Root Fly

[Daveswife]

In an effort to avoid club root we buy resistant varieties, sow in plugs, pot on in small pots, grow them on in the greenhouse, then plant a good healthy plant in the soil having dug a big hole and filled with a mixture of our own and bought potting compost. The theory is that by the time the roots hit the garden soil and the possibility of club root the plant is good and strong.

Solve one problem and another crops up.

Setting Pak Choi plants last week - nice healthy plants well rooted in their pots, I noticed one looking a bit sick and found it had grubs around the stem - cabbage root fly. Then this afternoon in a different area of the garden some of the sprouting broccoli plants are looking rather poorly and they, too, have cabbage root fly grubs.

Is there anything we can do to save the remaining plants? Or is it too late?

And is it unusual to have cabbage root fly attack pots in a greenhouse?

[farmer jon]

with regard to clubroot, I have totally eradicated it over 4 years on all 3 of my allotments. I treated the affected soil with hydrated lime spread in a layer of at least an inch thick then rotovated in into the soil. this is done every spring about a month before planting brassicas. as long as manure is applied no later than the previous autumn then there is not a problem. the PH is fine as potatoes show no sign of scab when grown in the land afterwards. it has to be hydrated lime as this works instantly. the ground limestone requires the weather to break it down before it has any effect.

as for cabbage root fly , there is nothing available to the amateur market to kill it. thanks to the EEC it was withdrawn along with lots of useful chemicals. NOT because it was dangerous but because they requested pages & pages of paperwork to prove it was safe to use. this was not economically viable for a chemical sold on the amateur market. household bleach & toilet cleaners are no more dangerous but they don't ask for them to be banned. hats off to the manufacturers of armillatox who just changed the usage directive on the label & it survived the ban.

i have had problems with cell grown brassicas late in the season (june onwards ) getting cabbage root fly & in my own back garden away from my allotments where all my brassicas are grown.