The disease is most destructive in heavy clay soils that are saturated with water during cool weather. Once established in the soil, the fungus remains alive for up to 13 years and possibly longer, regardless of the crop rotation used. Loganberry is a minor host, however, and most infections are passed directly from strawberry plant to strawberry plant. Red stele usually does not appear in a new planting until the spring of the first bearing year, from about full bloom to harvest. Minor symptoms of root infection may appear, however, in late fall of the first growing season.
Damage increases each year that susceptible cultivars are grown in infested soil.
Red stele may appear to be fairly well distributed over an entire strawberry field or patch during a cool, wet spring. Normally, however, the disease is most prevalent in the lower or poorly drained areas. Symptoms When plants start wilting and dying in the more poorly drained areas of a field, the cause is frequently red stele. Certain other symptoms are more specific. Infected strawberry roots will appear gray, while the new roots of a healthy plant are yellowish white.