What's Attacking my MG?

It has started at the primary stem and is working it's way out.

It looks similar to rust, but not quite. Some kind of fungus for sure. I don't recognize it.

Hi X,

I just cross-posted this over at the Garden Pests and Diseases forum. My guess is rust, but maybe we'll get a more definitive ID from them -

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/869854/

Karen

X, I want you to know that I finally got your photography tutorials into the MG sticky index, and I know they will be immensely appreciated. Since they are on an outside webpage, is there anything that anyone on DG could do to help ensure a dependable longevity for this forum that would be alright? I am extremely clueless about computers, so I may not be asking the right question here.

Hi,

Whatever it is, it's now in the garbage .. I pulled it up. It was a volunteer. A seed somehow moved 20 feet into my front bed and looked nice as a ground cover though it was starting to mug my candy lily and roses. I was amazed to see it was all one plant! Now why won't my mg's in pots get this huge? It got fed a number of times with Bayer All In One and never had a bloom on it .. whereas another volunteer which didn't get fed bloomed constantly. I pulled it up too when I noticed it was getting rust on it too. The picture is of the one in the front bed. It was taken 2 weeks ago, you can see how big it was.

As to the photo thing, it's a permanent fixture of my web page so it's not going anywhere.

X

Is it confined to the bottom of the leaves, and does it rub off on your fingers?

Ceejay, I tried very hard not to touch it when I pulled it up and then washed my hands for a few minutes. I didn't want to take a chance of spreading whatever it is to anything else. I'll spray the whole bed this evening with a systemic fungicide just to be sure. I hope it doesn't attack my geraniums I grew from seed that are on the verge of blooming.

X

Rust is usually pretty plant specific, and most rusts have an alternate host. I don't know the alternate host for MGs. I asked if it came off on your fingers, since there seemed to be a question as to whether or not it was rust.

There's a link in the sticky under FOES / Disease / Rust - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=2847979, in which Atenkley says he understood the alternate host to be pine trees and that he was going to try Patootie's suggestion of Neem oil and an Ortho fungicide product.

But, these are just signposts to a possible answer.

X, have you been growing MGs before now, but not seeing any rust before?

I read that if you put a couple inches down of high quality compost, that will help to keep the rust spores from getting up on the plant leaves from the soil after it rains.

Hmmm ... I wonder how the rust gets there in the first place? My area is notorious for rust. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if rust is a Florida native fungus! No kidding! I know it spreads by humidity and what? ... probably wind and hard rains. I get rust on my cannas too. But I know it's not the same rust strain on the canna. The rust is usually what shortens my MG's life cycle. I spray them and treat the ground and roots ... to no avail ... the rust wins in the end! :-( :-( :-( Then I wipe the vine supports, pots, and everything else down with bleach water to try to stop it before the next grow-out. But it comes back no matter what. It's in the air here with the ocean breezes blowing constantly. I am 5 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean and I get a breeze almost year round in my yard. I have other gardener friends who fight different rust strains on various plants in their gardens, too. Mold is bad here too. I don't know how some folks breath without running their A/C units. It's awful when the humidity is high ... which is usually 8 months out of the year!

We have the mild winter weather here for year round gardening, but with that comes all the pests, diseases, and heat ... no paradise here! But as they say ... everything is temporary ... as are the MG vines and blooms! So ... I take lots of photos of my vines and enjoy them while I can! LOL!

This message was edited Jun 29, 2008 12:20 AM

I've been reading up on it .. it moves via spores and warm humid conditions. I now know what was causing one of my candy lily plant leaves to turn yellow. I've sprayed the whole bed with a fungicide and removed all of the morning glory out of it. Tomorrow I'll cut off all the affected leaves on the lily. I'm hoping that I can save the lily. I'll give it a week and see if it looks better if not, I'll take that out too. After comparing pictures, I believe the one I have is Phragmidium mucronatum, rose rust .. and yes I have roses in that bed too. Grrrrrrr.

So far nothing in the backyard is showing signs of rust. I'm planning to spray the heck out of everything back there just in case.

X

This message was edited Jun 29, 2008 1:26 AM

Miners Leaf

Rust is something you have to outsmart. In my neck of the woods around 1900, seeds of White Pine were sent to a Nursery in France to be grown out and the seedlings eent back for reforestation. They came back with White Pine Blister Rust, and now it is everywhere in the Pacific Northwest.

This desease appears on white Pine, and many other alternate hosts.
Wild Currant is one of the alternate hosts. The genus Mahonia has also many more hosts. The Irony is that when it appears on one specie, its fruiting body appears at a different time, and in a different physical form, under the microscope. But in the same neighborhood. X, you need to get it identified by your county extension agent, so that you can find out who the other hosts are at other times of the season.

Check around on the hollyhocks, and members of that group. If you can interrupt the life cycle, you will have some control. If I remember correctly, the life cycle of the rust mentioned above, was that it had to go through all the host genera, one at a time, before returning to the Pine, to start over again. If this is true with your type, and you can find an alternate host it winters on, of no value, maybe erradicating the alternate may give some control. Rust sucks bigtime. Frank

Here is some good reading.
http://plantpath.ifas.ufl.edu/takextpub/FactSheets/pp0037.pdf
Frank

Thanks for the info and links Frank .. I've been doing a lot of reading and am spraying and watering everything in the bed with a fungicide. I plant to do this every 2 weeks. So far it hasn't attacked the roses, so it may not be rose rust. I am planning to remove all of the candy lily in the fall and start over next Spring.

X

Thanks for the answer X, I feel relieved because you did answer.
The spectre of rust is so bad that if Roses are an alternate host, you have to give thanks because they are high up enough that an old person can still deal with it. (I am not young, wink wink) From the reading, the stage you are dealing with means you nearly have to be a sort order waitress at a truck diner. That humid early spring stage of rust seems to spread like wild fire.

It seems to me X, that the URIDOSPORE phase, should be as easy to remember as YOU REDIAL SPORES. So that kind of spores begets more of the same for a period of high humidity in spring.

If these spread to all the hosts, then we have to deal with a foliage blight from it. The refuse shold never be composted. It needs to be incinerated. Most people cannot do this. I suggest putting the leaves in the BBQ and starting it 15 minutes early.

I think we shoud nickname this blight the redial rust, since it begets itself for a while.

dIf you learn more, keep us posted. The people in Florida should benefit from this experience. Frank

I will keep you posted .. I'm also planning to buy a granular fungicide which I will incorporate heavily into the beds and grass in in the fall. Hopefully by the following Spring any spores that are left will be killed.

Everything I ripped up went into the garbage. So far my backyard is rust free. I'm keeping an eagle eye on the canna which is in the back.

X

Frank - Interesting article! Thanks for posting the link.

X - What grandular fungicide are you planning to use? I keep looking at and trying different products. The rust has always been in my yard as long as I can remember. I have canna and I have a few roses. I see rust on both off and on. Right now the rust is limited to just showing up on the MGs. I also have pine trees in all the vacant lots around my property. I wonder if that is where the rust originated? We get a lot of wind here throughout the year. I am sure the spores float through the air and fall all around my yard. So I need a good systematic fungicide.

I would love to hear what product others use. We have to be careful here though because we are on well and septic. Summer school ends for me in about 2 weeks. I may go to the Master Gardener meeting every week once I am off work for a month and inquire what folks use to combat rust here. Maybe I will get some good suggestions from the folks at the meetings.

I was out this morning looking at my vines. Foliage on ALL of them looks pretty sad. But the flowers are still blooming. Many of the lower leaves have turned brown and are falling off the vine. There is another good thing about this ...

Finding the seed pods and which vine they belong to just got a whole lot easier! LOL! I guess there is an advantage to having rust afterall! LOL

Next after all the vines are expired, I will have to treat those areas before planting more seeds. Hopefully I can find something organic. That is going to take some research. Anyone have any suggestions of how I can try to kill off any rust spores in and around those areas? I would love to hear them so I can start preparing now!!

I also soak (briefly) the seeds in a mild bleach solution before drying and bagging to prevent any rust on the seeds. I also wipe them with chlorox wipes too. I try to be extra cautious about controling any possible rust spores.

I am also seeing some kind of worm inside some of the flower before they even open. Their frass (poop) is the same color as the bloom. LOL! So another thing to combat! Sheesh! Growing MGs here in my area is sure a challenge! But I sure do love those blooms!! :-) :-)

Just an idea Becky. Save seed only from the plants LEAST affected. Maybe in a few generations you can build a stock of resistent plants!

lavendar4ever - Good idea, but probably wouldn't be very productive for me because I mainly grow I. nils which usually do not produce a large quantity of seeds. So I collect every seed I can find. Many of mine are the rarer Japanese MGs which I love to share for trades.

But you are right. Seems there should be some way to make them resistant to rust through grow-out generations! I sure wish!