[News Today] Soft rot disease hurts cabbage harvest

[LEAD]
Farmers in Gangwon-do Province are having a tough time just as kimchi season approaches.

Because of an unusually long rainy spell this fall, many napa cabbage crops have been hit hard.

It's gotten so bad that some farmers are giving up on harvesting altogether.

[REPORT]
This is a farm cultivating napa cabbages for kimchi.

The harvest is imminent, but the cabbages, which should be green and healthy, are wilted and discolored.

They bare their dull white roots, and the leaves are withered.

This is caused by cabbage soft rot, a bacterial infection that destroys plant tissues.

The farmer, left with no remedy, gave up harvesting the cabbages altogether.

Kim Jae-jung / Cabbage Farmer
There’s no other solution than to plow over the field. Everyone’s in despair.

Even the cabbages that are not infected are not marketable as they failed to grow fully.

Kim Ik-jung / Cabbage Farmer
Some fields were affected 70–80%. The ground was so mushy that the cabbages failed to grow and caught the rot disease.

The spread of soft rot was due to an unusual autumn rainy spell.

The western part of Gangwon-do Province saw nearly 30 days of rain in September and October, when the cabbages should have been in a growth spurt.

Lee Jun-bae / Gangwon Agricultural Research and Extension Services
Damp conditions after the autumn rains may have caused the disease, affecting about 10–20% of cabbage fields in Gangwon-do Province.

The disease is spreading all across the nation, even in Haenam, Jeollanam-do Province, the largest cabbage-producing region in Korea.

The government has responded by stockpiling cabbages to prepare for possible supply disruptions during the kimchi-making season.

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