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Onion and Garlic Not sure it is this disease? Use the Disease Finder in anee.io ›

Yellow stripe and dwarf viruses of onion and garlic

Leaves show yellow streaks or stripes, turn flat, crinkled and floppy, and plants and bulbs stay small.

Onion yellow dwarf virus, leek yellow stripe virus, shallot yellow stripe virus and garlic latent viruses Virus Fact sheet
Onion yellow dwarf: onion leaves striped yellow, flattened and bent
Photo: Jochen Kreiselmaier, Pflanzenschutzberater beim Dienstleistungszentrum, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Crops it strikes

Bawang Garlic Sibuyas Tagalog Shallot Sibuyas Onion, bulb

What you see

YellowingStunted plantsCurled or mottled leaves

When to act

Check the planting every two weeks and pull dwarfed plants with yellow streaked or crinkled leaves, most of all in plots grown for seed cloves and sets. Spraying aphids does little against these viruses, so put the effort into clean planting stock.

Before you spray

No spray cures a virus. Plant clean cloves and sets, pull streaked plants early, and keep aphids down.

How to prevent it

  • Plant clean, virus tested cloves and sets where you can get them, and renew your seed stock every few seasons.
  • Save planting cloves only from vigorous plants with no streaks, and grow them apart from the main crop.
  • Pull streaked plants early, before aphids carry the virus on.
  • Keep new plantings away from older onion, garlic and leek fields, and clear volunteers.
  • Use a border of corn and silver mulch to keep winged aphids off young plants.

Natural enemies and biological help

  • Ladybirds, hoverfly larvae and small parasitic wasps hold aphids down. Avoid broad sprays that kill them.

Where this comes from

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