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Technical Notes
- Swedes And Turnips Integrated Weed Management (PDF: 96 kB)
- Pests Of Swedes And Turnips: Their Management & Control (PDF: 207 kB)
- Clubroot Disease Of Oilseed Rape And Other Brassica Crops (PDF: 288 kB)
- Fertiliser Recommendations For Vegetables, Minority Arable Crops & Bulbs (PDF: 299 kB)
Featured Topics
- Technical Notes
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- Technical publications funded by the Scottish Government
See Also
- Clubroot
- In Consulting
- Sclerotinia
- In Consulting
Swedes and Turnips
Brassica rapa
Pages In This Document
General Description
In Scotland, 1,803 hectares were grown for human consumption (shopping swedes). Swedes and turnips are also an important crop for animal feed (fodder) and in 2008, 5,540 hectares were grown in Scotland for this purpose (The Economic Report on Scottish Agriculture 2008).
The crop is sown in May and is ready for harvest from September. It can also be left in situ for grazing over winter.
Crop management for shopping swedes starts with a pre-sowing check of the soil for clubroot. This disease affects a wide range of brassica crops, but the cosmetic blemishes are unnaceptable for this market. During the growing season, powdery mildew and downy mildew can affect the leaves. Phoma dry rot, crater rot (Rhizoctonia sp) and bacterial soft rots can all affect the bulbs, causng extensive losses in yield and quality.
The primary pest to affect the crop is cabbage root fly. The loss of pesticides in recent years means that high value crops are covered in fleece to prevent the flies laying their eggs in the soil next to the swedes. It is the larvae which cause the damage to the roots.