Last fall, I pulled one of my cucumber plants. There were 4 plants in a row.
One of the plants definitely had strange roots which I am almost positive were
caused by root knot nematodes. I didn’t do any solarization because it was cold
during the time and I have read that it is best to do it during the hottest
months. Are these nematodes harmful to humans and my dog? Will it give me a
disease or worm if I touched the soil?
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| Swelling bumps on roots is root knot nematode infestation |
You have covered that the only other way
to fix this completely is through fumigation–which I can’t really do since I only
do organic gardening. Can I at least plant any other vegetables in the same
raised bed, or will it cause me any ill effects after I eat the fruit/veggies
that it bears? I was also thinking of maybe removing the soil from the raised
bed and move them to the big pots where I will be planting citrus plants. Then
I will replace the raised bed with new soil. Would this work well or will it
just cause problems to my citrus plants? I’d love your input.
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| Root know nematode on tomato |
A. Nematodes are very tough to impossible to get rid of
if you have them. I should say they are basically impossible to get rid of. Be
careful and do not move soil from this spot to other areas or you will move the
nematodes as well.
Nematodes only infest plants, not animals so all animals are
safe around these guys. Soil solarization will help knock back the populations
but not get rid of them.
There are some products like Clandosan (a natural
product) which are supposed to help but I would not be too optimistic. Even
with fumigation it does not get rid of them buy just knocks them back.
vegetables that are nematode resistant and fruit trees on rootstocks that
resist nematodes. On vegetables they will have the designation “N”below
the name somewhere. Other letters might also appear like “V”
“F” and the like which just stands for resistant to other pest
problems like Verticillium (V) and Fusarium (F), two prominent disease
problems.
Nematode resistant rootstocks for fruit trees include Nemaguard,
Citation, Viking, Atlas, Myrobalan, and Marianna. Hope this helps.