What you should know about a common virus that could impact your pumpkin crop. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
If you planted pumpkins and were hoping to have a more uniform crop of round, orange fruits, you might be a bit puzzled to find your crop loaded with imperfections, discoloration, and warts. All signs pointing to an outbreak of pumpkin mosaic virus.
This is a disease that can ravage all kinds of plants, including cucumbers and squashes, and melons. The most obvious sign is pumpkins that are striped with yellow or green. They can be blotchy or have areas that are deformed, bumpy, or warty. Pumpkins are sometimes undersized or never develop at all. You may even notice a bit of rot.
The ways you can prevent pumpkin mosaic virus is to eliminate aphids, rotate crops, weed regularly, and keep your garden clean. A good prevention system in place is by far the best way to control this disease. If you notice plants with pumpkin mosaic virus, remove them from the garden and destroy them. And, don’t compost these infected plants. The virus can linger so it’s best to burn the plants or throw them in the trash.
Listen to Cathy Isom’s This Land of Ours program here.