New And Emerging Agricultural Crop Destroying Pathogens And The Need For A New Cure

For farmers in Canada, new and emerging agricultural pathogens threaten to destroy bountiful and essential crops. Finding a cure is not easy and the impact without one has the potential to be devastating. In greenhouses, the effects of these pathogens may be even more devastating. This is an enclosed environment, where everything can be affected by many things, or one thing.

Here are the pathogens that your year’s crops may be susceptible to and how you can help cure the viral spread.

 

Brown Rugose

The first pathogen affects tomato crops and makes them impossible to sell. Brown Rugose appears as round patchy discoloration on the fruit and changes the leaves to brown. Brown Rugose first appeared in Jordanian and Israeli tomato crops in 2015. Since then, there have been outbreaks in crops worldwide! Canadian crops are taking some serious hits from this aggressive pathogen.

Understanding the way Brown Rugose is transmitted is essential to preventing the spread of the virus or avoiding it at all! The virus spreads via pollinators, but also from plant to plant manually. That means that contaminated tools, hands, clothes, and the air all contribute to the spread amongst your crops. It is essential to sanitize everything very well before moving from one plant to the next. And the need for a multi-layered control effort is paramount.

 

Cucumber Mosaic

The name of this next pathogen is quite misleading. By the sounds of it, you would think it only impacts the cucumber plant. That is not the case. The cucumber mosaic virus can impact a wide range of vegetable crops, including peppers, squash, tomatoes, beans, and more! The cucumber mosaic virus has been around since 1934 when it first surfaced and takes thousands of crops as its victims year after year.

Cucumber mosaic alters the vegetable’s shape, coloring and stunts its growth. Look out for yellowing misshapen leaves with ringed spots. Plant vegetables will taste bitter, appear pale, and have an alternate shape. Once again, the Cucumber Mosaic virus is spread by human contamination from plant to plant. The virus is able to survive on different machines, tools, clothes, hands, and via airborne transmission. Once your crops are infected, you can essentially scrap entire rows and sections.

 

R J Chemicals Solutions

Our customers have reduced their losses to these pervasive viruses by use of our unique, safe, and pH neutral, sanitizer. This coupled with our professionally determined fogging protocols provides an excellent layer of protection against these aggressive organisms.

How effective is our process? Well, one grower reduced a 50% crop infection rate down to under 2%.

(And he was so happy, he has done a video for us, and has recommended us to other growers.)

Most protocols focus entirely on workers and portable equipment because that is the limit and extent of what the average current sanitizer can handle. Our protocol handles those areas, as well as inaccessible environmental areas, and airborne pathogens. This is because our product and application are entirely safe (NO PPE required) and as demonstrated by our results, extremely effective.

Because of the way these nasty pathogens spread, the best cure is prevention. Ensuring hands and equipment are cleaned frequently can reduce the chance of spreading viral pathogens between plants. But to truly prevent viral, and other pathogens, there must be “Layers” of control that consistently reduce the risk of the transfer by all potential venues. We provide answers for these layers and consult on ways to implement them into ANY greenhouse or grow operation.

Looking for a way to prevent pathogens in your crops this year? Looking to reduce or eliminate Rugose, or Mosaic?

Book an appointment with the RJ Chemicals team for your assessment today! Our team will survey your crops and offer you a variety of easy-to-apply custom solutions and preventative options!

Get “The Right Stuff” to protect your crops and your profits!