Narcissus basal rot

What you see

Bulbs feel soft at the base. Cut one across and there is a chocolate-brown rot spreading up from the base plate, sometimes with pinkish-white mould. Foliage above is stunted and yellows early, or the bulb simply never comes up.

Conditions

Warm soil - it does most of its damage above 20C, so it attacks bulbs in summer dormancy and in warm storage rather than in winter.

Treatment

Discard soft bulbs at planting and at lifting; never plant a bulb that gives under thumb pressure. There is no treatment.

Prevention

Lift and store bulbs cool and dry, and avoid bruising them. Plant deeply in well-drained ground. Do not replant daffodils where they rotted before.

Months: June, July, August, September

Plants

Daffodil

Remedies

Not recorded — the field is blank rather than guessed.

The thing people get wrong

This is a summer disease of a winter plant, which is why it catches people out - the damage happens in July while the bulb sits underground in warm soil, or on a shelf in a warm shed. The thirty seconds spent squeezing each bulb before planting is the single most effective control, because one soft bulb will seed the whole drift.