I've been listening to podcasts from John Kempf of Advancing Eco Agriculture and his take is to produce healthy plants. Apparently the fungal spore releases an enzyme that breaks through the cell walls and begins the infection. If the plant has the right balance of nutrients, it can deposit lipids in the leaves and the lipids are impenetrable to the fungal enzymes. He applies the same logic to all pests in that they all have very particular digestive processes and healthy plants can produce enough secondary metabolites which make them indigestible to almost all pests. If you check out Dan Kittredge from Bionutrient Food Association, his take is that if you have fungus eating your plants, you're growing fungus food and not human food 🤣
