Hygienic measures

Hygiene measures aim to prevent the introduction of a disease into the crop or to minimize and - in the best case - eradicate it. This can be achieved by targeted pruning, which removes old and diseased plant parts, as well as by crop residue hygiene or by preventing the spread of diseases and vectors.

To prevent the introduction of a disease, healthy and certified planting and sowing material is of utmost importance. Especially with strawberries, young plant quality is extremely important and the introduction of diseases such as Phytophtora cactori  should be avoided at all costs. But it is also important to keep disease-introducing vectors, such as insects, away from the crop. In viticulture, the spread of grapevine cicada and phylloxera by humans from vineyard to vineyard (infectious from L5) must be avoided in order to prevent secondary infections by bacteria, fungi and viruses.

Preventing the spread of disease: If parts of a crop or the entire crop are affected by a disease, pruning of diseased plant parts, grubbing and disposal or burning of individual plants or the entire crop and/or appropriate crop residue and fallen leaf management will help. Special attention should be paid to notifiable quarantine diseases.

In viticulture, for example, plants affected by flavescence doree (golden yellowing) must be grubbed up to prevent transmission by grapevine cicada to other plants. Grapevines showing the disease complex Esca must also be either grubbed or tried to be cured by special grapevine surgery techniques under development. In orchards, complete harvesting is important. Pruning must always be done into the healthy wood. Injuries must be avoided, as they are entry points for diseases. Diseased material is removed after pruning and from the plant and burned if necessary. Plants affected by quarantine diseases such as fire blight must be grubbed. Fruit mummies must also be removed and burned to prevent sources of infection for the following year. In addition, foliage removal should be encouraged by tilling, incorporating, spraying with vinasse, and sweeping foliage out of tramlines to suppress virus diseases. While fungal spores, for example, can survive in the substrate for up to 15 years, viruses can only survive in the plant material or host. In arable crops, individual plants must be removed if they are infested with soil-borne fungi such as Phytophthora or Verticillium. In corn, incorporating stubble into the soil reduces the risk of Fusarium stem and tuber rot in the future years crop. In Rhizoctonia-infested areas, corn should be avoided in the sugarbeet rotation or corn crop residue should be well chopped and incorporated, as the fungus uses organic matter to survive in the soil. The promotion of good old straw rot should generally be stimulated by multiple flat tillage passes.

In addition, special attention should be paid to keeping equipment clean. If there is a risk of disease spread, it is necessary to clean the equipment or the tractor at the washing station (kärchern, hot water treatment). In horticulture, for example, tomato and bell pepper crops must be uprooted and burned if the notifiable bacterial wilt Clavibacter occurs. In general, crop residues must be removed or worked deep into the soil.