I’m glad I ain’t the only one believe in Salicylic acid.

 

[Danishoes21]

Now that we have a common point of interest; we should figure out a proper ratio and process to create our Salicylic acid fungal spray.
I’m going to try this year to be more accurate with my work, I do all by eyeballing it and that’s works for me but not when you try to explain to others.

 

[Danishoes21]

Sorry I didn’t want to put the link to my thread on yours (don’t wanna self promote). But here is a good piece I found last year.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and response of antioxidants as ROS-scavengers during environmental stress in plants

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) were initially recognized as toxic by-products of aerobic metabolism. In recent years, it has become apparent that ROS plays an important signaling role in plants, controlling processes such as growth, development and especially response to biotic and abiotic...

www.frontiersin.org

 

[Azimuth]

I wonder if, rather than a foliar, he might be better off using the Willow extract or maybe aloe extract in his feed water. If the issue is internal to the leaf maybe a systemic would work better?

 

[cbdhemp808]

I'm open to any suggestions at this point. I bought some thyme, rosemary, and fennel seed dried herbs at the store, which I'm going to make a ferment out of in a quart jar using my worm castings. These are fairly high in salicylates. I also ordered a pound of organic horsetail. I have read that horsetail foliar is a good anti-fungal. I'll probably grab some white willow bark as well, but so far I can't find a source for organic powder form.

 

[Danishoes21]

I wonder if, rather than a foliar, he might be better off using the Willow extract or maybe aloe extract in his feed water. If the issue is internal to the leaf maybe a systemic would work better?

Makes sense that root intake would be higher than foliar intake, but either way the plant takes the solution in, by leaf or roots. Would make a whole lot of sense to water the roots if we suspect the fungal disease originate in the roots. Brings me to another point; Ph this water with willow it may cause some damage if it’s to acid? ? ?

I would give it a try with non cannabis first

 

[Danishoes21]

I'm open to any suggestions at this point. I bought some thyme, rosemary, and fennel seed dried herbs at the store, which I'm going to make a ferment out of in a quart jar using my worm castings. These are fairly high in salicylates. I also ordered a pound of organic horsetail. I have read that horsetail foliar is a good anti-fungal. I'll probably grab some white willow bark as well, but so far I can't find a source for organic powder form.

Sounds like a good plan!


The horse tail is fantastic can’t go wrong with that.

I love horse tail so much we harvest it and dry it and powder. Great silica supplement for us humans and for the canna plants they love it.


Here a couple photos from last year’s horsetail tea

 

[cbdhemp808]

Sounds like a good plan!


The horse tail is fantastic can’t go wrong with that.

I love horse tail so much we harvest it and dry it and powder. Great silica supplement for us humans and for the canna plants they love it.


Here a couple photos from last year’s horsetail tea

Nice. I'd actually like to grow some, in containers, as I understand it spreads. But growing anything potentially invasive here in Hawaii is a cardinal sin. I just looked it up, and apparently it's not illegal to grow, and it isn't on the state's noxious weed list.

 

[ThirdUncle]

very good info. on salicylic acid , question @danishoes21 , do u spray the leaves or water the plant with the horse tail tea & at what ratio ?

 

[cbdhemp808]

do u spray the leaves or water the plant with the horse tail tea

I have yet to use horsetail tea, but it can be added to the soil to give the plants silica, which has a long list of benefits for growth and yield. It makes stronger plants by strengthening cell walls, aids photosynthesis, and also helps protect against bugs and disease. I have been adding silica to my custom soil mix, in the form of fine powdered quartz, which is 100% crystalline silica (aka silicon dioxide). Soil microbes convert silica to silicic acid, which is then absorbed by the plant. The silica in horsetail tea is more bioavailble, because it's already in the silicic acid form.

Horsetail tea can also be used as a foliar spray, because it's known to be anti-fungal.

We've also been talking about willow (leaf or bark) tea as a foliar spray, because it contains salicylic acid, which is also anti-fungal. Actually, willow leaf and bark contains salicin and/or salicylate. In the human body, and I think in plants as well, these get converted to salicylic acid. Naturally-derived salicylic acid is used for pain relief, and is similar to aspirin in chemical composition.

Now here's the kicker! ... I just found out that horsetail is also high in salicylate, in the form of methyl salicylate. So this is probably exactly why horsetail is used as an anti-fungal. BUT, it also has the great added benefit of being very high in silica.

Wow... horsetail is like THE BEST thing to feed cannabis, in the soil and foliar. Now I definitely want to grow it!

Now take another look at the Harrell's article, with horsetail tea in mind...

Harrells | Blog Post | Experience the Benefits of Salicylic Acid in Your Crops

What's VERY interesting, is that I'm seeing a crossover here, in the benefits attributed to silicic acid and the benefits attributed to salicylic acid. WFT?! The names of these two molecules are almost identical!

Orthosalicic acid: H4O4Si

Salicylic acid: C7H6O3

And I've just gotta throw this in here, too... because I like tetrahedrons...

This is the orthosilicate anion molecule, which is the conjugate base of orthosalicic acid...

"The orthosilicate ion or group has tetrahedral shape, with one silicon atom surrounded by four oxygen atoms."

 

[cbdhemp808]

Here's an interesting article talking about salicylic acid and orthosalicic acid:

Willow bark extract | PlantoSys biostimulants

www.plantosys.com

So at this point I'm gonna say yes on both foliar spray and adding to the soil, for salicylic acid, meaning absorption by the leaf, or absorption by the roots. (This is assuming that the salicin and/or salicylate is converted to salicylic acid inside the plant). The salicylic acid will be systemic in the plant, and it's in fact the hormone associated with the salicylic acid pathway, which is how the plant resists attack from certain types of fungi, as well as bacteria and viruses. Downy mildew, which invades plant cells, is one of those fungi-like organisms.

Ditto for silicic acid, except if you want absorption by the leaves, go with horsetail tea, because the silica is already bioavailable as silicic acid. Otherwise, you can use various silica sources added to the soil for root absorption, where the soil microbes convert silica to silicic acid.

Whew!

 

[Danishoes21]

Nice. I'd actually like to grow some, in containers, as I understand it spreads. But growing anything potentially invasive here in Hawaii is a cardinal sin. I just looked it up, and apparently it's not illegal to grow, and it isn't on the state's noxious weed list.

Ohh yeah rules, I forget about that. Last thing you want is to proliferate an invasive weed and be the news all over.
I have a different setting it grows wild here Western Canada so a walk in the forest you can harvest horse tail.