Black Rot

The black rot, sometimes known as the beekeeper's rot, is a fungal infestation chiefly affecting blackberries, caused by the growth of Batokonis mould within the unripe berry. As the name suggests, the mould is largely black, and is consequently quite difficult to identify in a ripening blackberry - in many cases, the rot goes unnoticed until the berries are actually picked. While the black rot is likely to take hold only in consistently moist conditions, it can spread quickly, leaving an entire crop of blackberries completely unfit for consumption. The inconspicuousness and fast spread of the mould leaves the black rot the nightmare of any blackberry farmer, with many in more humid parts of the Sunscald incessantly checking their growing plants for signs of infestation. If left unchecked, it could ruin a farmer's entire harvest and destroy their livelihood.
Despite the devastating effects of the black rot on blackberry production, the mould has been discovered to have its own function. Honey produced from the flowers of blackberry plants infected by the rot takes on an almost black sheen, and provides mild psychoactive and relaxant effects when consumed by humans. Over time, this so-called 'black honey' or 'dimeli' has become a prized luxury good along the Sunscald coast, earning the black rot its alternative sobriquet of the beekeeper's rot. Dimeli is usually judged by its 'purity', with darker honeys assumed to have been collected more exclusively from rot-infested plants. Consequently, some beekeepers aim to actively encourage the growth of black rot on nearby blackberry plants, and some specialists have intentionally set up blackberry farms in particularly humid and mould-friendly environments. Farmers, who aim to avoid the rot at all costs, and beekeepers, who wish to actively spread the rot, are often at eachother's throats in areas with a high blackberry yield, and some city-states have imposed restrictions on the minimum distance the two trades can be performed in, presumably in order to diminish the likelihood of the mould spreading from an apiary to a farmstead.

Type

Fungal