Powdery Mildew on Hop Cones?

[wshearer9]

What should I do about powdery mildew on my hop cones? Should I spray it with a baking soda mixture, leave it, or pick the cones off and bury them lol?

 

[wshearer9]

Please help

 

[WhatsHoppening]

I live in coastal Southern California and am always fighting powdery mildew in my garden. I don't grow hops, but it hits my green bean plants with a vengance. Last year I read about a solution of sorts. If you mix up an about 10%-20% milk / 80-90% water solution and spray it on the plants, it stops the mildew, at least for a few days... then you have to reapply. I use 1% milk. I also read that you only need 10 to 20% milk in the water (no more) and it doesn't matter if it's whole or skim.
Anyway, it was the only thing that I found that temporarily halted the mildew.
Good luck.

 

[chisena]

Those aren't hop cones...

 

[ffaoe]

Neem oil works very well at controlling powdery mildew.

 

[wshearer9]

But it's on my hop cones, does that not make them usable? Also will powdery mildew destroy the crown?

 

[WhatsHoppening]

Did you do anything about the powdery mildew? Did you try the milk spray? I just had to hit my green beans and tomatoes again, but all the milk is doing is stopping it for a few days, then it starts spreading again. This seems to be a particularly bad year... arrghhh.
So how are your hop plants doing?

 

[thaymond]

Luckily, my PM infection was limited to my vined, broadleaf plants such as my watermelon, cantaloupe, and pumpkins. Thankfully, they did not spread to my hops. This year, I removed those plants and haven't looked back. I even had some super helpful ladybugs show up to control my growing aphid problem early in the summer because all of the rain. No issues on any of my plants to report.

Except Japanese beetles. I hate those guys.

Fwiw I tried neem, soapy mix, milk mix, and finally just 86ed the infected plants. Nothing worked long term for me. It was a very other day trying to keep ahead of the PM infected plants because it just kept coming.

 

[WhatsHoppening]

Fwiw I tried neem, soapy mix, milk mix, and finally just 86ed the infected plants. Nothing worked long term for me. It was a very other day trying to keep ahead of the PM infected plants because it just kept coming.

This has been my experience too (no long term solution), but I'm not ready to give up on garden fresh green beans yet. I do with there was a solution out there!