Bacterial Soft Rot
Risk near you, next 48h
See whether your local forecast favours this disease right now.
When it strikes
Treat, then re-check in 5–7 days
Pick off the worst material, apply the organic option below, and look again after five to seven days. If the spread continued, escalate rather than repeating the same treatment.
Rain and irrigation splash
Water splashing off soil and infected leaves carries it upward and along the row. Watering at the base and mulching the soil surface break the route.
It carries over to next season in soil, debris or seed — which is why rotation matters here, not just treatment.
Keep out of the compost
This survives a garden heap. Bag it for municipal green waste, which is composted industrially at temperatures a garden heap cannot reach, or burn it where that is permitted.
When and where to look
Scout the planting while temperatures hold between 20°C and 32°C, with humidity above 90%, after rain or heavy dew, while the leaves are still wet. Risk builds after roughly 12 unbroken hours of those conditions, so the morning after such a night is the moment to look.
The signs that lead here
Full problem lists for these crops
About
Soft rot (Pectobacterium and Dickeya species) dissolves the pectin holding plant cells together, turning firm tissue into slime. It attacks potatoes, carrots, onions, brassicas and stored bulbs, and needs a wound plus water plus warmth — remove any one and it cannot start.
Symptoms
A small water-soaked spot spreads into a soft, wet, cream-to-brown mush with a distinctive foul smell. In stored bulbs and tubers the inside collapses while the skin still looks intact. Standing plants wilt and topple at the rotted point.
Organic Treatment
Remove and destroy affected plants and any produce touching them immediately — soft rot spreads through a crate in days. Never wash before storing, and dry harvested crops thoroughly before they go into store.
Chemical Treatment
No bactericide is available to gardeners, and copper is largely ineffective against these bacteria once rot has begun. Control is entirely cultural.
Prevention
Harvest in dry weather, avoid bruising, cure onions and potatoes properly, store cool and airy, and improve drainage in beds. Control slugs and root maggots — their feeding wounds are the usual point of entry.
Crops at risk
Related problems
Bacterial Soft Rot risk by location
Each location has a month-by-month profile computed from the weather archive: how many hours a year actually meet this disease’s thresholds.