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Symptom

Forked, split or damaged roots

Root crops show everything that happened underground: stones and fresh manure fork them, uneven water splits them, pests tunnel them, clubroot swells brassica roots.

Forked and twisted carrots lifted onto the soil

Look closely at the damage: clean splits, legs, tunnels or swellings each point somewhere different.

Likely causes

Ordered from the usual answer to the less likely one. Each links to the full problem.

  1. Forked and misshapen carrots on the soil Damage Common

    Root damage

    Forked roots in stony or compacted soil, or after transplanting.
  2. Oversized radishes with deep cracks beside small, whole ones Watering Common

    Uneven watering

    Clean splits after a soaking following dry weather.
  3. A carrot scarred by carrot fly tunnels Pest Common

    Carrot fly

    Rusty tunnels just under carrot skin.
  4. A lush, dark green pepper plant with many leaves and no fruit Soil & nutrients Possible

    Too much nitrogen

    Forked, hairy roots in freshly manured soil.
  5. A potato tuber with narrow wireworm holes Pest Possible

    Wireworms

    Narrow round holes through potatoes and roots.
  6. A cabbage root swollen into knobbly clubs Fungal disease Possible

    Clubroot

    Brassica roots swollen into clubs.
  7. A carrot with a bunch of thin yellow shoots from aster yellows Bacterial disease Less likely

    Aster yellows

    Hairy, bitter carrots with bunched yellow shoots.