Removing Mulberry Flowers and Mulberry fruits to Control Mulberry shoot Breaking Disease

Mulberry shoot-breaking disease, also known as branch-breaking disease, white mulberry disease. Shoot-breaking disease is a widely prevalent mulberry disease in recent years. It is a disease caused by the pathogen of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum to infect new shoots through the stalk of morula, causing the base of new shoots to rot and break. The characteristic of the disease is that mulberry trees with long female mulberry flowers or androgynous flowers are prone to this disease, and the rate of shoot breaking ranges from 10 to 30%. The disease is easy to spread in mulberry garden and seriously affects the leaves used for spring silkworm rearing. In order to effectively control and stop the occurrence and spread of the disease, according to the characteristics that the disease occurs only on mulberry trees with female mulberry flowers. Sericulture scientists and technicians should go deep into the grass-roots level and guide the vast number of sericulture farmers to remove female mulberry flowers and fruits from March to April. In view of the fact that it is difficult for most silkworm farmers to identify male and female mulberry flowers, silkworm farmers are advised to remove all mulberry flowers and fruits in mulberry gardens where this disease has occurred, so as to "pick as soon as they see the flowers" and "pick the fruits as soon as they see", so as to cut off the pathogen transmission route, reduce the consumption of mulberry nutrients by long mulberry flowers and mulberry fruits, enhance mulberry tree potential and increase mulberry leaf yield. Through years of practice, it has been proved that picking mulberry flowers and mulberry fruits before mulberry fruit is not white can effectively put an end to the occurrence of tip-breaking disease and can be completely cured by picking it for two years in a row. It is the best prevention and control method with both economy and environmental protection.