Cauliflower Mosaic

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Cauliflower mosaic is quite common and widespread almost everywhere - it is quite possible to encounter it even in Europe or the USA, in temperate zones. If this disease attacks young plants, then often the heads of cauliflower do not form at all. The first symptoms of the mosaic can be detected approximately four to five weeks after the seedlings are planted in their permanent place. The harmfulness of this disease is very high, so it is extremely important to identify it in a timely manner

A few words about the disease

The main symptom of such an unpleasant ailment is the dark green edging and lightening of the veins of young leaves. Also on the leaf blades, necrotic spotting can be observed. In addition to the lightening of the veins, a pronounced mosaicity is sometimes manifested - alternating dark green and light green areas are formed on the weakened leaves. The main veins of the leaves are subsequently deformed, and the leaves themselves wrinkle or take the shape of boats. This is due to the fact that the growth of the veins stops. Peduncles with especially severe forms of mosaic usually do not form, and cultures attacked by mosaics can easily wither away.

It is noteworthy that if the thermometer rises to twenty-two degrees or more, the signs of the disease may not be noticeable. And cool weather (ranging from sixteen to twenty degrees), on the contrary, contributes to the manifestation of symptoms of a harmful disease on growing crops.

Cauliflower mosaics are caused by a virus called Cauliflower mosaic caulivirus. The main sources of infection are cultivated and weed plants that represent the Cabbage family. Sometimes the pathogen can be transmitted by juice inoculation. And with seeds, transmission of the virus, as a rule, does not occur.

The carriers of the harmful virus are a huge number of aphids - most often the mosaic is carried by peach aphids, pseudo-cabbage aphids and cabbage aphids. To become infected with the virus, a one-minute feeding of these sucking parasites on infected crops is quite enough - even in the case of such a short-term feeding, the aphid quickly turns into a carrier of infection. At present, it has been possible to establish that the white turnip can also be a carrier of the ill-fated disease. And the reserves of a dangerous ailment are mainly yellowfiol and levkoy, although in fact the pathogen is able to persist in other plants as well.

Often, the cauliflower mosaic virus infects vegetation simultaneously with the turnip mosaic virus - such a tandem leads to much more serious consequences than infection with these viruses of crops one by one.

Cauliflower mosaic virus infects not only cauliflower, but also a number of other cruciferous crops. And this name of the misfortune is due to the fact that for the first time this malicious virus was able to be removed precisely on cauliflower, and only then it was possible to identify it among its other varieties.

How to fight

When combating cauliflower mosaic, special attention should be paid to combating aphids and numerous cruciferous weeds, since they are the main carriers of the pathogen. Also, when planting cabbage crops, it is necessary to observe spatial isolation. It is highly undesirable to equip cabbage beds in the vicinity of fields where all kinds of cruciferous crops are grown.

In order to combat weeds, after the emergence of seedlings of cultivated crops, the plots are sprayed with the preparation "Fusilad Forte".

Infected crops showing symptoms of the ill-fated cauliflower mosaic should be promptly removed and destroyed. And the remains of cabbage plants must be plowed deep into the soil (to a depth of about half a meter), and this must be done as quickly as possible.