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Powdery Mildew #887076

Asked October 03, 2024, 3:02 PM EDT

I grow terrarium Begonia, rare plants I sell on Etsy. I buy mother plants and put them in quarantine for insects. I had a mealy worm outbreak 2 years ago and did a great deal to get them out of the basement greenhouse. Now overnight a Begonia developed powdery mildew according to a photo ID by ai copilot on Microsoft. The plant was out of a humidity dome ten minutes on a plastic bag with glass underneath. ChatOn ai knows a remarkable amount about terraium begonia but one important thing it said needs to be confirmed because of the huge disruption it causes. ChatOn said the begonia ruthaie released 1000 to 250000 spores in a ten minute period. It’s a 2” plant with 5% powdery mildew in a 2” pot! The magnitude of cleaning it wants is vast. Can you tell me if it’s having a hallucination or accurate. Urgent I took many protective measures but can this spore count be real. In a week nothing new got sick but I did destroy the tray and the exposed plants and so on. Looking at the picture of the destroyed plant could it be aba. Humidity was very high in tray.

Muskegon County Michigan

Expert Response

The photo I took for Copilot was taken on their app so I don’t have a photo the powdery mildew. It was on the leaf running along the vein. In its ID copilot mentioned that fact but I don’t have more pictures. I used the Etsy app to send the picture to the seller. 

The Question Asker Replied October 03, 2024, 4:50 PM EDT

I sent the only apple photo I had in the first email. 

The Question Asker Replied October 03, 2024, 4:52 PM EDT

Apologies, but it is a little bit difficult for me to tell what damage you're referring to. Is it along the margin that's affected? I do see a little bit of powdery substance, but nothing that looks like powdery mildew.

The damage along the edge looks like it could be due to insect feeding, but it it's very uniform along the edge so that seems unlikely. If you or the seller cleaned the plants that damage could be due to some abiotic cause. It looks like it may even be a reaction to some extra rooting hormone. Regardless, I don't think it's anything to be too concerned about though, especially since you took the precaution of discarding the affected plants.

I've included a link to some general information about begonia pests and diseases, so I hope that's of some help. Also a couple of publications on powdery mildew.

https://www.begonias.org/pests-and-diseases-in-begonias/#:~:text=Some%20diseases%20that%20could%20affect,rot%20may%20also%20be%20present.

https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/bp/bp-5-w.pdf

https://extension.psu.edu/powdery-mildew

Thank you for your question! Replied October 04, 2024, 4:11 PM EDT

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