February 2011. There is a problem on Luffa in Sri Lanka. About 40% of the young pods rot and die early. The problem occurs on plants grown from hybridd seed after manual pollination.

Members had no idea as to the cause of the probllem. One suggested that perhaps an insect was the cause by analolgy with the problem on beans caused by the pod sucking bug, Riptortus. If the cause was a pathogen, it might be expected that the leaves would show symptoms as well as the pods.

Often this sort of problem has a physiological cause related to either the weather, poor uptake of calcium in humid condtions or simply too many potential flowers for the capacity of the plant to sustain them.