rhubarb going to seed

geordief

I noticed that this year ,presumably on account of the severe winter freeze, that the rhubarb was the most luxuriant in years.
However , after this had died down , nearly every plant went to seed.

Now I know that they say that after this happens ,the plants never do so well after.
However I didn't trust this advice since it had happened before and the plants did recover.

This time ,though , I have noticed that , of the plants that now seem to be struggling badly, all have great big holes in the crown left by the flower stalks when they rotted away.

It seems to me that these holes have just provided a resevoir for the rain to fill and this has caused crown rot in all the plants that went to seed.

If I had known this was going to happen , was there anything I could have done to prevent this crown rot taking hold?

What about if I had taken more care when removing the flower heads -or removing them earlier?
Would that have stopped the resevoir being formed?

Or was it just the age of the crowns that meant the crown rot would have set in anyway (I do think the flower heads was an important factor) ?

reverenddave

as far as i know the earlier you take the flower heads out the better
and when removing the heads rather than cutting down low leave about 5-6 inches

but it might have something to do with the age of the plant too if you have had them for a few years