Help....clubroot advice please!

[cockadoodledoo]

Hi......ive been happily starting off cabbages, sprouts, purple sp' broccoli and turnips in my greenhouse at home only to be told that our allotments have this disease that causes clubroot :(  Has anyone else got the problem on their site that could please give me advice on the best way to treat the ground before planting?  Neighbours have said to water some chemical into the ground first but werent sure what and on googling it it says that this doesnt really deter the problem.   ???.........has anyone any other tips??

[cockadoodledoo]

[Robert_Brenchley]

Never had it, but I believe lime discourages it somewhat, and I've been told that if you get plants well established in pots that helps. POD are advertising a rather expensive clubroot-resistant cauliflower which might be worth a try if the worst comes to the worst.

[sawfish]

Its not good, it seems that once you've got it you've got it. Copious amounts of lime will help over a long time.

I did however see something on TV where a guy had clubroot. He got by it by:

i) digging a bucket sized hole
ii) filling it with his own bog standard compost
iii) planting his cabbage in the middle of his compost so it wasn't touching the earth

He had great success with perfect cabbages, so if you've got a load of cheap compost lying about....

Its only brassicas that are affected so dont worry too much just grow lots of other stuff, but remember swedes are brassicas too.

[djbrenton]

The chemical you're referring to is probably Armillatox, unfortunately you need a litre for each 5sq mt of bed so it's not exactly a cheap option. You will need to be very careful about walking from other peoples plots onto your own and also from one bed to another as club root can be in one bed but not others so you don't want to transfer it around.

[valmarg]

Clubroot is endemic in peat, so start seeds off in a soil based compost.

valmarg

[Vortex]

We have clubroot on my father-in-laws plot. I start my seeds off in trays, then prick out into 2" pots, and then repot into 6" pots when large enough. I add lime to the compost at both stages.
The mixture used when planting in the ground, adapted from the blind guy from the Birmingham allotments feature on GW is
to 1 3 gallon bucket of compost add
1 double hand full lime
1 double hand full fish/blood/bone
1 double handful crushed egg shells
Dig hole large enough to accommodate root ball from 6" pot. Add I double handful mix to hole, insert brassica, add double handful around brassica. Firm and water.
Brassicas like a soil Ph of 6.5-7.5. The lime and crushed eggshells raise the ph and help combat the slimemould thought to induce clubroot.
Doseing with Armatillox also works but you do need a 1:100 dilution and you need to leave 3 weeks between treating and planting. Armatillox is also supposed to work against whiterot in alliums - I shall find out this year.

[weedgrower]

i dig my hole with a trowel, put a handfull of lime and a 2 inch piece of rhubarb in the hole and plant, certainly lessens the clubroot

[tonybloke]

the clubroot  can easily be transported from one site to another. fixed paths help to stop the spread, as you shouldn't walk on the beds. also tool hygiene and infected root burning help(compost the rest of plant).Keep accurate records of which parts of your plot are infected. Good Luck! ;)

[cockadoodledoo]

Thanks for all the advice ;)....and thanks for the 'recipe' vortex, ive copied it into my allotment diary.....They are doing well in pots at the mo so i'll keep them going and pot them on again yet as you say.....may put a few on the edge or corner of each bed as an experiment to see if any areas of the plot are unaffected  ???.........time will tell I suppose :-\

[RobinOfTheHood]

I asked the same question a while ago, you can find it here:


http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,37707.0.html