Disease resistant bush cucumber
What is a good disease resistant bush cucumber? I have tried to grow cucumbers in a city pickers box the last three years and every year I get a few cucumbers and then the whole plant dies within a few days. I think it's bacterial wilt from cucumber beetles. Any suggestions on resistant bush types to plant and how to keep the cucumber beetles from killing my plants? I try to use organic pesticides but they don't seem to help.
You cannot really use organic pesticides except pyrethrins on cucumber beetles. Pyrethrins are very toxic to bees and more toxic than other organics to other animals unless you are careful to follow the label precautions.
https://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/pyrethrins.pdf
County Fair is supposedly less susceptible.
Where diseases are concerned you need a susceptible host, a vector, the presence of the pathogen, and the right environment.
Although the cucumber beetle may be a vector, the presence of the beetle alone is not the problem. lThere can be a lot of beetles present but if none of them are carriers then the disease may not appear.
When I have problems with disease, I usually have too small a yard to just rotate plants to another part. I look for resistant cultivars, but sometimes those aren't as good for other reasons. If problems are persistant, I usually rotate in time and I just don't plant susceptible plants for a couple of years to make sure the vector carriers have died off and give the pathogen time to be reduced. It works for problems that are specific to a particular family of plants. It is a lot harder to do with problems like phytopthora and nematodes which won't go away that easily.
https://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/pyrethrins.pdf
County Fair is supposedly less susceptible.
Where diseases are concerned you need a susceptible host, a vector, the presence of the pathogen, and the right environment.
Although the cucumber beetle may be a vector, the presence of the beetle alone is not the problem. lThere can be a lot of beetles present but if none of them are carriers then the disease may not appear.
When I have problems with disease, I usually have too small a yard to just rotate plants to another part. I look for resistant cultivars, but sometimes those aren't as good for other reasons. If problems are persistant, I usually rotate in time and I just don't plant susceptible plants for a couple of years to make sure the vector carriers have died off and give the pathogen time to be reduced. It works for problems that are specific to a particular family of plants. It is a lot harder to do with problems like phytopthora and nematodes which won't go away that easily.
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applestar
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Hmmm... in that case, I think the best bet would be to grow parthenocarpic (does not need pollinator) cucumbers like Littleleaf H-19 and protect with insect screen cover. We liked Littleleaf H-19 -- the fruits are perfect pickling size and also good eaten fresh -- great individual servings. My kids preferred them to standard varieties last year.