Clubroot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Clubroot is a disease of cabbages, radishes, turnips, and other plants belonging to the family Cruciferae (mustard family). It is caused by Plasmodiophora brassicae, a slime mold which has as many as nine races. Gall formation takes place on latent roots and gives the shape of a club or spindle. In the cabbage such attacks on the roots cause undeveloped heads or a failure to head at all.

Historical reports of clubroot date back to the 13th century in Europe. In the late 19th century, a severe epidemic of clubroot destroyed large proportions of the cabbage crop in St. Petersburg. The Russian scientist Mikhail Woronin eventually identified the cause of clubroot as a "plasmodiophorous organism" in 1875, and gave it the name Plasmodiophora brassicae.

In 18th, 19th and early 20th century Britain clubroot was sometimes called finger and toe, fingers and toes, anbury, or ambury, these last two also meaning a soft tumor on a horse.

[edit] References

• Hybrid Vegetable Development, by P. K. Singh (Ed.), S. K. Dasgupta (Ed.), S. K. Tripathi (Ed.), Haworth Press. ISBN 1-56022-118-6
• NC State University Department of Plant Pathology [1] (accessed 27 October 2005)
• Oxford English Dictionary
• The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers (1921)