I posted this info on another forum hope it helps my friends at Daves!
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Hey plumerians!
I been testing many products these past years and have posted here and other forums
what works and what didn't for me..
Since i been hurt my trees growing in the ground around my house have been neglected..
Before i got hurt i had rust on all my trees this is a normal thing for florida growers..
Anyways 3 weeks ago the rust was in full bloom and all my lower leaves we so bad that if you walk
by them you would have orange stains all over you.
The super rust as i called it stop all flower production and shorten the length of new leaves..
The SR (super rust) even made all the leaves curl up and shrivel, it was pretty bad...
I also suspected rust mites came in and took over due to the many red stained leaf curls i was also seeing..
What i mean by red stain curls is that the plumie leaves shrivel up and curl onto themselves and the outer
edges will have a soild band of red in them almost like the leaf is bleeding..
When this happens the inflos will grow very short thus makeing the flowers if any grow much smaller and fewer then normal..
This massive outbreak occurred with no rain at all for 7 weeks which was a surprise..
The only tree that was fighting off the rust and still producing blooms was the local variety Flamingo or Pink Flamingo
or possibly Dainty Pink another reason why i love that tree.
Well i had some products i didn't test yet so i hop on my crutches and told my worker how to mix one of the products..
The product was Dithane 75DF (powder) and i supplement it with Capsil a spray adjuvant thats silicone based.
I pick Dithane because it is a broad spectrum fungicide and i pick Capsil because it is known to have great penetration ability.
In order to kill rust and prevent it from recurring in the growing season a spread sticker cannot be just a sticker like a soap base product it has
to penetrate the leaf tissue and work within the cells of the plant in order to kill off the infection.
All great foilar sprays are just sprays unless you use a good penetrator to carry those nutrients into the cells where the plant can use them.
The best time to spray anything on the leaves IMHO is around sunset because the leaf stomatas will be open..
The stomata (like pores of your skin) are affected by light and drought conditions and this is why they are on the underside of the leaves.
As you may know most of the plumie problems occur on the underside of the leaves also..
The first treatment was on Sept 1 followed by the second on Sept 14 and then a monitoring cycle of 7-10 more days after that.
Today after 2 treatments 7 days apart followed by the monitoring cycle i venture outside and inspected all the trees and plants that were spray.
The results were impressive to say the least!
The rust was completely gone and all the leaves were healthy and of normal size again..
The leaves that were infected either died off and fell off the tree or had rust remains that turn blackish brown/grey indicating the cell walls were destroyed.
The remaining infected leaves had strong rigor to them again like they never been infected..
Flower production has return to normal and the trees and plants are produceing new growth at a fast rate typical of summer..
To make sure my test wasn't influence by certain varities i had 1500 trees/plants sprayed and the results were all the same.
There are other products that growers have reported that work well and i am only adding my test to the list so use what works for you.
I hope this info can add another weapon to your arsenal!
Dithane 75DF
http://www.dowagro.com/turf/prod/dithane.htm
The label can be found here which is a .pdf file:
http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ld5UB004.pdf
Capsil
http://www.aquatrols.com/usacapsil.htm
The label can found here which is a .pdf file:
http://www.aquatrols.com/labelsandmsds2006/Labels/CapSil%20Label%2003-06%20specimen%20label.pdf
Both products were purchase from my friends at http://www.southernag.com/commercial.htm
To this date there is no organic product i tested or currently on the market that kills rust in a full blown outbreak in a humid area like Florida NONE!
No corn meal or baking soda remedy never worked on all my plants but a few varieties seem to like organics but were quickly reinfected again by the other plants.
