Topic: The silent killer

[allaboutliverpool]

Rust has killed my garlic.

The subject has been raised on several occasions but the collective opinion has been that it is relatively harmless.

Not this year:-



The rust has devastated the yield and I am anxious about the leeks which are ok at the present. Has anyone else suffered badly?

Is there a spray? All the ones in my local garden centre are for non edible plants.

http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments_Vegetables_garlic.html

[davyw1]

I use a spray called Topper for my Leeks

[allaboutliverpool]

Thanks, I see there is one called Dithane 945 that everyone seems to have sold out of. Is it the same stuff? It contains mancozeb and does not sound very organic.

Perhaps I can say that it is ok because, chemically it is classed as an 'organic' compound in the same way that virtually every weedkiller and pesticide is!

[Robert_Brenchley]

My maincrop garlic is dying back due to rust, I've never seen anything like it. The earlies had it badly but were OK, so I'm hoping this will be as well. I'll soon find out anyway. GCSE marking is coming to an end, and I'll soon be down there catching up!

[Lizzie]

My garlic was pretty ravaged, too. Most of the bulbs had split into cloves, but they then just stopped growing and so many of them are weeny. I've just dug them all up - clearly not going to grow any more - and minced the garlic to use. The onions were OK (next to the garlic) but the broad beans got rusty, too (on the other side of the lottie). Weird.

Lizzie

[Macca]

yep got hit pretty bad too, but harvested before it started rotting in the ground, must be a few weeks back now. yield wasn't too bad though. Broad beans got hit as well

ho hum

[Suzanne]

I have had garlic rust before and it has been relatively low impact - but as you say not this year. Cloves had formed but the whole bulbs about a third of the size of last year. Amazingly the elephant garlic and the leeks growing in the same bed were okay - so must be specific rust for garlic as I think elephant garlic is a sort of leek anyway?