Topic: Worst year for pests and disease ever ?

[vegmandan]

Personally this year I have had more pests and diseases than ever.

Powdery Mildew
Downy Mildew
Halo Blight
Potato Blight
Botrytis
Rust
Onion Shanking
Thrips (polytunnel infestation)
Spider Mite ( " " )
Whitefly (" " )
Carrot Fly.

So I was wondering,has this year been worse for you regarding pests and diseases, the same, or better.

[Sparkly]

We have had rust on our garlic, although the crop was still okay. We had carrot fly and potato blight, black fly on the broad beans (no rust this time).

[Tee Gee]

I don't want to speak too soon currently it is fewer....... shhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

[manicscousers]

slugs and snails !!!!!

[richardh5678]

So far, I've had much less of a problem this year.  Even the cabbage whites have only appeared in significant quantities in the last two weeks.  Lets hope it stays like this  :)

[hopalong]

I have only got 18 months of allotment gardening to go on (although more than 40 years of gardening prior to that). It's certainly been worse than last year in some respects - i.e. chocolate spot on broad beans; rust on garlic, leeks and pears; also blackening of pear leaves and very bad aphid attack on gages; plus slugs. But it's been better in other respects - i.e. we have been spared blight on tomatoes - murder last year - and potatoes, and the ladybirds and lacewings seem to have taken care of the blackfly. On balance I'd say it's slightly worse overall.

[kitty]

touchwood,its just been slugs and snails....o,and a bit of pigeon damage too.
kitty
xx

[plot88(Cardiff)]

I have had more diseases, but fewer pests.

No Wire worm, but that's down to the ground having been cleared from grass two years ago, so they are probably all gone.

Virtually no blackfly or aphids despite the best efforts of the ant population.

very few slugs and snails, but it seems the snails are drawn to my comfrey tea bin, where they drown.
(Always fishing snail shells out of the neck of my watering can)

Although, an unidentified nibbly thing has been making doyleys out of my Chinese cabbages.

several very cheeky rabbits, but they only seem interested in my chickpeas, which I am only growing for fun anyway. Can you believe that they haven't touched my lettuces.

The pigeons have left my plot alone for the second year running.

I have no carrots or parsnips  :'(. Not one!. Neighbours report unusually bad attacks of carrot root fly.

(As a happy aside, I have counted five different species of bees, in good numbers. looks like my borage and comfrey are doing their job)

on the disease front, it's been a white knuckle ride this year with the alliums.

Garlic rust
White rot in Garlic and all onions and shallots (Not as bad as Tim though, only lost about 7%)
Botrytis in onions (Shallots hardly touched by it)

Chocolate spot on broad beans, but a mild case. Got to eat them all ;D

isolated and rare report of clubroot from one gardner. None on mine thankfully.

Caulis seem to be developing raised blisters on the leaves, with white powdery spores on the underside, but i haven't found out what this is yet.

Given the weather forecast for Cardiff, I dare not mention that bad thing that can happen to potatoes and tomatoes that laid waste to our site last year. So far so good.

Looking on the bright side though, everything else is romping away, and it looks like a bumper pumpkin year.

All the best,

plot88

[KathrynH]

Last year was much wetter and that ruined a lot of things as well as bringing out armies of slugs and snails, some of them the size of a small mammal! At least they are down to more manageable proportions this year.

[vegmandan]

Seems to me like anyone down south has done OK.

Up here I've had about 4 days of sunshine and 30 days of rain and cold weather in the last 6 weeks.

Hence all my mould/mildew problems and all the thrips and mites seem to have taken refuge in my polytunnel.

It's felt like Autumn all bl##dy Summer so far up here and nothing looks like improving looking at the forecast.. :'( :'( :'( :'(

[star]

The only thing to succumb to pest is my only courgette plant.........darn slug chewed through the stem. But not before I got a whole 4 courgettes off it ::) (the slug has now met its doom >:()

[Suzanne]

I have seen a few pests about but have managed to sort them before they became a problem.

So far
Slugs - prevented using nemaslug
cabbage whitefly - a few consecutive days squishing
cabbage white butterflies - eggs (squishing again)
asparagus beetle - (more squishing)

and that's it - about the same as usual.

[caroline7758]

I've had sciarid flies and mosaic virus for the first time, but seem to have had less greenfly.h

[Robert_Brenchley]

About normal. I've had no rust on the garlic, but the blackfly have been murderous.