Galloping clubroot

I took on my allotment in May,made a seedbed and sowed umpteen different brassica's. No one told me there was clubroot on the site, but in retrospect any very old allotments are bound to have it as it only takes one plant!

I cut the roots off and burn them but if it is in advanced stages you also need to take the surrounding soil as it will be full of spores! I compost the leaves as they shouldn't be affected. Some areas seem worse affected than other along with some plants. Kales are usually pretty good along with Spring cabbage. I tried the old idea of putting a piece of rhubarb leaf at the bottom of the planting hole and these plants aren't affected in fact they are thriving! I'll incude a photo, no clubroot on clubroot infested land!

Soil sterilants may be worth trying as well, if you use clubroot as a search word you should find some info on these on this site.

A photograph of the kale problem would maybe be beneficial in identification because it could be a number of things.

Clubroot resistant cabbages which were grown on an area by my neighbour which was rife with clubroot and would not grow brassica's at all and have thrived. I have included a picture below(they are the big round ones!):-

Unfortunately removing the soil around the plants is a fairly pointless exercise since even a speck of soil carried on your boots will contain thousands of club root organisms, so you will have been spreading it around your plot anyway.

Club root particularly thrives in acidic soil - do a soil test to check your pH, if its below 7 then you have acidic soil (soil tests are available from most garden centres for a couple of quid). Liming the soil to increase the pH can help supress the disease and liming is always a good idea when brassicas are grown. Interestingly commercial brassica growers on the South Downs (chalky hills) have very little problem with club root as opposed to Lincolnshire growers - probably due to the soil pH.

Soil sterilants are not available yet to the amateur market and any attempt to use them would be illegal, however mustard green manures have been shown to have a natural bio-fumigant effect due to isothiocyanate gas released during the chopping of the plant - see the green manure thread for more info. However, mustard is also likely to suffer from club root as it is a brassica too.

Its a difficult problem which even the commercial growers have not yet overcome - there's no chance for us GYO-ers!!

Liming would be your best bet i would say - you can sprinkle a bit around the base of the brassicas you have already planted, just be careful not to get any on the stem or leaves, lime the rest of the plot as you dig it over and leave it over winter.

I would agree with the soil testing but I think you would find that the amount of lime you would have to add to even change the Ph by a small amount would be appreciable! You have to remember we are going to grow other crops which may not be so appreciative of the high ph,tatties for instance.

I believe lime can lock up trace elements in the soil particularily Boron so you could finish up giving yourself more problems! I personally aim for a ph of 6.5 as a catch all for all plants. Slightly acidic I know, but it works for me!

Another way to help combat clubroot is sowing brassica's in pots in sterile compost, this way they get a chance to form a bit of a rootball before being subjected to it.

Living with clubroot is not so bad once you get used to it, and it certainly makes gardening interesting as I always seem to be experimenting and finding out what works for me!

Thanks for all the advice. I'll take a photo of the kale but am not terribly clever at transferring it to mail so it might not work.

I had limed the soil before planting kale and spring cabbages (the other brassicas, sprouts and brocolli were already in the ground) So far the spring cabbage plants look perky, if a bit holey. There are masses of tiny snails looking for food around there. Possibly the result of it all having been full of grass and other weeds?

Still, nil desperandum. I've been looking at the catalogues today and there are lovely pictures of calabrese, purple sprouting, cabbages etc..... Not a hole to be seen on those. Hope springs eternal - though I wouldn't give up my organic approach even to achieve those perfect looks. (My brassicas take some washing before cooking though. All that snail and caterpillar poo on them)

Heavy rain forecast for tomorrow so guess I shan't be up the lottie with the camera. It's addictive though isn't it? I can't wait to get up there working.