Hi

[Jen-mar]

We have just taken over an allotment. One half of it has been under plastic for a while so it was very easy to dig over, the other half has been neglected for a while so we have it to clear  ::)

We have been told there is a plot about 7feet by 10feet that has white rot on it, is there anything we can do with this piece?

We were told to keep off this area as we could spread the white rot to the rest of our plot. How true is this?

We thought about chucking a load of flower seeds onto it and leaving it alone. At least it will look better than the black plastic covering it has at the moment :)

Thanks in advance.

Looking forward to our first crops ;D


Mark

[Jen-mar]

[Jesse]

Hi Mark, welcome to A4A. Sorry, don't know anything about white rot so can't help you out there. Just wanted to say welcome, I'm sure there will be someone along who knows the answer.  Good luck with your allotment.  :)

[ina]

Hi. I have white rot on the lottie and since last year don't grow onions anymore, I still grow leeks and they are not much affected by it. It seems almost impossible to isolate one area of your lottie so I wouldn't worry about it too much, just don't plant onions in that part.

[eileen]

Hi Mark,

I don't have an allotment but I just wanted to pop in and say

to one of the best forums on the net.

Looking forward to hearing all about your lottie.  :D

[Moggle]

Welcome Mark  :)

[Jen-mar]

Thanks for the welcome and advice


Mark

[sandersj89]

We have just taken over an allotment.

We were told to keep off this area as we could spread the white rot to the rest of our plot. How true is this?

We thought about chucking a load of flower seeds onto it and leaving it alone. At least it will look better than the black plastic covering it has at the moment :)


Mark

Welcome Mark and congrats on your new plot.

White rot is a real pain. If you do a search here you will see it is dicussed a fair bit. Emma-Jane and Tim are the two worst effected recently I think.

Basically white rot will effect any from the onion family, so that will include leeks and garlic for instance. The longer the plant is in the ground the worse it can be effected. So autumn sown onion sets or garlic can be very badly effected.

Therefore the easy answer is not to grow any oinon related crops on the patch. But it is not that simple I am afraid.

It is very very easy to spread white rot across the plot. The disease is fungal and can persist for up to 15 years in the soil even if no onions have been grown in that time. Every time you walk on the infected patch or use any tools on the ground there you run the risk of spreading it to un-infected land. Ideally you should wash and sterilize boots and tools before working on clean land. Even then you may not be 100% safe.

I would be tempted to grow some onions away from the infected patch as a test this year, not too many. Cover the infected patch and leave so you are not running the risk of spreading the infection.  If your onions succumb then take onions out of your rotation or stick to leeks over winter.

The only problem though is how do you know where the infection starts and finishes.....

This FAQ is pretty good:

http://www.hdra.org.uk/factsheets/dc16.htm

There has been some talk about contol methods but there are no chemicals allowed fo home growers that I know off. There is also some research about spreading onion skins over the ground to fool the fungus to be active at the wrong time of year and it then slowly dies out over a number of years.

This link gives more information:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/science/Link/Publications/Publicity/HortLINK/220.pdf

Hope that has not put you off, white rot is a pain but not the end of the world. Plenty of other crops for you.

Jerry
(No white rot on my plot but Club Root instead!)

[Mrs Ava]

 :'(  Yup, agree with everything Jerry and the others say, including welcome!  Problem with white rot is, it travels from plot to plot on your shoes, tools, and of course, animals!  I have it, in fact, the whole site has it, but most of us try to grow onions.  Like Ina, everyone on our site does okay with leeks, and I do okay with overwintering hardy onions and spring onions are okay as they are in the ground for a short time.  I lost all of my shallots last year, and altho 90% of my garlic was okay-ish, I had to pull it early as soon as I saw signs of the rot so the cloves, altho plentiful, were small.  All that said, once again I am growing onions, garlics and shallots, altho had a couple of leeks recently and they are already showing signs of white rot!  Unbelievable!

Don't let it put you off though, especially if you are not that keen on onions!  Still loads and loads and loads you can grow, and it is only a small family really, if you have club root, as Jerry and some others, (including me  >:() have, then there are heaps of veggies that are going to struggle.

[frannie]

hi mark! welcome from me too. this is a fab site - i've found everyone's really friendly and helpful.  (you're all pretty good at all the clever computer stuff as well with all your lovely pix and stuff - i feel quite inadequate!)  hope i havent got white rot! how do you know? 
going on this site's a bit like reading a medical dictionary and finding you have all the diseases - i must have that munchausen thing!

[Jen-mar]

Thanks for the welcome.

We were told about the white rot by the warden on our site.

We now have a few lettuces growing on the windowsill ready for planting out once it warms up

Can't wait till the better weather gets here and we can make a propper start  :D


Mark

[tim]

Frannie  -  not ALL of us are wizards - it took me 2 years to even see a glimmer!! = Tim