STRAWBERRY CROPS AFFECTED.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20730, 15 December 1932, Page 4

STRAWBERRY CROPS AFFECTED.

A STKANGE ROOT DISEASE. A str.inf-ft root disease has ravaged strawberry crops in Canterbury so extensively that growers doubt if the season tor local berries will go beyond Christmas. The disease has attacked the plant roots, after transplanting, and haH completely stopped rootgrowth, with the result that thousands of the young plants have wilted find died before (lowering. In many cases even the strawberries which have survived the- attack lmvo been affected, the fruit being poor in quality, and small. A Bowenvale grower told ,-i representative of The Press last evening that practically all the growers in Christchurch had experienced the same tiouble with their plants. His plantation had not been affected, since ho started growing five years ago, bo said, but ha understood that the disease had been established in St. Mari'«.? for some years. llis opinion of she cause of the trouble was that constant cropping on the same areas, even with proper spells, removed some quality from the soil, the absence of which I«1 to tho cessation of growth in the roots. The only remedy for tlii.i. I-.e thought, would be the use of new land for each crop, but, on restricted holdiivs, this Mould be impossible. Tn the meantime, the Cawthron Institute in Nelson and Massev Agricultural College in tho North Island, have the disease under microscopic observation. Prices Lew. In .-pitt> uf the shortage of supplies, however, growers are stated to be receiving unusualh- low prices for their berries in the City, the. price having dropped to 7d a punnet in some instances. One prominent grower considers that this shrinkage in prices is duo to a falling off in demand, consequent nn the depressed economic conditions. Formerly, lie said, young people ill Christ-church considered strawberries almost as indispensable a refreshment ns ic-o-eream; now the fruit had heroine a luxury, which very ceidd afford.