Today I came home from work to find Lady Margaret and P. citrina limp and apparently dying:-( They had no problems before, so I'm guessing some type of passiflora fungus (is there such a thing?) or wilt perhaps? They are not really near each other though, plus citrina has other things growing in the pot with it, which are ok. Anyone else ever suffered from this problem?
The reason I'm leaning to fungus/wilt is due to the facts that Lady M. & citrina were both previosuly perfectly healthy, plus L.M. has a shoot coming from the roots near the edge of the pot which looks perfectly fine, only the main stem seems to have been affected... it's a sad day for me.
In my years of growing, I have lost a few things to wilts/fungus, but never anything in a pot.
Advice/info anyone? I certainly don't want whatever did this to get any of my other ones.
Passiflora tragedy:-(
My Allspice has had a problem that caused it to start dying from the main stems out. I thought it was to much water, not enough or wilt. So I got another which is doing the same thing. In my case I think that they can't take the heat here. I have check all the source's in the area and it seems to be wide spread.That is among other allspice'(passiflora). All my other passis with the exception of Coral Seas are fine and it is just stunted with the heat not dieing. The fact that two are dying at the same time at your place seems odd. Why both?
Look for holes in the stems(near the ground) and see if you have a weevil bug that has bitten into your stem.
Indigoez, I'm sure sorry about your loss. Something must be happening below the soil to the roots. Could it be too wet or too dry or drainage has become blocked? I've had a few passifloras wilt in this heat, but they usually bounce back with lots of water. Calalily is right that it could be insect damage. Let us know what you find!
Well, here's a picture of what I found... this is P. mixta btw (it wasn't impressive in this climate anyway, never bloomed), it was looking wilted this afternoon, and sure enough it had it. Lady M.'s base looked the same way, but I was able to cut off the diseased main stem and hopefully that healthy shoot that wasn't affected will take over.
I think it's definitely a wilt/fungus of some kind. The roots are fine, as is the vine above the diseased area, but at soil level and up to an inch of the stem above soil lever are brown and dead. There's no mush, ooze, or odor though, which looks to me like the other few plants I have lost over the years to wilt. Fusarium wilt maybe?
I mixed up some fungicide called triple action 20 that I got earlier this year, which according to the list on it kills every fungus/wilt/rot known to the human race. I used it as a soil drench on every vine nearby in the hopes of it not spreading to any others.
If anyone has other ideas on what it could be, please do let me know.
That is indeed a bummer, Indigoez. I'm afraid I've no experience with that. I know that Fusarium wilt affects the Solanaceae family, but I didn't know that Passifloras are susceptible. They do get viruses. I pulled out my P. Mollissima today because it too was wilting, and it has never flowered for me either because of the heat. The roots had big nodules on them. I'm not sure if that is normal or if it is a sign of nematodes. As I was cutting that vine back, I noticed that my P. belotti and P. Lady Margaret had mealy bugs so they too got cut way, way back. I don't know if they will come back or not so it looks like we are in the same boat! I'm not that crushed about P. Mollissima because I think it is just too hot here for it to do well, and I'm not too crushed about P. Lady Margaret either. Although, she is very pretty, the flowers are small and not fragrant so she doesn't really fit in to my fragrant garden! I do hope yours will be all right.
Clare, some of mine in post that have had some soil washed away this year have had the knots on the roots as well, but those plants are perfectly healthy with no problems at all. I know that legumes have nitrogen fixing bacteria in the nodules on their roots; maybe some Passifloras do as well? Anyone know about this?
So far I know of three that have the knots, 'Star of Clevedon', 'Lady Margaret' (had them way before dying) and P. perusii. P. mixta is knotless as you can see in the picture above.
I did get quite a few cuttings from mixta that perked right up when I put them in some water. It never really did much for me, so if they root I'll probably trade them off.
Indigoez, I was wondering if they were nitrogen nodules. My wisterias have them also. But I forgot to mention that the roots of the P. molissima also had some mealy bugs. I have mealy bugs on my orange tree also. I guess the hot and dry weather attracts them. Yuck! Anyway, P. mollissima is all gone now. I think P. Lady Margaret and P. belotti may come back. I bet yours will too. I didn't realize that P. Lady Margaret has the knots too. I saved some cuttings also, but I've not been able to root anything in this hot weather so I won't get my hopes up that any of them will root.