Best pest/disease resistant squash/gourd varieties?

[sheknitsandcrochets]

We had some trouble with various pest and disease related issues with our squash this year. I was wondering what you all thought were the best varieties for pest/disease resistance? Thanks,

 

[Acre4Me]

@jerryse knows his squash! I’m sure he will have some advice.

What kinds of pests?

What kind of squash did you plant?

 

[sheknitsandcrochets]

@jerryse knows his squash! I’m sure he will have some advice.

What kinds of pests?

What kind of squash did you plant?

Thank you for the response!

As for pests, squash beetles and vine bores(?).

As far as varieties go, we planted Zucchini (plants died extremely quickly, and we even had some of the produce rot on the plant),

Early White Scallops (which did fairly well),

Spaghetti Squash (which we've harvested an abundance of produce from, but the plants keep dying, we picked some of the squash off of plants that had already died),

I believe Grey Zucchini,

and some Yellow Straightneck Squash (which did all around terrible, plants dying, like no produce, and squash were even rotting on the plants).

 

[Acre4Me]

There are different squash types and SVB tend to go after certain ones but are less likely to attack others. They like hollow stems, like on zucchini or pumpkins, but are less likely to attack butternut, for example. Some people use a trap crop so to have the SVB attack the trap crop and leave the main crop alone. One squash I hear they like is Hubbard squash, so they will preferentially go for those first.

Squash bugs - best to pick off by hand and remove the eggs on the underside of the leaves. They need to be in high numbers to really damage a crop, but it seems like they may mar the surface of the fruit.

 

[sheknitsandcrochets]

There are different squash types and SVB tend to go after certain ones but are less likely to attack others. They like hollow stems, like on zucchini or pumpkins, but are less likely to attack butternut, for example. Some people use a trap crop so to have the SVB attack the trap crop and leave the main crop alone. One squash I hear they like is Hubbard squash, so they will preferentially go for those first.

Squash bugs - best to pick off by hand and remove the eggs on the underside of the leaves. They need to be in high numbers to really damage a crop, but it seems like they may mar the surface of the fruit.

Thank you for the useful information!! A trap crop is an interesting idea...

 

[SmiYa0126]

In addition to what @Acre4Me said, it sounds like you may have had a calcium deficiency if your fruit was rotting on the vine. You may need to look into a good fertilizer to put on your garden over the winter. Also, trap crops are a great idea! I actually left a couple of native weeds near my garden, all the aphids went over to it! It was horrible looking but better there then in my garden.

 

[Acre4Me]

For Calcium, you have a few options. Gypsum can be added and will not alter the pH. Ag Lime can be added but it will alter the pH of the soil - so might be ok, or might not be the direction you want to go. Oyster shells (like you offer chickens) can be mixed in the soil, or egg shells, but both items take some time to dissolve, so those aren't for immediate results. There may be other options, but I've used gypsum, and oyster shells. My egg shells get added to our compost pile, and compost gets added to the garden beds.

This year we covered our pumpkins and summer squash with bug netting, which was supported by bent metal electrical conduit. This kept the SVB away from those. However, we also had a variety of vining squash not covered as we had cattle panels set up for them, making it harder to cover easily. We noticed the buttercup (not butternut) squash was hit hard - every one impacted by SVB. Also, we had 2 types of patty pan squash and the SVB hit one much harder than the other. The butternut types were not affected. in early Aug we uncovered the pumpkins and summer squash. Although we did find an SVB after that, but not sure it hit any of the uncovered squash.

My neighbor (old guy) thinks its great fun to let halloween pumpkins rot in the corner of his garden. the seeds sprout in the spring, he collects some of the squash blooms for his wife to cook. Then they watch one or two pumpkins grow and the rest of the vines deteriorate and wilt and look terrible. This is because they are riddled with squash bugs, and SVB. His rotting pumpkin patch is about 30 feet from the one side of my garden, so obviously I know where they are coming from. I've explained to him why his patch dies off....but he doesn't really care, so I'll be having this issue for however long they keep letting pumpkins rot and sprout in the spring.

I read about a method that did work pretty well, until the bees came out in full force. Using yellow bowls with water (and a drop of dish soap). Leave them out and about and bugs go to them like flowers - and drown. We used these for a month or so, even catching some SVB in them. But, then the bees arrived in greater numbers and we started catching bees, which we didn't want. One or two bees didn't bother me, but when numbers went higher per day, we backed off on the number of bowls, only leaving a couple near the squash. This was helpful for when we picked off the squash bugs and japanese beetles - easy to toss them into the soapy water to die.

 

[Acre4Me]

Found on the web - relating to seed saving. If you grow only one of each species of squash, then they will not cross and you will get true seeds. But if a neighbor or anyone within about 1/4 mile grows some, there is a chance you might get crossing apparently.

So, I then looked up what varieties are in each group. I indicated that my buttercup squash was hit hard by SVB and that SVB love hubbard squash and could be used as a trap crop. Well, turns out the buttercup and hubbard squash are in the same species - They are both C. maxima.


C. moschata is the species more resistant to SVB. This group includes butternut and trombocino. While I've had SVB impact my butternut one year, there wasn't anything else for them to infest, so they tried butternut (and succeeded to partially kill each of them that year). This year I grew trombocino - a vining summer squash. Wow - it was vigorous and productive, and no SVB damage.

So look up these species of squash and that may help you in choosing for next year.

However, to control squash bugs your best bet is to handpick and search out eggs on underside of leaves. And rotate crops, so they are planted somewhere the squash bugs did not overwinter. Also, during the season, bare dirt gives them fewer places to hide, whereas mulch gives them hiding places. predatory bugs are also good - we are getting more and more praying mantis in the garden, and lots of daddy long legs, and garden spiders, and parasitic wasps (good for control of caterpillars like tomato hornworm). This is why I am very cautious on spraying Seven or other pesticides as I only use them if bug damage is high. But pesticides don't seem to work on adult squash bugs anyway.

 

[sheknitsandcrochets]

@Acre4Me Wow, thank you for sharing so much information on the topic! I see there are a lot more options to help with bug damage than I realized.

Our soil may very well be low in calcium. I had a a couple of melons (planted very nearby to the squash) rot in the same way (immature and still on the vine). I also had some trouble with our San Marzano tomatoes getting blossom end rot. They seemed to be the only tomato variety that struggled with it but maybe the others were just more resistant to blossom end rot. I will look into adding more calcium supplements to the soil.

Thank you for the help,

 

[Percheron chick]

I had the worst infestation of squash bugs ( literally 1000 on just 6 plants) to the point I was going to pull the plants and burn them. My problem started last year when I put the garden to bed. Normally I would just cover the garden with what came out of the chicken coop then in the spring freshen it up with compost. Because the beds were fairly new, they had dropped down about 4". I had tons of leaves so I spread the chicken poop and covered it with leaves. Did not turn it all winter. In the spring I just raked the leaves to expose the soil and planted. Well the leaves insulated the ground and prevented the overwintering bugs from freezing and dieing. The bed did not have squash in it last year either. Lesson learned. Turn the beds and freeze those buggers out.