Pacific Pests, Pathogens and Weeds - Online edition

Pacific Pests, Pathogens & Weeds

Cabbage club root (283)


Click/tap on images to enlarge
Summary

  • Worldwide distribution. In tropics, sub-tropics and temperate countries. On Chinese cabbage, cabbage and broccoli.  An important disease.
  • Single celled animal, not a fungus or a bacterium.
  • Spores in soil swim to roots, infect, galls form (club root symptom). Root damage causes leaves to wilt. Thick-walled spores form that last >10 years.
  • Spreads in soil water, soil on machinery, shoes, trade in plants.
  • Cultural control: certified plants; nursery hygiene: clean trays, pasteurise soil or soilless mixes; drainage; apply lime (worse in acid soils); weed; remove soil from shoes, machinery; collect and burn debris; 3-year (or more) crop rotation; resistant varieties.
  • Chemical control: none recommended.

Common Name

Club root

Scientific Name

Plasmodiophora brassicae. It is not a fungus; it is in a separate kingdom called Protista, and is in a group known as rhizaria. There are many club root strains.


AUTHOR Grahame Jackson 
Information from Diseases of vegetable crops in Australia (2010). Editors, Denis Persley, et al. CSIRO Publishing; and CABI (2019) Plasmodiophora brassicae (club root). Crop Protection Compendium. (https://www.cabi.org/cpc/datasheet/41865); and Lancaster R (2018) Managing clubroot in vegetable brassica crops. Agriculture and Food. Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development. (https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/broccoli/managing-clubroot-vegetable-brassica-crops). and from Grabowski MA (undated) Department of Plant Pathology. NC State University. (https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/course/pp728/Plasmodiophora/Plasmodiophora.html). Photos 1&3 Gerald Holmes, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, Bugwood.org.

Produced with support from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research under project PC/2010/090: Strengthening integrated crop management research in the Pacific Islands in support of sustainable intensification of high-value crop production, implemented by the University of Queensland and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Copyright © 2021. All rights reserved.