CLUB ROOT IN TURNIPS

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 20 February 1932, Page 11

CLUB ROOT IN TURNIPS

EXPERIMENT BY LINCOLN COLLEGE.

There are large areas of turnips grown by farmers near the mountain on the higher lands in many cases they have been troubled of late years with club root. The following report of experiments with a. view to its eradication will he of interest: Club root or finger and toe is a most serious disease m all those parts of New Zealand which grow Yellow fleshed or Aberdeen turnips or swedes. It is less prevalent in Canterbury than ill Otago and Southland and most parts of the North Island, but even in the moister districts along the foothills.

The authorities at Lincoln College are therefore frequently asked how to combat the disease*, and in the past have been able to offer only the very old advice to lengthen the rotation and to manure with lime and basic slag instead of with super. Mr. J. G. Gibbs, of the Palmerston North Research Station. has done a large amount of valuable experimentation work in this respect. Rut soil treatments are always expensive, and the possibilities of disease resisting varieties has always been keenly watched. When, therefore, a report was received from Aberdeen in May of last year, about the Bruce, a variety of Aberdeen or Yellow fleshed turnip that was almost immune from club root, some seed was sent for at once, and was grown by a Canterbury farmer. The field chosen had in the preceding year borne a very badly affected crop, so that the soil was completely diseased. A small area of this was cultivated for turnips, and two lines of bought seed and The Bruce were sown in alternate rows. The photograph shows the results. These plants were pulled )by the farmer as typical of the varii oils rows, and were photographed at I The Press office. The bought seed will 1 clearly never mature roots —while The ' Bruce is perfectly healthy

Since this turnip seems so promising some particulars about it will be of interest. It is at least 100 years old and has been grown during that period in isolated valleys in the Highlands of Scotland, passing from farm to farm, but never getting put into the commercial world until in 1925 the county organiser for West Aberdeenshire recognised its possibilities. It is a Purple Top Yellow turnip, with a tendency to purple in the leaves. Neither the leaves nor the roots have any great regularity in shape or colour’ as is to be expected under the rough methods of selection so far practised. Most of the roots show a bright violet colour, and this was quite evident in the specimens photographed. The roots are said to “grow well into the soil” which would lie a disadvantage from a New Zealand point of view. They are excellent keepers, excelling almost all other yellow turnips in this respect. The dry matter of the Bruce was higher than that of any of the other varieties grown in the trial at Aberdeen. In a total yield per acre The Bruce was equal to the other yellow fleshed turnips grown when the trial was on non-infested soil, but when the soil was heavily infected it yielded 23 tens per acre, while the average of four other varieties was only three tons per acre.

It would seem then that this variety has a good prospect of success in districts where club root is serious.