How to Identify and Control 7 Garlic Diseases | Gardener's Path

27.08.2023 - 02:49 / gardenerspath.com / Kristine Lofgren

How to Identify and Control 7 Garlic Diseases

I love garlic! On toast, roasted and drizzled in olive oil, whole cloves on my pizza, diced pieces in my guacamole… It doesn’t matter how I use them, I love it all.

And I also love how garlic repels many of the pests that try to feed on my favorite veggies. What’s not to like?

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But at the same time, I hate garlic.

It seems like every year, something infects my plants. Sometimes it’s a touch of rust, and other years, it’s devastating rot.

I’ve gotten pretty good at preventing most diseases, so I rarely lose a bulb anymore. But it requires constant vigilance.

Whether this is your first year experiencing problems or you’ve been struggling with something every year, we’ll help you through it.

Here are the diseases we’re going to cover:

I don’t mean to make it sound like you will always face disease issues.

Once you know what conditions they thrive in and the tricks for avoiding them, garlic disease could mostly be a thing of the past in your garden.

Let’s get one of the worst issues out of the way first…

Basal rot is nasty business. It’s the most serious threat to commercial garlic production in the world.

This is a disease caused by a fungus called Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cepae. If it infects your garlic plants, it can cause yellowing foliage and dying leaves as well as rot below ground.

The tips of the leaves will turn yellow first, and then the disease will work its way down the rest of the leaf to the base.

That’s because the rot prevents water from moving from the roots to the foliage, so the parts that are furthest away die off first.

You know