Hey everyone. I’m devastated. Our spaghetti squash vine, which was our greatest and most exciting garden success, died overnight. I researched all weekend, and the signs seem to point to bacterial wilt, but the vine was very mature with almost mature fruit on it, and everything I read says that BW affects squash when they’re just starting to flower.
The plant was doing tremendously well; okay, I had noticed a few older leaves were getting yellowish (not nitrogen deficient yellow; yellow with a few brown spots), but the rest of the plant was green, growing, and healthy. I fed and watered it to make sure the leaves weren’t getting stressed by lack of nutrients, and a week later, overnight, all the beautiful green and healthy leaves were wilted and dead.
I didn’t think to take a picture before ripping out the plant today. Sorry; it’s been a hard week, and this just added to it. Could it be bacterial wilt? Is there any hope for me to grow spaghetti squash in the future?
The soil never got dry, and the vine still died. No sign of borers. We did find some powdery mildew today on the squash next to it; could that have done it? We couldn’t find signs of rodents, either, though I don’t know how many roots a spaghetti squash normally has to know if a vole ate some.
Did you pull it up? I doubt it’s disease. The plant looked healthy and most diseases don’t kill overnight.The only thing I can think of that’s that’s that fast is something we called “bullet mold”. It would leave the plant fruit and flowers completely brown within hours. killed the plant soon after. Used to see it rarely/occasionally in indoor grow rooms back in the day. IDK what it was, maybe Phytophthora, a water mold.I doubt very much it’s bullet mold, would have to be very wet and probably little ventilation.
Sounds like vine borer to me honestly. They can go unnoticed for ages because the damage is internal, then one hot day the plant just collapses because it can’t move water anymore. If you split the stem near the base you’ll usually find the frass or the larvae. Bacterial wilt is possible too but like Lynn said, that usually shows up earlier in the season.
I agree with squash vine borer. But, next time don’t pull the vine. Look for the frass - and look all over because my SVB don’t follow the rules and especially on trellises plants I find them 6-7’ up on the trellis- and either take a toothpick or cut open the vines and kill them. I was positive my mid-July, huge spaghetti squash was dead last year, but once I found them all (took over a week) if slowly came back to life, continued to ripen the squash it had and make more. It does not matter if the stem is cut open, the plant should recover. If it’s on the ground, DE sprinkled around the cut areas helps to reduce bugs that will eat it. 50% of the time I remember to do this and it certainly helps.
Thanks everyone! We pulled it because the plant was undeniably dead and couldn’t recover. We also wanted to check the roots for vole damage. There was no sign of SVB frass, holes, or anything anywhere we could see, but I’ll find the stem and cut it in half just in case. SVB is definitely not common here, as no locals even knew what it was when I asked them about it a few years ago; that doesn’t mean it hasn’t made its way here.
It definitely wasn’t bullet mold, as the fruits were fine. I’m favoring SVB or voles now, so I’ll go out and split the stem at the base. If it was SVB, I know it hit the plant at the base because even the vine growing a few inches up was affected.
I couldn’t find the section of the plant where the roots are (the grass is SO tall), so I can’t check for a more hidden SVB. The squash was on a trellis, and at last count it had 12 fruits on it; could it have just been overtaxed and collapsed?