Zucchini plants dying, wilting.

[bluski]

My yellow squash and zucchini squas are about a month old and have been doing great. Last week I laid down mulch to try and help them retain moisture and now some of the plants are truning yellow and dying. I cleared the mulch away because I suspected that they were getting too much moisture and noticed that there was a yellow fungus of sorts on the stalk if the dead plants. Any advice?

 

[wifezilla]

I would google milk spray for fungus. Not sure what the recipe is, but it is supposed to work for mildew.

 

[lesa]

Check for vine borers. They leave kind of a mess at the stem, which might look like fungus. You can cut up the stem, with a sharp knife and find them...

 

[bluski]

Thanks. If they are vine boarers what do I do to get rid of them? or prevent them since it looks like the squash are losing the battle.

 

[lesa]

Look at the base of the vine. It will look like an area has sawdust on it- if you cut open the vine, you will find the culprit. An ugly white worm...
There are many ideas floating around for preventing and curing this- however, I have yet to find one that works...Sorry.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've had no success stopping the squash borers. Icycle radishes, nasturtiums, marigolds, none of them worked for me. Last year I started nasturtiums indoors, transplanted them and had them well established before I sowed the squash seeds. Did no good.

I have had some success extending the life of summer squash and zucchini by splitting the stem of the squash above where I see the squash borer excrement coming out and removing the borer. I just covered where I split it with piled up dirt and left it. The split was in line with the vine, not across it.

Of course, the squash bugs then took over and killed the squash and zucchini plants, but I got an extra couple of weeks out of the vines before the squash bugs finished them off.

This site has some good pictures.

http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef314.asp

 

[bills]

Possibility's other than pests.

-If you added the mulch to deep, and it covered up the stem at the base of the plant, that can cause issues with younger seedlings. Unlike tomato's where you can bury half the plant in the ground, and they love it, I think squash prefer the original depth, as they were started from seed.
-If the plants were still very young and tender when you mulched them, the stalks may have been scratched slightly, (especially if straw was used) The combination of moisture and warmth, may have triggered the mold on the damaged areas, thus leading to their demise..

Still time to stick more seeds in the ground!

 

[so lucky]

Several years ago I was told that the squash vine borer starts out life on the ground, and crawls up the vine to bore in. The person who informed me was in favor of applying an insecticide to the ground even before the squash seed is planted. There probably aren't any insecticides available anymore that have a long enough life to be effective, but I am wondering what else could be done. I wonder if one could lay a cardboard "collar" on the ground around the tiny squash seedlings, so the borer would have less chance of finding the growing plant. I may try this if I plant squash this year. Once the vine starts wilting, it is pretty much doomed, I think, so anything done at that point may be futile.

 

[vfem]

Other then using things like 'sevin' I'm not sure how else to be rid of Vine borers. I am endlessly plagued with them.... as I grow organically and I have to 'cut' them out of plants, and then I find myself having to bandage squash/pumpkin vines. Most don't survive my surgery. :/