Is this a fungus or disease or an attack by some insect? It gets great water (maybe too much....could that be it?). It sits atop a french drain that my basement sump flows in to. Help.....this was just planted earlier this spring and I'd like to see it flower! (3 pics to follow)
another view
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Looks like some kind of bacterial blight. Take a piece into the county ag office and let them tell you(they may have to send it off, but some have digital cameras and take a picture) If it's bacterial blight, it's caused by too much rain(or overhead watering) and you should prune off the infected parts, remember to disinfect your clippers between cuts and wash your hands when you are thru.
Cala-Thanks!! I was researching the net for what it might be when I decided to pop over to my post to see if I had any replies. I had come up with Pseudomonas bacteria and indeed your post led me to lilac bacterial blight. It has been fairly wet here and I suppose that is what started it and I've been watering overhead with sprinklers in that area this past week or so. Bad news is that I put in a total of 3 species of lilacs at the same time. This particular shrub is next to a 2nd year forsythia. Do you happen to know if it is susceptible to this bacteria as well? I'll get to the extension office this week with a sample. Your advice to prune off the infected shoots and disinfect the pruners is exactly what several of the university sites say to do. Hopefully the ext. office can tell me if the forsythia is in danger now as well. Now I can't wait til morning to get out there and get it off my baby.
I hate to tell you this, but they are susceptible to the same blight. The good news is, it needs an injury of some kind to enter the plant. Injury can be mechanical from pruning, frost, wind, or something like that. Avoid high nitrogen fertilizers, don't use over head sprinklers and don't let your plants get stressed. You might try a copper based fungicide as a preventative on the forsythias. Bacteria isn't usually killed by fungicides, but copper seems to help control/prevent it. Hope this helps.
Well.....you know this all really started on June 22nd....we had golf ball sized hail here and many of my garden occupants saw some severe damage. The lilacs, forsythia, daylilies, even the trees all received major leaf damage and in the case of the flowers broken stems (I finally cut my spiderwort down to 6-inches from the ground yesterday giving up that it was going to revitalize on it's own). This particular lilac 'James MacFarlane' was probably the worst hit of the shrubs/trees. The forsythia looks pretty good actually. On the other side of it though is another new lilac and it's lookin' kinda sad too. Thanks for the advice! I REALLY appreciate it. This is my first experience battling a bacteria.
