Amongst all the problems faced by hydroponic and soil gardeners, fungus problems remain one of the most challenging. Fungal diseases tend to start rapidly and quickly wipe out entire sections of plants, leaving the grower wondering what happened or if anything could have been done to prevent it.
Sadly, most commercially available fungicides are very toxic to humans and beneficial insects, a reason why their application is detrimental to both the gardeners health and the environment itself. For this reason, many people have started to develop natural and more environmentally friendly solutions towards the problem of fungicide disease prevention.
Most gardener websites from people with limited knowledge about both fungicidal chemistry and biology offer simple solutions that may work with decent results for fungicide prevention and in some rare cases for fungicide disease curing. These remedies also carry some problems of their own, for example, the use of milk containing solutions over plants is proved to encourage the growth of molds and sometimes even stimulate the gathering of ant or similar insect populations. Using alkaline solutions containing bicarbonate or carbonate ions may prove beneficial for prevention but it's effects are readily lost due to rain (which inevitably washes away bicarbonate ions).
In the light of this situation, I have decided to publish the recipe for a fungicide I have been using for sometime, based on US patent No. 6767562 (you can google the patent if you would like to further improve your knowledge on the matter). This mix was designed with both the chemistry and biology of fungus diseases in mind, taking into account that most fungus are sensitive to tannic acid and other chemicals naturally present within certain plant species.
This organic, natural fungicide is quiet simple to make. First, add two thirds of a cup of sage leaves to 1/2 gallon of water and boil it down to 1/3 gallon of water. After this has been done, add 2/3 gallon of red wine (the patent says "fermented grape solution" to make it a little bit harder to guess !") and that's it ! The solution has been proven to prevent and even cure fungus diseases in a variety of crops (as stated in the patent). Now, this information is merely educational and freely available within the patent, if you do not commercialize it you are free from patent infringement. I hope you use and enjoy this excellent organic, natural fungicide that will keep your garden free of those nasty, crop ruining fungus pests !
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sulfites in the wine, I think
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