VG07070 White Blister – Chinese Cabbage

White blister is a major disease of Chinese cabbage which appears on the undersurface of leaves, necessitating their removal from heads at harvest, consequently increasing production costs.

An alternative method to control this disease is timing spray applications based on predictions of a disease predictive model, such as Brassicaspot™. This model was developed in the UK.

The model uses microclimate data collected by a weather station located in a crop to predict when conditions are conducive for disease and, consequently, when to spray the crop with fungicides.

If conditions are not conducive for disease, spraying will not be necessary. In this way the disease can be managed with fewer fungicide sprays.


Authors

Liz Minchinton


Joanna Petkowski

VG07070 - Benchmarking predictive models, new option to control white blister in Chinese Cabbage - 2009
Download 22kb

Trial results:

  • White blister first appeared in the crop four weeks after sowing in all treatments, which was about half way through the crop’s life.

  • At harvest, leaves appeared to be infected with white blister from oldest to youngest, suggesting conditions were favourable for white blister consistently throughout the trial, which was confirmed by both models.

  • The new model cut 4 weekly sprays from normal practice and significantly reduce disease incidence and severity of white blister on Chinese cabbage by up to 50%.

  • The new model recommended a single spray 14 days before harvest, based on disease progression data from the crop inspections and environmental data, but spraying 14 days prior to harvest may co-incidentally be the best time to protect the 4 unfolding wrap leaves.

VG07070 White Blister development on Chinese Cabbage

Further work is suggested to compare spraying according to new Brassicaspot™ model against a single spray of fungicide 14 days before harvest.

Acknowledgments :

This project was formed by Government agencies, private industry, universities and international researchers, to benchmark disease predictive models for major vegetable crops.

Funding was provided by Australian vegetable growers (through the R & D levy) and the Department of Primary Industries, Victoria. The Australian Government provides matched funding for all HAL’s R&D activities.


^ Back to top