Dr. Phyto
basil cold damage
abiotic_cold_damage_basil
Symptoms
Blackened leaf margins after cool nights.
Plants affected
Easily confused with
- basil Fusarium wilt
How to tell them apart: Basil cold damage is an abiotic injury, whereas Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. basilici is a soilborne vascular wilt. Cold damage appears overnight after a cool spell (below ~10 °C): the leaf margins and tips turn blackened, water-soaked and limp, the whole plant or patch droops uniformly, and a cut through the stem stays clean green inside. Fusarium wilt builds up over days to weeks in warm soil — wilting is often one-sided, lower leaves yellow and the stem base browns, and splitting the stem lengthwise reveals brown-to-reddish streaks in the vascular tissue. A green, unstreaked stem core after a cold night points to cold damage; internal brown vascular streaking points to Fusarium.
Treatment
Dr. Phyto builds a dated, step-by-step treatment plan with country-approved products — start a free diagnosis to get yours.
Common questions
- How do I recognise basil cold damage on basil?
- Blackened leaf margins after cool nights.
- Do I have to report basil cold damage?
- No. basil cold damage is not a notifiable organism, so there is nothing to report to an authority. Treat it as a normal garden problem.
- How is basil cold damage treated?
- With a sequence of steps whose timing matters as much as the choice of product — and both depend on the plant, the season and your country. Dr. Phyto works them out in a free diagnosis.
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