Re: Re: CULT: Undiluted Clorox

In a message dated 2/14/01 1:24:46 PM Mountain Standard Time, 
lilylvr@kansas.net writes:

<< The one time I had rot on a rhizome and tried to save it. I scraped it 
with my thumbnail and planted it with the effected part as far off the ground 
as possible letting it dry out. That was Edith Wolford. It worked. I also do 
not ever fill in dirt where there is a break in the rhizome until it has 
dried out and scabbed over for at least a month. I just leave a hole on that 
side until fall. Then I push soil under the sticking out part.
 Maybe that is why I do not have much trouble.
 Wendy >>

Another excellent example of WHY we should seek cultural advice from those 
who live nearby or at least garden under the same general conditions.  

In southern New Mexico, gardening on a mesa, the most effective treatment for 
rot in TBs is to scrape & apply Clorox in the evening and cover with dry sand 
the following morning.  That way, the rhizome has already developed a 
rudimentary callus that can solidify under the sand's protection and the 
rhizome itself is never exposed to the mid-day sun.  If that happens, it 
cooks.  [Yes, I followed the leave-it-exposed advice until I learned that it 
just doesn't work here -- and TBs are by far the most rot-prone types I've 
attempted to grow.]

Although our respective treatments would mean sure death in each other's 
locations, I think that taken together they identify the crucial factors for 
slow-growing cultivars:

1.  The rotted portion must be excised.
2.  The wound must be treated.
3.  A callus must form.
4.  The treated rhizome must be protected from causal factors.

Some cultivars, of course, increase rapidly enough to stay ahead of bacterial 
rot -- but for others the key difference is in the causal factors.

Heat & humidity, in combination, provide a favorable environment for 
bacterial rot in living rhizomes.  Excising the diseased portion and keeping 
the healthy part as dry as possible is not only the logical treatment, but 
apparently a quite effective one.

Excessive sun exposure, however, bakes rhizomes.  Ever planted a baked 
potato?  The very idea is ludicrous -- but a baked rhizome is just as viable! 
 Rot sets in because the tissue is already DEAD.  Prevention requires 
covering rhizomes with at least an inch of sand.  [If you aren't already 
familiar with the benefits of sand mulch, just try digging through it with 
your fingers and you'll quickly understand the temperature differential from 
surface through 1, 2, 3, & 4 inches of sand!]

Sharon McAllister

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