Topic: Garlic Rust

[BockingBill]

Growing a row of different types of garlic up at the lottie and we appear to have been hit by rust on all types. Is there any course of action that I should be taking to remove/control the problem?

[goodlife]

Hi there...a bit of rust is no problem...just make sure that after harvest you let your garlic to dry out properly and then remove all stalkes and old leaves and burn them. Rust doesn't effect the bulb itself but to use your own cloves for next crop you have to "clean" your bulbs well from old growth before storing so you have less chance to repeat it next year.
I find that I(my garlic) get rust if I have been a bit too liberal with fertilizer and there is a lot of damp weather around..
No worries...it is quite common...

[artichoke]

I don't quite agree. Last year rust hit my garlic badly about now and got worse and worse, so I harvested it early just to get something. The firm ones were small but tasty and lasted, but a lot more were going rotten and had to be thrown away. I am not an expert, and maybe they had more than one disease, but all the leaves became spotted and yellow and none of them recovered while I waited.

Sorry.

At the moment, a big patch of them is looking good, touch wood.

[BAK]

I would tend to agree more with goodlife.

Last year our autumn-planted garlic  spent most of its time with "wet feet" ... very wet conditions. The leaves were almost pure orange with rust - I am probably exaggerating but not by much.

We harvested them in July; the bulbs were small but kept ok through the winter.

I agree with burning the stalks and old leaves. I would not use any of the bulbs for planting next season.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I had the same experience; I wish I had a pic, as the leaves were solid orange, and eventually died back. The bulbs were small but OK. I did plant them, and have had no problems so far this year. A little does no harm at all, and is quite normal, though I haven't seen it yet this year.

[antipodes]

great.. I went down last night and have spotted rust on the garlic  >:(
I hope I still get a crop, it has been overwintered

[Robert_Brenchley]

You will. If you've only just spotted it, it's probably minimal.

[Tee Gee]

What is the area around the growing area like?

Rust is a 'spore' driven problem/disease and therefor the spores must have overwintered on some host plant/s nearby then when conditions were right moved on, in this case on to your garlic.

Can't offer any more advice than has already been given.

[antipodes]

I don't know if this is significant but I have broad beans near and they too have been affected by something similar - the last pods have been discoloured with reddish brown spots.
Does this seem to be related??

[BockingBill]

The garlic was planted in Autumn in a fair amount of muck next to onions. Below was empty over winter and has just been planted up with sweetcorn and runners. It did get very wet a few weeks ago and also over the last week. It sounds that I might have might have been too liberal with the muck and this has meant the ground being too sodden.

Think that I will take the chance and leave until July to harvest. Oh for hindsight.

[Deb P]

I don't know if this is significant but I have broad beans near and they too have been affected by something similar - the last pods have been discoloured with reddish brown spots.
Does this seem to be related??

? Chocolate spot? Broad beans are very prone to that, it wiped out my few scarlet flowering BB's last year... :'(

I had very bad rust on my garlic last year, but still got a decent crop after harvesting in late June. This years crop also has an attack, but not quite so bad. However, I'm still plannng to harvest in a few weeks as I have so much stuff waiting to go in its place! I do wonder if I have planted a bit too close together and that has affected its spread, I've only fed once with pelleted chicken manure in late March, so don't think that has contributed to the problem. I tried spraying with liquid seaweed when I first noticed the rust, but it doesn't seem to have had any effect either. :-\

[Robert_Brenchley]

I always get chocolate spot on my BB's, but it never sems to have much effect. The crimson flowered only produced 30 beans between them last year, but they were planted late, deliberately so as to get pure seed off them, and flowered prolifically all through the downpours. They just never got pollinated.

[redimp]

I have bad rust on my garlic this year.  I am hoping that the plant is producing enough green to photosynthesise whilst it bulbs up.  I too think I have been overgenerous with the chicken manure and the ash.

BTW, my BBs got rust last year in the very damp conditions.  But I did think that rust was host specific so that it was a different one on my BBs to the rust on my garlic.

[Robert_Brenchley]

If you can see green on that garlic it's not as bad as my Solent Wight was last year! I still got a crop, even though the bulbs were a bit small.

[Kea]

I had quite bad rust last year but it didn't seem to affect the bulbs much and didn't affect the storage as i still have some and they're still firm and healthy. Yesterday we had an allotment association meeting and my neighbour  mentioned digging up her garlic because it had rust so I checked mine and found i had rust as well. I don't adding fertiliser causes it because I forgot to give them chicken pellets as i had intended and still have rust....I think warmth and high humidity encourages rust (I remember someone in my department at Uni did a Phd on rust infection of wheat and I believe those two factors were involved) and we've had plenty of humidity and warmth.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Warmth and humidity will encourage any fungus.

[Kea]

Precisely e.g. Athletes foot!

[Deb P]

Noticed that the bases of my Marco garlic that is quite rusty looked a good size, so decided to dig a few up and see what they were like.......suprise! Really good sized bulbs, very strong smelling! So  I've lifted half of the crop, my plan is to leave the other half in and see how they go, if the rust gets worse and they suffer, or if the rust will stay the same with greater air circulation around the remaining plants. Interestingly, the other two varieites I'm growing, Germidor and Christo are much smaller, and not as rusty...... ???