Onion white rot is a highly destructive fungal disease of commercial onion crops. The disease is widespread across Tasmania’s coastal production areas and is rapidly spreading to less intensively cropped areas.

This project sought to better understand the disease and its control, including the conditions that precede high-risk infection periods and how growers can optimise timings of fungicide applications to control white rot. It ran from 2015 to 2018.

While the researchers initially hoped to develop a forecast model for white rot infection periods in Tasmania, due to variability within disease incidence across seasons a fully operational model was not able to be developed – however the project still identified major risk factors that will be of benefit to Tasmanian onion growers.

This project has been funded by Hort Innovation, using the research and development levies listed below and contributions from the Australian Government. Hort Innovation is the grower-owned, not-for-profit research and development corporation for Australian horticulture.

• Onion Fund