Botrytis
Gray, fuzzy mold with a puff of dust-like spores when touched, taking soft tissue first: strawberries, raspberries, peony buds, geranium leaves, anything bruised or spent. Cool, damp, still air is its whole personality.
Disease checklist
Four things to look for. If most of them match what you are holding, you are in the right place.
What gets rid of it
Gentlest option first. For most backyard cases the first one is enough, so try these in order and stop as soon as it works. If you do spray something, the product label tells you how — please read the notice further down.
1Pick clean and pick often
Overripe and damaged fruit is where it starts; nothing soft should sit on the plant or the ground.
Try this first2Deadhead and thin
Spent blooms and crowded stems are the launch pads; airflow is the fungicide you do not have to buy.
3Straw under the berries
Keeps fruit off damp soil where the mold waits.
straw mulch garden
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Which plants get botrytis
Every plant we cover that gets botrytis, grouped by type — tap any one to open its page. A note beside a plant came from that plant’s own entry, because the same disease can be a minor nuisance on one plant and a serious problem on another. Plenty of plants we do not cover get it too.
annuals5
Plant families hit hardest
Related plants often share the same problems, so if one plant in a family has it, check the others. The largest group here is Asteraceae, with 2 of the 8 affected plants.
- Asteraceae2 plants
When to treat
Treat it when you see it, and improve the airflow. It follows cool, damp, still weather.
Timing only — the label is the law
This page tells you when to watch for botrytis and when treating is worth considering. It is not a recommendation to apply any particular product. Read and follow the product label before you spray — under federal law the label is the legal instruction, and using a pesticide against it is illegal.
- Check the pre-harvest interval. Every product that’s cleared for an edible crop sets a minimum number of days between spraying and picking. Find it on the label before you spray anything you intend to eat.
- Check the re-entry interval before you or anyone else works in the treated area again, and use the protective equipment the label names.
- Confirm the product is registered for your crop in your state. This page groups many different crops together, and a product legal on one of them is not legal on all of them — state registrations differ too. Your state pesticide agency or local extension office can confirm both.
- Rates and mixing instructions come from the label, never from us. We don’t publish them because they differ by product and formulation.
Other problems on the same plants
If a plant gets botrytis, these are the problems it most often gets as well, so they are worth checking for while you are out there. They tend to appear together; one does not cause another.