Drought stress problem mistaken for tan spot

Broom’s Barn director Bill Clark believes while tan spot may have been present in some crops, most symptoms were the result of drought stress. Mr Clark says he contacted Fera last summer about tan spot-like symptoms that were appearing in crops.

“I had initially been fooled by the symptoms in the field - as had several European pathologists who visually identified the symptoms as tan spot - until we examined them in the laboratory,” he says. “We saw these symptoms in the drought experiments here at Broom’s Barn. There were big differences between varieties, but symptoms were only present in droughted, not irrigated plots. Not one leaf I examined with these symptoms had tan spot.”

Tan spot may well have been identified in the Crop Monitor survey, says Mr Clark. “But I did not confirm a single tan spot case last year. Every sample sent to me fitted the variety profile we saw in the experiment.

“The worst varieties were Hereward, Norman, Malacca, Longbow, Galahad and Roysac, followed closely by Mascot, Smuggler and Solstice. Interestingly the varieties least affected included Oakley, Brompton, Gladiator and Glasgow.”

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