A strawberry thickly covered in botrytis grey mould

Grey mould on soft fruits

BBC Gardeners' World Magazine

Published: Sunday, 3 March 2019 at 3:00 pm

Prevent your soft-fruit crop from succumbing to grey mould.

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Just as your fruits are beginning to ripen, grey mould (a fungus called botrytis) can ruin them. Small brown spots form on the skin, then spread over the whole fruit, turning it soft and brown. As the fruit deteriorates, a fuzzy grey layer of mould develops. The spores produced by the fungus can spread to other plants, infecting them through damaged skin. However, it's most infectious at flowering time, when spores, blown by the wind, enter open flowers and lie dormant until the fruits begin to swell.

Symptoms

A thick layer of grey mould develops on soft fruits.

Find it on

raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, loganberries, other fruit

Organic

The fungus survives on plant debris, so to reduce the risk of infection keep the soil clear around your soft fruit canes, and remove any damaged fruits.

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