how to get rid of botrytis in Flowers [Gray Mold Treatment]

Do you want to know how to get rid of botrytis in Flowers and what causes botrytis in flowers? What can you do to avoid it? Read it here for your guidance.

Are you worried that your flower petals are falling off? Are they suddenly collapsing and dying, without any reason, even in the spring season?

The first course of action should be to observe them.

Can you see some tan spots or spots on them? If yes, they are facing a grey mold (and pink mold) disease called Botrytis. Let’s discuss what causes Botrytis in flowers.

how to get rid of botrytis in Flowers

Botrytis is a harmful fungal infection detected in your garden’s plants, leaves, flowers, and so on, causing blight. This grey mold infects vegetation in landscapes, particularly in chilly, damp, gloomy, or highly humid situations, causing the plant to wilt and die.

Like mold spores, they remain suspended in the air, and once they find a host flower, they start to develop on its petal and then move downwards.

It initially looks like white design round spots and then starts to turn brown once they start harming them.

Why Is There Botrytis in Your Garden Flowers?

Hygiene of your garden plays a crucial role in developing this deadly disease as they first host a dead flower to propagate in your garden.

Then this fungal infection started to creep over the healthy buds and flowers along with other parts of their plants. Click below to BUY Organic Disease Mold Control.

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Humid weather is the natural reason for their spread as this fungus-based grey mold disease needs moisture for its growth; ensure you are not overwatering (check underwatering vs overwatering) your plant in the wet or humid season.

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They also need moisture to move from one host to another in your garden.

Initially, they looked like tiny white to whitish grey dots on your flower petals, which then started to turn greyer with black dots.

If you spot this on time and remove that petal, you can save this flower once it browns; reversing or protecting your bud or bloomed flower is impossible.

Major Causes of Botrytis in Your Garden Flowers

There is a lack of sanitation practices in your flower garden
Your growing space humidity is 95 percent
Cutting wounds are present on the plant
Overcrowding of flowering plants
Presence of active grey mold spores in your garden
Over watering the plant

1. Lack of Sanitation Practices:

Sanitary methods before, throughout, and after every planting season are critical initial steps in achieving excellent botrytis control.

These grey molds need a vulnerable target for their growth and never initiate their development on a healthy plant.

2. Presence of Active Grey Mold Spores in Your Garden

Petals dropping off hanging basket flowering plant pots in our home or outdoor garden may promote grey mold spores growth upon ground-level vegetation.

Always clean dry petals, foliage, and sick plant residues from the greenhouses, ensuring that they do not become a source of immunization for the rest of the home.

Infected plant debris must not be left in garbage cans inside the household since the grey mold spores may continue to develop sporadic cases of dead and dying tissue and finally reaches our flowering plant.

3. Cutting Wounds are Present on the Plant

This fungal disease can quickly enter through wounds on our flowering plants, thus always avoiding injuries to them.

If there is a wound on your healthy plant, remove that area where the damage is present before Botrytis attack and slowly kill your whole plant.

4. Your Growing Space Humidity is 95%

Humidity promotes Botrytis growth in flowers; thus, try to keep it below 85 percent.

Reduce the moisture content on flowering plant surfaces; fans must be employed to generate excellent airflow above flowering plants.

5. Over-watering the Plant

Moisture and water let them thrive easily inside your flower-growing places; thus, try to maintain your water cycle and feed them before the afternoon so the roots will soak in time, resulting in fungus growth.

Vertical irrigation must be avoided as the water drops induce the spores to become airborne, enabling additional infestations on our flowering plants.

6. Overcrowding of Flowering Plants

Good plant separation is essential for improved air circulation and reduced relative humidity inside the gardening area, as overcrowding of flowering plants promotes grey mold growth.

7. Optimum Conditions for Botrytis Growth in Flowers

Botrytis cinerea is one prevalent disease with various host varieties that may live in the greenhouses or gardens all year as mycelium on alive or dead tissue of your plants.

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Then when they find optimum conditions for their growth, they travel via air to their host and adhere to them.

The optimum condition for their growth is-

Temperature: 22 to 25 degrees centigrade
Humidity: 85 percent or above moisture in the air
Weather: cool to mild cool weather
Spores hiding place: suspended in air or on the soil surface
Suspected hosts: wounds on plant parts, dead leaves, soft buds, dry flowers, etc.
Favorite hosts: Rose, marigold, geranium, begonia, cyclamen, chrysanthemum, carnation, lilies, etc.

These fungal spores never directly infiltrate our plant stem’s green, normal tissue; however, they can penetrate from cuts on developing plants.

Cuttings, young flower buds, and dead organic matter are more vulnerable to this deadly infection.

How to Avoid Botrytis in Your Garden’s Flowers?

What causes botrytis in Flowers

It’s heartbreaking to see your flower petals falling off in your garden or your young buds not blooming in the season. They are surrounded by grey soft gray sticky material, resulting in death.

If you want to avoid such conditions, always keep your garden clean as it is mainly associated with your garden’s hygiene.

Efficient crop management methods, including greenhouse environment modification, can limit the overall incidence of this infection in most circumstances, even without using fungicides.

1. Standard Practices to Treat or Avoid Botrytis in Your Garden’s Flowers

This fungal disease is lethal to our plants and can cause substantial economic losses to their commercial gardeners. In our greenhouses or gardening fields, we can take the following steps to prevent it.

2. Cleaning Gardening Space:

As they are present in the active form on soil fields, you can maintain clean soil beneath plants by sweeping up unwanted accumulated debris. Remove all the dead organic matter they use as a host to grow.

Maintain good hygiene and frequently clean the floors and walls of your gardening site to avoid botrytis growth.

3. Add Compost to Your Garden:

Always attempt to add enough organic compost or manure to your underplants. Composts keep fungal spores from spreading off the ground on flowers and foliage and are absorbed by the flowering root system for their development.

4. Don’t Add Compost to Wounded Plants:

Never add compost to wounded or sick flower plants.

Cut or remove these affected leaves, flowers, or stems on your flowering plant earlier in autumn to prevent overwintering locations for fungal spores.

Otherwise, this can accelerate Botrytis growth in the flowering plant’s dormant period.

5. Disinfect Your Cutting tools:

Always clean your pruning tools with disinfectant water made of bleach and water with 25 percent bleach dissolved in water to kill them on your tools before they spread somewhere.

Cut all of the infected sites of your flowering plant with a sterilized tool to remove them before they damage the whole plant. Never produce wounds on healthy parts while cutting the infected ones.

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5. Tips for the indoor garden:

Use the small automated clip-on fans in your indoor garden to promote dry air circulation when growing your flower indoors.

As they require moisture to grow, in case of its absence, they won’t be able to grow and damage our flowers.

6. Watering Schedule to avoid Botrytis:

Feed your plants with water during morning hours to avoid over-watering them.

You can also use a soaking hose to ensure water is sufficiently supplied without over watering them as overwatering benefits botrytis growth in flowers. 

how to get rid of botrytis in Flowers: Home Remedies

Some home remedies that can help in reducing this fungal infection in our garden to protect our flowers are as follows:

1. Use of soap water:

Spray copper-based soap foams or soapy water on your flower plant where you have spotted white spots of botrytis species.

Spray at the beginning of flowering and every seven to ten days until you harvest them. Please treat them with fungicidal sprays whenever the weather predicts a period of chilly, damp weather.

2. Spray a dilute mixture of potassium bicarbonate:

Spray a dilute mixture of Potassium bicarbonate on affected flower buds. On contact, it eliminates numerous plant pathogens and gives up to two weeks of residual protection.

You can apply this mixture to every exposed vegetation by mixing one to two tablespoons per gallon of water. Repeat this for one or two weeks with intervals until circumstances are no more conducive to illness development.

3. Spray neem oil:

Another Helpful remedy is to spray neem oil on affected flower buds or other parts of flowering plants and repeat this for one or two weeks until symptoms are gone.

how to get rid of botrytis in Flowers- Chemical Ways

Flower gardeners offer several fungicides to control gray mold in the greenhouses or our gardening sites.

Now botrytis species have acquired resistance to specific pesticides, and we recommend not using a single agent or a combination of the same type of pesticide.

You can use anti-fungicides with diverse mechanisms of action in rotation to prevent the fungus from developing resistance to a single chemical for its effective control in your flower gardens.

Some chemical fungicides that appear to help in reducing Botrytis are:

Iprodione
Fludioxonil
chlorothalonil
fenhexamid

how to get rid of botrytis in Flowers FAQS

Q: Is Botrytis In Flowers Harmful To Us?

No, it is not toxic to humans on contact. Try not to inhale them as they are mold, harmful to respiration, and cause respiratory illness.

Q: How To Stop Botrytis From Spreading In Flowers?

Prune the affected parts of flowers and adequately clean your garden to avoid re-contamination.

Q: What Is The Ideal Temperature To Naturally Kill Botrytis?

At 41-degree centigrade, Botrytis dies naturally.

Final thoughts:

Botrytis is a nasty fungal infection that results in the blight of your flowers.

In this article, we have discussed in detail how to get rid of botrytis in Flowers and what causes Botrytis in flowers and how to get rid of this grey mold disease to prevent our lively garden’s horrible demise.