Does she have to handle EVERYTHING? Ew.
Asparagus diseases, along with other garden plant ailments, are very frustrating as a gardener. It’s so disappointing to have seen beautiful fresh green buds sprouting in the spring only to find that by mid summer your roses have black spot and rust,your gooseberries have mildew or, perish the thought, your asparagus ferns are looking less than healthy!
The three main diseases affecting asparagus are:
1) Rust - cased by Puccinia asparagi
2) Fusarium stem and crown rot - casued by Fusarium moniliforme, and / or F.oxysporum f. sp. aspargi
3) Fusarium wilt and root rot - caused by Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. asparagi
Lets just call them rust or rot!
All three diseases are fungal infections and over time will weaken your plants year on year to a greater or lesser extent depending on how well you control the spread.
An important point to remember when considering the effect of these diseases is that the strong vigorous growth of stem and fern that occurs through the summer enables carbohydrate to be channelled and stored in the roots of your crowns over the winter. It is this store of energy that powers the growth of your plants in the spring. If your ferns are healthy and happy in the summer you will get lots of good healthy spears in the spring. By contract if your ferns are stunted by disease your spear production in the spring will be less vigorous.
They grow a lot of asparagus around here (SE WA State) and they must have the diseases under control because I never hear about them. Pretty much all picked by migrants at 5 in the morning.
A totally off-topic asparagus question.
I had two asparagus patches, planted at the same time, about 50 feet apart, rootstock from the same source.
Thrived for ten plus years.
Both came up very sparsely one year and I did NOT cut it.
The next year ZERO in one patch and only a few in the other.
I LET THE RASPBERRIES HAVE THE GROUND IN ONE PATCH, and carefully hand tilled the other hoping the roots had some life?
About four years later about a dozen nice size vigorous shoots mixed in the raspberries, the other site is bald and I quit turn the soil there.
We use near ZERO chemicals in the garden, but use the usual three-step stuff on the nearby lawn.
Previously, we had a nice patch over twenty years, I accidentally mowed it one year it never returned.(We take down the garden fences for the winter to till in the spring.
Is my garden now cursed for asparagus? Forever?