Preventing Club Root

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22949, 29 January 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

Preventing Club Root

Club root is one of the most serious diseases of the cabbage family and takes a heavy toll of plants each year. The only permanent euro is by liming the ground heavily and avoiding susceptible crops for a time. Another method of control is available which will prevent the disease for one season but will not remove the infection from the soil. This is the treatment of the seedlings with corrosive sublimate (mercuric chloride) in solution. This material is poisonous, and should be used with due caution. A very weak solution (1 in 2000) is made by dissolving one ounce in 12.} gallons of water. The seed bed is watered, before sowing, at the rate of one pint to every five feet of drill. When the plants are two inches high water between the drills at the rate of one quart to every five feet. When the seedlings are transplanted half a pint of solution is poured in each hole. This method is also efficacious against th„■ cabbage root fly. Small growers may not requiro such a large quantity of solution. For dealing with just a few plants, dissolve four tablets of mercuric chloride in hot water, then add a gallon of cold water. Pour half a pint in each hole at planting, and repeat three weeks later.