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Do you know about the types and methods of controlling pests and diseases of passion fruit plants? The passion fruit plant is one of the plants that is popular with plant lovers in Indonesia.
Apart from producing fragrant and sweet fruit, passion fruit is also known to have a multitude of benefits for human health because this fruit is rich in vitamin A, niacin, riboflavin and vitamin C which are effective for maintaining the body’s immune system.
Apart from that, this passion fruit plant is also known as a beautiful ornamental plant because of its creeping shape and can decorate tree trunks or wooden pillars.
Apart from its beauty and benefits, it turns out that growing this tropical plant from Latin America is not always an easy matter.
Of course, as with any fruit crop, there are many challenges and biological threats such as pests and disease. To control it, some tools, medication and special skills will be needed.
So, what types of diseases and pests can infect passion fruit plants? And how to control it properly and correctly? Read the complete explanation only in this article.
Types and Methods of Controlling Passion Fruit Pests
Passion fruit plants have three types of pests: fruit flies, yellow lice and mealybugs.
1. Fruit fly (dacus dorsalis)
Fruit flies are one of the pests that most often attack passion fruit plants. Reporting from Bangka Belitung Agricultural Research and Development statistical data, the average attack level reached 15% of the total harvest.
Generally, fruit flies will damage the tissue of ripe passion fruit, resulting in faster internal rot of the fruit.
This type of pest can be controlled by installing male fly traps to reduce mating so that female fruit flies do not reproduce.
Usually this fly trap is installed when the passion fruit is almost ripe. By catching male fruit flies, the population of female fruit flies that mate will decrease.
This makes the opportunity for passion fruit production to decrease even smaller. Another method that can be used to prevent fruit fly pests is to destroy infected fruit and protect unripe fruit by wrapping it in newspaper or plastic bags.
2. Yellow aphids (Myzus persicae)
Types of yellow aphids are pests that attack the shoots and young leaves of passion fruit plants with plant fluids so that the leaves become more wrinkled.
Lice are green with a yellowish red head. This type of tick is small, around 2-2.5 mm.
This type of pest can be prevented by thorough garden sanitation and good plant maintenance such as proper and balanced fertilization.
3. White lice (Aphis gossyphil)
Types of pests Mealybugs are a type of pest that can attack the stems and twigs of passion fruit plants. Mealybugs usually gather on the surface of the plant and directly suck on passion fruit plants.
To control this pest, you can carry out regular garden sanitation and more regular plant maintenance by immediately pruning infected plants.
Natural insecticides such as laundry soap can also be used to eradicate this type of pest.
Types and Methods of Controlling Passion Fruit Plant Diseases
Apart from pests, passion fruit plants also have three types of diseases: brown spot disease, wilt disease and root collar rot disease.
1. Brown spot disease (Alternaria passiflorae)
This disease was first discovered in Indonesia on passion fruit plants in the 1960s. The pathogen of this disease can attack branches, petioles, leaves and fruit.
This disease develops quickly when the weather is humid and hot. In passion fruit plantations in the South Sulawesi area, extreme attacks usually occur before the rainy season.
Based on South Sulawesi Agricultural Research and Development research data, this disease causes passion fruit plants to die quickly (average age 3 years) and fruit production can decrease by up to 40%.
If the disease attack is more chronic, then brown spot can cause the plant to become bald. This is because the leaves will fall more easily.
Not only leaves, brown spots also cause severe effects if they succeed in attacking passion fruit tree trunks.
If part of the trunk is also attacked, the younger branches around it will dry out and die.
Fruit that is attacked will also rot more easily. This disease can be spread through wind or rain from fruit, infected leaves, or fall.
There are three easy ways to control brown spot disease, namely:
- Space the passion fruit plants so they are not too close together.
- Then, it is also mandatory to regularly prune the affected plant parts and burn them.
- Finally, if these two methods are deemed less effective, then you can use the fungicide meneb + zineb, menkozeb with a concentration of 0.25% to help eradicate brown spot disease.
2. Deadhead disease (Phytophthora parasitica)
This type of disease is caused by fungus-type germs that appear when the weather is cold and windy. Impotence disease affects yellow passion fruit and purple passion fruit.
Once infected with dieback disease, passion fruit plants will cause the roots to rot and the leaves will turn wet and brownish.
Affected areas of the stem and shoots will also turn brown. This can weaken the stem completely, so that the entire passion fruit plant will wilt and collapse easily.
Deadheading can be managed in two ways: non-chemical and chemical.
Non-chemically, dieback disease can be controlled by pruning passion fruit plants regularly and creating drainage to better regulate humidity levels.
If dieback disease is more chronic, it can be controlled using chemical methods, namely by applying copper-based fungicides every 2-3 months or by using pesticides.
3. Wilt disease (Fusarium passiflorae)
This disease is an important disease of passion fruit plants which causes many plants to die young. The main symptom of this disease is yellowing on the edges of the leaves.
Starting from the old leaves to the younger leaves, then gradually the stems will start to wither and break.
The leaves that emerge will also become smaller, wrinkled and damaged. Passion fruit has no visual symptoms, but slowly the quality and quantity of the fruit decreases.
Even though pesticides have proven to be ineffective, there are still several other ways that can be used to control this disease.
Wilt disease can be controlled by administration T. kingwhich succeeded in suppressing wilt disease by 15% and the intensity of wilt disease was 5.38% (Saragih, Silalahi, and Marpaung 2006).
Other methods such as improving fertilization with potassium fertilizer and using antagonistic microbes have also been scientifically proven to be able to control this disease.
4. Root neck rot disease
There is rotting in the root neck caused by rhizoctonia solani. This disease starts from land conditions that are too wet and damp, which stimulates brownish rot.
This fungus mainly infects gardens with poor drainage, resulting in conditions where the plants become too damp. The fungus infects fine roots with wandering spores.
Plants infected with this disease will wilt, turn yellow and their leaves will fall. The skin at the tip of the stem that is above ground level will also crack.
If it is not too late, this disease can be overcome by making good drainage so that water does not easily stagnate.
Apart from that, garden sanitation, the use of para-para from bamboo shoots and the use of 0.2% benlate or 10-50% lisol have also proven effective in controlling this passion fruit plant disease.
So, those are some types and methods of controlling pests and diseases of passion fruit plants that you should know. Hopefully this knowledge is useful and can help those of you who are interested or wish to cultivate passion fruit plants. Good luck!
Also Read: Classification and Morphology of Passion Fruit Plants
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