Bacterial Wilt
Risk near you, next 48h
See whether your local forecast favours this disease right now.
When it strikes
Remove affected material now
Take out the affected leaves, shoots or whole plants before the next wet spell, bag them as you cut, and wash your hands and tools before touching healthy plants.
Tools, hands and cuttings
It travels on secateurs, stakes, gloves and propagation material. Work through healthy plants first and disinfect tools between plants.
It carries over to next season in soil, debris or seed — which is why rotation matters here, not just treatment.
Keep out of the compost
This survives a garden heap. Bag it for municipal green waste, which is composted industrially at temperatures a garden heap cannot reach, or burn it where that is permitted.
When and where to look
Scout the planting while temperatures hold between 25°C and 37°C, with humidity above 70%.
The signs that lead here
Full problem lists for these crops
About
Bacterial wilt (Erwinia tracheiphila, spread by cucumber beetles, and Ralstonia in solanaceous crops) plugs the vascular system of cucurbits and tomatoes, causing irreversible collapse in warm weather.
Symptoms
Rapid wilting of individual leaves then whole vines despite moist soil; cut stems ooze sticky white strands; no recovery overnight. A cut stem dipped in water releases milky threads.
Organic Treatment
No cure — remove and destroy infected plants immediately. Control cucumber beetles with row cover and traps, since they transmit the bacteria.
Chemical Treatment
No effective bactericide; manage by controlling the insect vectors with appropriate insecticides.
Prevention
Exclude cucumber beetles with floating row cover until flowering, plant resistant varieties, and rotate crops.
Crops at risk
Related problems
Bacterial Wilt risk by location
Each location has a month-by-month profile computed from the weather archive: how many hours a year actually meet this disease’s thresholds.