UK: Beating strawberry mildew with garlic

Fiveways Fruit Farm near Colchester run by Julian Mead has an established reputation supplying farmers markets, East of England Co-op, London Markets and locals with asparagus, soft and top fruits.

One of the main crops is tabletop production of strawberries in polytunnels. Picking starts in May with Flair followed by Centenary and then the everbearing varieties, Arabella and Pride, with the last picking at the end of September. In previous years the crop has been affected by powdery mildew with the additional problem that when an inorganic fungicide has been sprayed picking has had to be suspended usually for several days due to harvest interval requirements.

After reading an EMR trial report on controlling mildew in strawberry plants using Garshield and then discussing with Hutchinson’s horticultural specialist John Chapman, Julian decided to try Garshield as no harvest interval is required between spraying and picking. Garshield is a garlic-based product manufactured by Solufeed and supplied by Hutchinsons. Julian has used Garshield as a foliar spray on a weekly basis starting in May and throughout the season and has been very impressed with the mildew control on all varieties.

Garshield is made with a concentrated extract of garlic, supplemented with natural plant products. It stimulates the plants natural processes that encourage resistance to fungal diseases such as powdery mildew and botrytis. It is approved for organic production by the Soil Association, is odourless soon after application, leaves no taint or flavour on the fruit and is harmless to bees.

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