Early Blight Celery Symptoms and Treatment

What is early blight disease? How to get rid of early blight in the soil? Can early blight be cured? Let’s find out about early blight celery symptoms and treatment guidelines!

Early Blight Celery Definition

Early blight celery meaning: What is early blight celery?

This disease can do a lot of damage, and farmers have had to give up crops that were hit hard, especially in the southeastern United States and Mexico. Celeriac can also get early blight.

Early Blight Celery Causes

What causes early blight celery? What is the most common cause of early blight celery?

The fungus Cercospora apii is what causes early blight. The pathogen makes hyaline, multicelled, filiform spores that are 22–290 x 3.5–4.5 μm carried by clusters of brown conidiophores. Cercospora apii grows from the seeds of celery. This disease mostly affects celery and celeriac, but C. apii is also found in lettuce and the ornamental plant bells-of-Ireland (Moluccella laevis). No one knows what these different isolates have to do with each other.

Early Blight Celery Symptoms

Signs and symptoms of early blight celery: What are some symptoms of early blight celery?

Early signs are small yellow dots that grow into gray-brown spots that are round or oval and can be 1–2 cm in diameter. When the pathogen sporulates, the sore turns light gray and fuzzy when it is humid. The edges of the lesions aren’t clear and don’t have dark fruiting structures as late blight does. Most diseases spread from the oldest leaves to the newest ones. The petioles of celery can also get infected and develop long sores. When there is a severe infection, the leaves die, and the plant shows signs similar to blight. Symptoms can show up in seedlings. Early blight symptoms tend to show up in the field earlier in the season than late blight symptoms.

Early Blight Celery Disease Cycle

Inoculum comes from both seeds and infected pieces of celery. Cercospora apii can live as mycelium on seed for more than 2 years. It grows best when the temperature is warm (15–30º C), the leaves stay wet for a long time, or the relative humidity is high. When leaves have been wet for at least 10 hours, sporulation is at its peak. Spores are released in the morning when the relative humidity goes down and the wind spreads them. Spores can also spread when water is splashed, or work is done in the field. After only 5 hours of a leaf being wet, spores start to grow and move through the stomata. The cycle of a disease lasts from 5 to 14 days.

Early Blight Treatment Guidelines

Treatment of early blight celery – What is the best treatment for early blight celery?

Use seed that doesn’t have a lot of the disease-causing agent. If transplants are still grown in the ground, rotate the seedbeds to keep inoculum from spreading through the soil. If you water early in the day, the leaves will dry quickly. If there are resistant or tolerant cultivars, use them. Use raised beds and more space between plants to help airflow. Fungicides should be used in high-risk areas where celery is grown. A system for predicting diseases has been made so that fungicide sprays can be planned better.

I hope you understand early blight celery symptoms and treatment guidelines.