Organic Solutions to Pest and Disease

Heron's Nest is dedicated to organic practices on our farm.  In this section we will
share with you what we have learned about working organically with the problems
facing our crops of Echinacea and Lavender.

Pest
During times when grasshoppers are abundant they do seem to eat on the leaves of both Echinacea cultivars that we grow.  We have greatly reduced the grasshopper population all over our land by using Nolo Bait each spring.  This is a bait of wheat germ that has been inoculated with biological control that affects the exoskeleton and the reproduction abilities of grasshoppers.

We have the larva of a moth - that we have yet to identify- that has eaten the flowering tops of our Echinacea and thus has reduced seed production.  We have great success with all larva type pest by spraying the flowering tops with Neem oil and water combo.

Disease
Echinacea does tend to get air borne fungus problem in very hot humid months. This is greatly reduced by removing any effected leaves and spraying the plants with wettable Sulphur.
When we have excessive wet and rainy times we have battled the soil borne fungus Pythium.  This fungus appears in areas that are poorly drained or over watered.  We are always working to improve the drainage of our heavy clay soil by adding compost and planting in raised beds.  We apply cornmeal to this crop as well
(See Lavender)