I904-] 



Turnip Mud-Beetle. 



489 



during very hot, dry weather. This drooping, however, is due 

 to the upper surface of the leaf-stalk having been more or less 

 disorganised by a parasitic fungus, whilst patches are present, 

 often 20-25 mm. long, and finally the tissue becomes brown and 

 dead. The disease passes from the large leaf-stalks into the 

 root, penetrating to the heart, and from thence attacking and 

 killing the young heart-leaves. 



The Board are advised that great care should be taken to 

 confine the disease to the field where it originated, inasmuch as 

 if the turnips are carried to other parts or find their way to the 

 manure heap, the disease will certainly spread. The safest 

 course would be to plough in the diseased crop and apply a 

 good dressing of gas -lime or kainit early next spring. Neither 

 turnips, mangold, nor beet-root should be sown for at least five 

 years on land that has produced a diseased crop. 



Among turnip pests are the grubs of a beetle known scientifi- 

 cally as HelopJiorus ragosus, the Turnip Mud-Beetle. Both 



adult beetle and its grub are injurious, the 

 Turnip Mud Beetle, beetle destroying the leaves and the turnip 



tops, and the maggots attacking the leaf- 

 stalks and bulbs. In a case which was brought to the notice 

 of the Board it was stated that the crop had been almost 

 destroyed. 



Where this insect is observed on growing turnips the wisest 

 course . is probably to dress the turnips with about 1 cwt. of 

 nitrate of soda per acre. It should be noted that after an attack 

 of maggot or grub, the results most to be feared occur in the 

 next season on the turnips, if the field planted with these be 

 very near a field previously infested with maggots. It is there- 

 fore strongly recommended that the next year's turnips should 

 (as far as is practicable in the rotation), be sown as far as pos- 

 sible from the infested crop. 



