Current organic management strategies against these pest/disease complexes are unreliable.

OMRI-listed insecticides and fungicides, cultural methods, and low tunnels – alone or combined

– fail to deliver consistently acceptable yield and quality because of losses caused by these pests

and diseases. Interest in biologicals to control plant diseases has greatly increased over the last

decade [13], including in cucurbits [40, 46, 60, 90, 114], but they have not yet been implemented

for managing major cucurbit diseases. In Iowa, the use of mesotunnels for cucurbit production

has resulted in substantial yield gains compared to other organic systems. Mesotunnels more than

doubled marketable yield in muskmelon and winter squash compared to low tunnels and non-covered

crops [74-76]. Both biological control and the mesotunnel system have the potential to

provide organic cucurbit growers with new and reliable tools to deter pests, reduce disease risk,

and enhance yield.