Anthracnose

Mirliton leaf infected with anthracnose. Unlike powdery mildew which yellows uniformly and wilts the leaves, anthracnose starts as yellow wedges between the leaf veins. It then turns the leaf tissue brown and leaves a distinctive “shot hole” in the middle of the brown patches. This is because the anthracnose fungus feeds on both living and dead tissue.

Seasons change and diseases change.  For mirlitons (chayote), the cooler, drier spring is time for the airborne mildews (powdery and downy), but the hot rainy months July through August—bring anthracnose season.  Being prepared for it can significantly reduce the damage the disease might do. 

First, know the enemy.  The above photo provides all the classic signs of anthracnose; a yellow wedge that turns into dead paper-like tissue, with a shot-hole in the middle. If you got these, you got anthracnose.

Anthracnose is a disease caused by the fungus Colletotrichum lagenarium in mirlitons. There are many fungi that cause anthracnose disease, but for our purposes, we’ll call Colletotrichum lagenarium the “anthracnose fungus.”  Unlike mildews which are carried by air, the anthracnose fungus is waterborne. That means it is carried by water droplets, splashing up from the soil and then from leaf to leaf. That’s important because it means that while you might be able to wash off some fungi with a good shower from your hose, the same shower will splash anthracnose fungus all over your vine and cause a massive anthracnose infection. 

Three Steps to Manage Anthracnose:

  1. Don’t give your vine showers.  Water from at the bottom of the vine with a hose set on low or drip irrigation.
  2. Don’t drown the vine. Too much soil moisture stresses mirliton and makes it difficult for it to fight fungi. Make sure your raised beds and ground plantings have adequate drainage, if they don’t have it, then add it now.
  3. Don’t worry; Be Happy. As horrible as anthracnose looks, infected vines normally recover in September and flower and fruit. Plus, they acquire increased resistance to the disease.

 

Here’s a more complete fact sheet on anthracnose and how to protect your plant by prepping your planting site or raised bed::Here

A Master Class in Mirlitons

Ervin Crawford And his Mirliton Vine

In 2008, I was searching for a Louisiana heirloom mirliton to replace the variety I had grown since 1983.  The hurricane Katrina flood had killed almost every mirliton in New Orleans.  The usual suspects had given me all the normal bad advice: “Buy one at the grocery store.  A mirliton is a mirliton.  They’ll grow fine.”  Nope. I planted, they died; I planted, they died. Over and over.  

After a little research, I discovered there were scores of varieties—perhaps hundreds—each adapted to the particular climate and altitude.  I had to find the one traditionally grown in Louisiana.  I discovered that the Louisiana Department of Agriculture’s monthly Market Bulletin was digitally archived years back. I went through it looking under “fruits and vegetables for sale” and saw one name repeatedly; Ervin Crawford, Pumpkin Center.  It was a long shot because the advertisements were decades old, but I called the number.  Ervin Crawford answered.

I immediately drove to Pumpkin Center and met him. On that first visit, Ervin gave me about 20 mirlitons and with those 20 plants, I started Mirliton.Org.  Ervin played a crucial role in saving the Louisiana heirloom mirliton.

Visiting Ervin’s farm is a pilgrimage everyone should make.  He’s a retired airline mechanic and knows more about mirlitons than anyone I know. He has been growing them for five decades, first in Peal River where he was raised, and later in Pumpkin Center where he bought his 20-acre retirement farm.  He grows everything; pecans, figs, beans, berries, bees, chickens.  

He has a quality found in most successful gardeners–a healthy curiosity. He wanted to know why he had success as well as failures. And failure and mirlitons often go together in the poor sandy pinewoods soil of the area called the Florida Parishes.  I have heard people in the region say, “They won’t grow up here.”  At first, I thought that they were using the wrong variety, or planting them incorrectly.  Ervin taught that the problem was not the soil, it was what was beneath the soil. 

Soil sample tests tell you a great deal, but they won’t tell you what you need to successfully grow mirlitons. Mirlitons are shallow-root plants and they sink or swim depending on subsurface drainage. If the soil doesn’t drain quickly enough, the roots can’t absorb oxygen, and the plant founders or dies. Building a raised bed on top of poorly-drained soil may result in a mud boat. The bed has to have an outlet to either absorb or remove excess water.  So to succeed, you need to know the geology and history of the land you are gardening on–and Ervin asked the right questions when he first got to Pumpkin Center.

Ervin learned that Pumpkin Center’s soil was considerably different from Pearl River, where he had learned gardening. Pearl River was a loamy basin soil, rich and porous. In contrast, Pumpkin Center was in the middle of the great Piney Flats that stretches from Florida to Texas. It was notoriously bad poor soil—sandy and acidic. When he once had some excavation work done, he saw that solid white clay lay a few feet down–a real barrier to drainage.

I realized that I had never asked those questions about where I was gardening.  To grow mirlitons, you have to be part geologist, hydrologist, and historian. You don’t have to become an expert; just enough knowledge to benefit your mirliton.

As I learned more about the history of where I was gardening, I realized that my mirlitons had often thrived in spite of me. I never once had asked what was under that topsoil or what was there 100 years ago.  

I do now, thanks to Ervin.   

 

 

How to Plant Spring Mirliton (chayote) Sprouts in Hot Weather

Spring mirlitons are normally sold unsprouted because they are picked fresh from the vine in early May. The first step before planting is to sprout the mirliton. You can speed the process by incubating it—keeping it as warm as possible. If it is above 80° outside, place the mirliton in a shaded area.  Or you can incubate it inside your home by placing it in a small plastic trash can or 5-gallon container with a lamp or small heating pad on low. The ideal temperature is 80°-85°. This will promote rapid sprouting within 10-14 days. (here is how I did it)

As soon as the seed begins to emerge (sticks out its tongue), it needs to be planted—but differently from the fall ones. In May, temperatures can run in the 90s along the Gulf Coast, and I have found that sometimes they won’t send up a shoot in extreme heat.  Instead, the shoot spirals under the seed. (Figure 1). 

The solution is simple. Plant the sprout as you normally would, but put a temporary shade cover over it —a milk crate with a piece of shade cloth over it or a piece of cardboard on top will work fine. Cover the crate with chicken wire to ward off varmints. Once the shoot emerges, remove the crate and stake up the vine.

Figure 1.

Mirliton.org Certified Pedigrees

Mirliton.org Certified Pedigrees

We have noticed an uptick in interest from folks on social media looking to acquire seed mirliton or mirliton plants. As we have always preached, to be successful at growing mirlitons in Louisiana and the neighboring states, one must start with heirloom varieties suited for the Gulf Coast. As a result of our efforts in saving the Ishreal Thibodeaux white mirliton variety, there appears to be a lot of people posting they have received some of that variety to grow; however, it has also been noted another white variety has recently turned up as well as some imports from Latin America.

In an effort to help ensure future growers are actually growing the varieties they think they are’ we will start issuing Pedigree Certification Acknowledgment certificates to those varieties that have been already identified (e.g., Ishreal Thibodeaux, Papa Sylvest, Remondet-Perque, etc.) or will be identified by Mirliton.org. These will be free PDFs emailed to recipients so they can be kept on record with unique certification numbers so we can establish future pedigree claims. They can provide a printed copy to individuals who buy from them as proof of variety claim.

Image 1: Sample Certificate Header

The first round will focus on the Ishreal Thibodeaux growers. This may be a time-consuming process depending on the records available and may not always yield a certificate if we cannot establish the original source or verify based off of physical description and pictures. If you have a viable established mirliton vine of 3+ years and would like to be considered for a certificate, please contact David Hubbell at rpcajun2r@gmail.com .

 

The Mirliton Pronunciation Project!

As many of you know, we have added the Mirliton Pronunciation button to the top of the page that gives you a link to how many well-known native Louisianians pronounce the word Mirliton. The link will take you to the first pronunciation of Lolis Eric Elie, then should proceed down the playlist. If it doesn’t simply click here for the whole playlist: How Do You Say MILRITON?

So far, we have:

Season 1:

Lolis Eric Elie

Glen Pitre

Don Dubuc

Julie and Vance Vaucresson

Chef Frank Brigtsen

Liz Williams

Renee Lapeyrolerie

Chef Jeremy Langlois

Spuddy Faucheaux

Marcelle Bienvenu

Jay Schexnaydre

Jerry Folse

“Uncle” Larry Roussel

Ken Wells

Bryanne Bellman

Mark Bologna

Captain Luka Cutura

Miss Louisiana 2021 – Julie Claire Williams

Nancy Tregre Wilson

Chef Amy Sins

Marissa Rabalais Turner

Jimmy Babin

Lester Folse

Poppy Tooker

The Children of Ishreal Thibodeaux

Chef Tommy Centola

Season 2:

Kernis Louviere

Maureen Brennan and Spud McConnell

Jyl Benson

Peggy Scott Laborde

We have reached out to many more folks and hope to add to our list for Season 2. If you know of a Louisiana native that you would like to hear, say the word MIRLITON, simply send me an email at rpcajun2r@gmail.com and I will see what I can do.

Thank you also to Poppy Tooker for showcasing the project on her recent episode of Louisiana Eats!

Thank you for watching!

 

Update on the Ishreal Thibodeaux White Mirliton Preservation Project – End of Year 2021

Update on the Ishreal Thibodeaux White Mirliton Preservation Project – End of Year 2021

Background:

Since June 20th, 2020, Mirliton.org has been working with growers throughout the country on the Ishreal Thibodeaux White Mirliton Preservation Project in an attempt to bring back, from the brink of extinction, this rare ivory white variety of the mirliton grown and cared for over four decades by Opelousas, Louisiana’s Ishreal Thibodeaux. If you haven’t already checked out the last Update on the Ishreal Thibodeaux White Mirliton Preservation Project – 2nd Quarter 2021 then please do so to see the progress up to that point. It links back to the other updates which contain an in depth look at all of our growers and efforts from the start of the project.

Grower Update:

As mentioned in the previous updates, we were able to expand our growing efforts to 9 new growers; mostly in Louisiana but some in Texas. This is in addition to our existing six from last year. Sadly, it looks like our Carolina and Alabama plants did not survive into the 2021 growing season. Our sincere hope is to resupply these folks with plants in early March 2022 for a second try.

Reports from the Field:

The last half of 2021 presented many challenges to the growers. In particular, a major part of those in Louisiana were right in the path of destruction of Hurricane Ida. Many lost their vines and the great progress they were making, but that loss seems inconsequential compared to the loss of life and property many in that area felt. Fortunately, our growers who faced setbacks are raring to try again in 2022 and we are making efforts to get them reestablished. Attached are a series of updates and photos from our new and existing growers from the last half of the year.

Wade Guidry – Cutoff, LA

Wade reports that. “(We) lost all our garden including Ishreal Thibodaux’s. But hoping we can get new ones to start from scratch again!” – September 23, 2021. Good news for us all is that we have helped locate more IT mirlitons for Wade to start over in 2022.

David Duvic – West Felicians Parish, LA

“Plants are doing well. Starting to flower. Spraying with copper every 7-10 days hoping to control mildew/anthracnose. So far, I am winning. If anyone knows of a particular product that works well, please let me know.” – September 23, 2021. As you can see, David efforts yielded a very nice crop.

Image 1. David Duvic’s IT mirliton in November 2021

Christopher Brooks – Opelousas, LA

Bad news to report on my end. Something (I suspect a rabbit) ate both my vines off at the ground. I was hoping that they would re-sprout and resume growing. Unfortunately, they have not. One did put up a start but died back down.” – September 22, 2021. As with Wade, we have helped Christopher locate some more to start over in 2022.

Laken Thomas -Lake Charles, LA

Unfortunately, my plants didn’t make it. We have been having terrible weather events in SWLA. After I moved them outside their health declined and never recovered. I put up wind barriers and built an area specific for their growing needs but it just wasn’t enough ☹“Fortunately, Laken located some more IT mirlitons from another source so they are set for 2022!

Brad Langlanais – Lafayette, LA

Unfortunately, I lost my plant back in July from over fertilizing it. It was looking so good too!” – December 2022. Brad was able to locate some of the new white mirlitons a grower out of Mississippi made available in December. We don’t believe these are the Ishreal Thibodeaux variety, but we will find out after growing them the differences between the two.

So far, our Texas growers aren’t doing too bad at all. Please check out their phenomenal progress!

Kevin de Santiago – Round Rock, TX

Kevin has the distinction of being the first gardener in Texas to successfully grow the Ishreal Thibodeaux variety. Here are 4 beautiful specimens.

He notes – “There are eleven more that have reached the “this is happening” size. The vine keeps putting out flowers and our warm temps are holding up.” – December 4, 2021.

Image 2. Kevin de Santiago’s IT mirlitons December 10, 2021

Sadly, shortly after he reported, “The freeze was a lot harder than anticipated.”

Image 3. Kevin de Santiago’s IT mirlitons in early December 13, 2021

Image 4. Sasi Vajha of Houston photographed this IT mirliton down on Galveston Island provided to her by Kevin De Santiago December 23, 2021. We at Mirliton.org really love this shot!

Alan Raymond – Kingwood, TX

Alan reported that “I have 6 mirliton fruit developing.  A few photos are attached.  The largest is about 4 inches long.”

 

I

mage 5. Alan Raymond’s IT mirlitons in early December 2021

Image 6. Alan Raymond’s IT mirlitons in early December 2021

Image 7. Alan Raymond’s IT mirlitons in early December 2021

From our established growers:

Paul D’anna, Master Mirliton Grower – Metairie, LA

Paul’s holiday update –

Image 8. The Mirliton Man of Metairie, Mr. Paul D’Anna inspecting some IT mirlitons in December. Paul is in his element! Thank you, Renee Lapeyrolerie, for this great picture!

James Cobb– Houma, LA

James reports

“2 nice ones growing. Have about 1/2 dozen more about golf ball size and loads of tiny ones & flowers. Been some rough going the last year but hanging in there. There’s hope.” – November 2021

Image 9. James Cobb IT mirlitons in early November 2021

Chef John Folse – Baton Rouge, LA

“All good here. Vines very full and still picking and begin to plant for greenhouse. Many are already spreading roots. Big year again.” – December 2021

Once again Chef John and his great staff at White Oak Estates and Gardens have put aside some for the Ishreal Thibodeaux White Mirliton Preservation Project so that folks like Wade, Christopher, and Carolina grower Keith Mearns can give it another shot!

Image 10. White Oak Estates and Gardens IT mirlitons being potted in the greenhouse in early January 2022

I believe these are all of the photos I have from our growers. I imagine you are as impressed with their progress as I am. This is an amazing finish for 2021 compared to where we were in December 2020! Kudos to all the growers and continued success as we head into winter and work on overwintering and preparing for the 2022 growing season.

Additional Louisiana Growers – Independent of the formal group

Jay Thibodeaux – Opelousas, LA

Jay bought some from Paul D’Anna last year and had a great year making over 100 available for sale. Look at the size of this one!

Image 11. Jay Thibodeaux’s whopper IT mirliton December 2021

Image 12. Jay Thibodeaux’s display of some beautiful IT mirliton December 2021

Buddy and Charlotte Baham – Algiers, LA–

Back in March 2021, we learned of another Ishreal Thibodeaux grower that had gotten some of the original mirlitons Dr. Lance Hill shared with growers back in 2013. We were very pleasantly surprised that they had been growing these in abundance in Algiers for over 8 years. They generously made some available for sale back in March and shared some pictures of their Fall 2021 bounty. Check out these awesome pictures by Buddy Baham.

Image 13. Look at the size of those IT Mirlitons from Buddy and Charlotte Bahams!

Image 14. Buddy and Charlotte’s mirliton structure in Algiers!

Image 15. A cluster of the IT Mirlitons in Algiers

Image 16. The IT vine has found a wonderful place to thrive in Algiers!

Tee Shirt Campaign:

We continue to have steady sales of our Ishreal Thibodeaux White Mirliton Preservation Project tee shirts. The purchase of these shirts helps us continue our efforts to preserve and promote the work of Mirliton.org. If you are interested in purchasing one, these shirts are available as a special offering for those wishing to donate $30 per shirt to Mirliton.org. To order your own, simply click here or send me an email at rpcajun2r@gmail.com.

Image 17. The official project Tee Shirt

Image 18. The official tee shirt of The Ishreal Thibodeaux White Mirliton Preservation Project

Education and Inspiration Through Food:

One of the many other projects we conducted in 2021 was a fun little effort engaging the help of many notable south Louisianians to provide instructional videos on how they say the word, mirliton. The Mirliton Pronunciation Project was a great success and we have 27 episodes from the first pass and will be working on many more for the second round. If you haven’t seen them, please check them out by clicking on the following playlist: Mirliton Pronunciation Project. You’ll see many familiar Louisiana names like Chef Frank Brigtsen, writer Lolis Eric Elie, director Glen Pitre, outdoorsman Don Dubuc and many many more. I also hope you check out episode 26 below with our very special guests – the children of Mr. Ishreal Thibodeaux! Let us know what you think! Click below or here!

Image 19. The children of Ishreal Thibodeaux help out with the Mirliton Pronunciation Project

Chef John Folse provides another great recipe using the IT Mirliton found via WAFB’s website. Check out this Mirliton Custard recipe here: Mirliton Custard (wafb.com)

In addition to the great information regarding the growing of mirliton, don’t forget we have a section completely devoted to recipes found below: International Mirliton/Chayote Recipes – Mirliton Dr. Hill has continued to add great recipes as he comes across them. Check it out and start planning your 2022 mirliton menus now!

Finally, I had a chance to help spread the word on our mirliton efforts via three platforms. I gave a general hourlong mirliton talk via Zoom to the Pensacola Organic Gardening Club in October, followed by the very enjoyable and educational Tip of The Tongue podcast (part of the Nitty Grit Network) which falls under the umbrella of the great Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans. Thank you again to the founder and show host, Liz Williams for having me as her guest. You can check out the interview here: Tip of the Tongue 103: Mirliton, Chayote and Christophene — Southern Food & Beverage Foundation

I then finished off the year sharing our efforts on one of New Orleans’ great radio institutions, Tom & Mary Ann Fitzmorris’ The Food Show. You can find my 30-minute segment about an hour in here: THE FOOD SHOW – DECEMBER 10, 2021 – WGSO 990AM

Final Thoughts for the 2021 Growing Season:

This final update of the 2021 growing season should clearly give the reader an idea that the program is doing quite well despite our issues due to Ida. I am really impressed and inspired by what I am seeing from our Texas growers and the independent work done by Buddy & Charlotte Baham and Jay Thibodeaux are enhancing and supporting our work. The goal for the Ishreal Thibodeaux White Mirliton Project all along has been to preserve and then develop a network of growers that are able to provide others interested in this variety a reliable source to call upon as the we make a resurgence. It really looks like the we are a lot closer to that point then I expected we’d be after two years. At last count, we have 7 growers with great productive vines and perhaps 50+ independent growers going into 2022! I really believe by the end of 2022 we will have a great network of Ishreal Thibodeaux growers throughout the Gulf South that should be able to make this variety available to all who are interested in growing them.

As a final note, I have added only a few names to the third wave of growers in 2022 but if still interested in the project, please check out this link. Thank you all for the interest and support in 2021 and we wish you, your family, and friends a safe, healthy, and wonderful spring growing season.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please send them to me David J. Hubbell at rpcajun2r@gmail.com. Thank you.