CARROT FLY

[Brenjon]

Hi Marken
Thanks for that reply. Your answer says it all. Am I right in thinking that you do not need to offer any protection to carrot resistant seed
Regards Brenjon

[Marken]

Brenjon, I grow the variety "Flyaway" There is also a variety called "Resistafly". Great names eh? Very imaginative but they do say it all.
I grow them without any protection and have done for years. I have a dim memory that one year there were a few carrots with minor damage but I think I may have accidently mixed seed. Last year I also planted ordinary carrot seed and they were the ones that were decimated, resistant seed were perfect.
They are more expensive to buy and you dont get a lot of seed but I think they are worth it.
Mark

[Shallot Man]

On www.gardenaction.co.uk in the carrot section is a letter from a Mary on how she thinks she has cracked the carrot fly problem [being a computer moron I do not know how to forward this letter to the forum] basically she plants alternate rows of carrot and onion sets. Hopefully this is enough information for our more computer literate members to find same letter.If not I will have to do it the hard way.

[Westi]

Hi

I always plant my spring onions in rows alongside
my carrots and it works pretty well for the first
part of the season but they eventualy find them
later on. I also throw down my chive flowers and
any other bits of aliums I discard.
My last sowings go under environmesh but I think
it is outside the carrot fly time but wire worms have
a nibble.
Speaking of carrots though they are quite slow going
this year - any one else found that?

Westi

[Marken]

Hi Westi!
You say your carrots are slow this year - well mine were slow to germinate, but they have grown nicely since then. I've not pulled any yet, but the shoulders are about an inch wide so they should be ready.

[Clive.]

Speaking of carrots though they are quite slow going
this year - any one else found that?

Westi

Yes, "my" Carrots at work seem painfully slow.....although it seems that the next big house up the road have got loads and have gifted a bunch of assorted colours to our boss
They have much lighter soil than ours..
Can't win them all...last year really good Carrots but downy mildewed Onions...this year good over wintered Onions....and the tallest Broad Beans ever ..and the fattest Strawberry fed Squirrels ever.

At home here, again on some lighter land, the Carrots are moving along quite well..

Clive.

[Cider Boys]

Brenjon and Shallot Man raise some interesting observations regarding the carrot root fly and commercial carrots. I confess to being totally out of touch with modern methods of commercially grown carrots but traditionally carrots would be grown in a field that had not previously grown carrots or had carrots grown anywhere for miles. The following year the carrot grower would rent land probably 10 miles from where he grew them last. There is little you can do to prevent carrot fly if you garden in an allotment where carrots are regularly grown or near ground where there is cow parsley and hemlock growing. The fly is attracted by the scent of the foliage and growing onions or the like between the rows hopes to act as a scent blocking mechanism. In the good old days creosote mixed with tar and soaked on hessian ribbons or string could be supported between the rows.

I hope to sow some carrot seed soon, an early carrot such as early nante, in the hope that it will miss most of the dreaded carrot fly.

If anyone knows of a commercial spray, please let me know since I’m not against using the odd spray for a worthwhile purpose. I think the only way is to sow the seed thinly and cover with fleece and be careful when thinning.

Barney

[Shallot Man]

Cider Boys. I am willing to try the creosote ribbons, don't know if I can get the tar though.

[The Mouse]

Hi Clive

Fat strawberry-fed squirrels - they sound delicious!
I might ask my local butcher if he can get me some!

[Cider Boys]

Try the following link for some more information.

http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/cultivation2.html

Barney

[Shallot Man]

Cider Boys. Very interesting web site. Answered all my questions.

[Elaine]

We have problems with the dreaded fly too but not too badly. The carrots we grow in buckets are never affected, though sometimes they get greenflies! At least they don't ruin the carrot and are easily dealt with! Our carrots in the buckets are usually romping away and other years, by now, we have pulled some decent sized ones. This year, they seem a bit slow for some reason. Cheers.

[glallotments]

In an earlier copy of this mag it said investigation determined that for onions to prove affective you would have to grow one row of carrots to five on alliums and also it was only effective whilst the onion leaves were growing.

[Tony Hague]

One of the recurring observations from a google of "carrot root fly control" is a preference for exposed, windy sites. So your average field in Lincolnshire is probably a much better site than a sheltered garden or even allotment to start with.

Brenjon, I fear Brussels may be to blame for us not having the spray that farmers use against carrot fly. As members of the public we are deemed not to be trustworthy to be let loose with these chemicals. Farmers on the other hand will have read all the instructions and will be wearing full body suit protective outfit thingies.

I think the commercial controls are seed dressings and a pyrethroid spray, or garlic sprays for organics. Personally, I think it is quite right to exercise extreme caution when making agrochemicals available to the general public. A farmer will not only have the label recommendation for dilution of the product, but will have a sprayer which hopefully applies something like the correct dosage per unit area. The gardener has no similar means of measuring or controlling the dose. Many an amateur gardener will carefully dilute the spray as per instructions, then spray until it runs off - which is a massive overapplication. Moreover he'll be waving his sprayer about at arm's length - rather than sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of his tractor cab, well away from the spray.

[Shallot Man]

Looks like the only alternative, is to buy a tractor for the plot.