If you happen to be passing by the farm.....please do not disturb our cow....she is working hard getting rid of the brown rot fruit disease! Just as the beautiful pluots, peaches, plums or grapes start to ripen, disaster can strike. As this fungus takes over, fruits become covered with a powdery brown coating as they quickly rot and shrink into "mummies".
Most farms will use sulfur sprays..... to do battle with this issue. I was doing some research on this problem since I am not a seasoned farmer....rather new at this stuff......education is the best prevention of problems! Amazing what one can learn from the agriculture University websites. I found a very interesting article on using milk as a weapon against brown rot! Here's a excerpt from the webpage:
"...... In 1999, a team of Brazilian researchers found that weekly sprays of a milk solution controlled powdery mildew in zucchini squash. In more recent studies, milk or whey-based sprays were as effective as fungicides in controlling powdery mildew in two plantings of wine grapes in Australia. Plant pathologists suspect that as compounds in dairy products interact with sunlight, they cause crippling damage to powdery mildew fungi and spores. If milk works on powdery mildew, I thought it might help with brown rot, which has a similar life cycle".
So......Farmer Deno will indeed try this out when the time arrives for the need. Here's the recipe for this mixture .....
One-half cup organic low-fat milk
1 quart warm water
3 drops dish-washing liquid (to help the mixture stick)
