Daylily/hosta rust for those who have asked?

I sent this message to the daylily robin earlier today:


I apologize if this comes through with funky characters at the end of lines
but I cannot find where to turn off the mime function in AOL 6.0.  If someone
knows how -- please let me know!  But bare with it as the message below may
be important to you.

Yesterday, Dr. John McKemy, Director of the Mycology (fungus) Department at
the U.S. Department of Agriculture spoke to the National Capital Daylily Club
about the "new" (it has existed in China for hundreds of years) rust that has
been seen in 4 "deep" south states.  (First seen in Georgia, and now in 3
other states.)  The key points in his presentation are contained at the
National Plant Board series of pages that begin with the page on "Daylily
Pest Alert"  found at:    http://www.aphis.usda.gov/npb/daylily.html

They only additional information that he provided (and that shocked most in
attendance) was that there is one Florida nursery that is prohibited from
shipping daylilies out of the state and (here is the real scary part) the
state of Florida is considering a ban on all shipments of daylilies out of
Florida.  Hopefully David, or Patrick, can find out the status of this
action.  Dr. McKemy stated that the state of Florida was ("re")-inspecting
several nurseries before making their determination.

Another web site that has up to date information and is from the Florida
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Plant Industry is
located at:    http://doacs.state.fl.us/~pi/enpp/pathology/daylily-rust.html

This site has "good" pictures which can be used to help in identifying the
problem.   At that site it is stated:

"In some nurseries, the rust has been found on plant material, which arrived
recently from Costa Rica. Costa Rican plant material recently obtained from
brokers should be examined carefully. Until the extent of daylily rust
distribution is known in Florida and the southeastern US, stop sale orders
should be issued on the symptomatic plants."    
Apparently, the most current research that is being performed is being done
at the University of Georgia at Athens.  Dr. McKemy has promised to get me
the name of the person heading up the research efforts at Georgia.  It
appears that this fungus MAY be related to a fungus which has affected some
hosta, especially, H. 'Little Aurora'.

I apologize if this comes through with funky characters at the end of lines
but I cannot find where to turn off the mime function in AOL 6.0.

Dr. McKemy has promised to send me the PowerPoint presentation sometime next
week and I will pass it along to Jim Brennan to see if he can use it for the
Journal.



Kevin P. Walek
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