Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We have a lot of plants growing beautifully in our system, but the zucchini is looking ill. It started about the time we salted the system to 3ppt for the sick fish we had. I'm curious if anyone else has had issues with zucchini and salting or if anyone has any ideas on what is the problem.

Victoria

Zucchini dont like humid conditions nine were there one day gone the next

Interesting. This bed initially had some stability problems and the water actually came up above the gravel. The zucchini survived that and the transplant from when we redid the bed. It was growing great and then suddenly developed this strange sickness...

Agree Zucchini don't like humidity,infact most of the curbits are quite prone to fungal deseases such as powdery mildew.Having said that , your Zucc's do not show the common signs of mildew,,hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I check my vegie book when I get home.

NAH, its almost certainly a nutrient deficiency,it could be one or more of the traceelemys.

A spray with a decent soluble fertliser will see it comegoodin a few days:)

Love to tell you I'm a genius buttttt , see attached link

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load ... 25519.html

It;s not uncommon in zucchini for the older leaves to do this and eventually wither and die...

Same question asked here... (exactly same symptoms - see photo below -from weblink) - Edited : Doh... added the pic...


http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load ... 25519.html


I'd just chop them off, it's what I always do in the soil garden... zukes like to "crawl" as they grow anyway ... the new growth looks fine...

Could be a slight deficiency problem... give them a spray with Seasol....

As to whether the salt may have affected them... well surprisingly, probably not...

In fact (I don't have the full article)... this study Affect of Salt on Zucchini .... tends to suggest that salt in fact increases quantity, quality, and size of zucchini fruit....

Further to my earlier post last year i had zuccinies inside and outside [in salted ap ] the ones outside grew and the ones in the glasshouse dropped dead on a hot humid day

Those leaves with the green veins and lighter leaves with the dying edges makes me think Iron deficiency. Though Iron Def usually shows up most on the newer leaves.
I'm having horrible problems with iron def in my system and haven't had a chance to do any foliar feeding to fix the problems.
I've grown lots of zuchs and Squash in the soil garden, the older leaves do tend to dye in my experience. Powdery mildew does get them when it is really hot with some humidity. I've heard that a milk spray can combat powdery mildew but I've not tried it myself. I've also heard of mixtures using corn meal but I'm not as sure of them.

Thanks for all the input. Based on that I did some thinking and then some checking. Turns out the siphon on that bed wasn't working and the bed was stuck at about half full. The poor baby has been likely drowning. Bad Mama... So, I'm working on getting that siphon working and then would expect the plant to return to its former glorious state. After all, the cucumber is growing like a maniac and I have a little baby cucumber.