"The humidity is spiking," Maya whispered, her knuckles white around a shovel handle.
By noon, the sun finally burned through the fog. The wind machines slowed to a halt.
For the next three days, the entire settlement worked under Elias and Maya's direction. They constructed crude, hand-cranked wind machines from salvaged car parts to keep air moving through the grain, preventing dew from settling. They dug deep drainage ditches to lower the soil moisture, and applied a thick layer of alkaline wood ash to the base of the plants to alter the surface pH, creating a hostile environment for the fungal spores. Plant Pathology, Fifth Edition
Elias walked out into the center of the field and knelt down. He pulled a magnifying loupe from his pocket and examined a leaf blade. There were spores on the surface, visible as tiny specks of dust, but they were dormant. Desiccated. The chain of infection had been broken. The microclimate manipulation had worked.
Maya crouched beside him, looking at the complex biochemical pathways illustrated in the book. "How? We can't control the weather." "The humidity is spiking," Maya whispered, her knuckles
"Professor, English please," Maya said, not taking her eyes off the treeline. "We need to know how to kill it before it kills our dinner."
"No, but we can control the microclimate of the field," Elias said, a spark of his old academic fervor returning. "Look here, page 415. Spore germination requires a specific leaf wetness duration and temperature range. If we disrupt the humidity at the canopy level, we stop the spores from firing their infection pegs." For the next three days, the entire settlement
On the fourth morning, a heavy fog rolled into the valley—prime conditions for a fungal explosion. Elias stood at the edge of the field, the Fifth Edition open in his hands, watching the digital hygrometer they had rigged up.