TURNIP BLIGHT.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 317, 21 June 1907, Page 3

TURNIP BLIGHT.

(to THE editor.) Sib,—There has been a good deal said and written respecting a blight which has caused a certain amount of loss in this district, and more particularly on one or two farms. On makinginquiry, I find that.in each case the disease started on land which was growing a second consecutive crop of turnips or swedes. A few years ago I tried growing turnips two years in succession on the same ground, and found the second crop would all rot off just before it was ready to slock. As this experience was repeated on more than one occasion, I have since that time carefully avoided that practice, the result this year being that my turnips—about one hundred acres—are sound and good. With a humid autumn like that we have just had, it is quite likely that a paddock uhder a first crop of turnips adjoining ond affected by disease as described would bo affected more nr less by the spread of the blight. One such instance I have witnessed lately, where the second crop in a accession was all rotten, while a part of the same paddock under a first crop was all sound with the exception of a few yards adjoining the diseased patch. Ihe conclusion 1 came to was that the rrmnaut of turnip left rotting in the ground from the first crop bred a microbe or some such enemy, which was ready to attack the crop following. On the same principle I find it better to avoid growing tnrnips immediately after a crop of rape. Hoping these few remark i may be of service to my fellow workers, and thanking you in anticipation, Mr Editor, for the space. —Yours, etc., FARMER.