How to prevent and control garlic viral disease? These methods you must master

Mr. Sun of Xingyang City, Mr. Song of Sheqi County, Mr. Zhao of Biyang County and other readers called the newspaper's science and technology 110 hotline to ask how to prevent and control garlic viral disease. A reporter of this newspaper interviewed relevant experts from the newspaper's expert advisory group on this issue. Experts pointed out that the viral sources of garlic viral disease are mainly garlic mosaic virus and garlic latent virus. The virus mainly attaches to the bulbs to overwinter and becomes the primary infection source. When virus-carrying bulbs are sown, the seedlings can be infected after emergence, and through aphids, sap contact or farm operations in field management to healthy host plants, the pathogen generally invades from host wounds.

Damage symptoms

Garlic viral disease appears on the leaves as yellow-green alternating stripes; the aboveground leaves of diseased plants become smaller, the plants appear stunted, the new leaves are relatively small and cannot fully unfold, causing the new leaves to be distorted and deformed.

The bulb ball of the diseased plant is slightly smaller, and the fibrous roots are significantly fewer than those of healthy plants. The number of garlic cloves decreases, and in severe cases, the garlic cloves become hard.

The disease can still continue during storage, manifesting as hard garlic cloves, and the degree of damage is more obvious than in the field.

Control measures

1. Seed selection. Establish a foundation seed base and a production seed breeding base to ensure the quality of production seed.

2. Promote the application of tissue-culture virus-free seedlings. Use in vitro culture of vegetative shoot tips and reproductive shoot tip meristems to reduce the virus-carrying rate of bulbs.

3. Crop rotation. Advocate rotation every other year with non-bunching onion and chive and other allium vegetables to reduce natural transmission in the field.

4. Strengthen field cultivation management. Sow at the proper time, maintain rational close planting, strengthen fertilizer and water management, promote robust plants, and improve disease resistance. During farm operations, hands and farm tools that have come into contact with diseased plants should be washed with soapy water to prevent contact transmission.

5. Control aphids to prevent disease. In the early stage of aphid occurrence, apply pesticides promptly to prevent aphids from transmitting the virus.

6. Apply antiviral adjuvants. When a small number of diseased plants are found in the field, immediately spray Jundushaxing (high concentration) 3000 times solution (10-20 grams per mu), 20% Virus A wettable powder 700-1000 times solution (100-140 grams per mu), once every 7-10 days, spraying continuously 2-3 times, which can reduce viral infection, significantly enhance plant resistance, and play a preventive role.