CULT: Rot--"Brown goo"

From: HIPSource@aol.com

In a message dated 1/12/99 12:48:41 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Starlord@QNET.COM writes:

<< Yesterday while checking and doing some repotting of iris, I
 found one that had a good number of new shoots coming out, but
 the main rhz was mushie. So I dug it up, some of the new shoots
 came off and i put them in the pot after I removed the soil and
 re-filled it with potting soil, I opened the rhz and found it was
 full of a brown slimie goo, but no smell to it. so i took off
 most of it and threw that away and used comet on the rest and
 repotted it. I found this odd as it had not been watered and
 we've only had a lite shower of little rain about a month ago. >>

Dennis, had hoped we would hear something about this from others but in lieu
of same I will tell you that I have seen this brown goo in older rhizomes and
I have come to the conclusion that that is either a nameless rot or a stage in
the natural disintegration of the older rhizome.  Different irises seem to
behave differently as they age and the increase gets larger. If they are not
lifted some rhizomes just keep elongating until they look like sausages. I
found one in a neglected clump that was over a foot long. Other irises tend to
loose the mother at some point. Sometimes one discovers just a husk, sometimes
a less than firm one, sometimes one that has broken down into what you have
described. I don't know if this is rot or not, but it does not smell, and in
my experience it does not spread. I've gotten to the point where I basically
ignore it unless it is on something pretty special or near something pretty
special. I'm on record as saying that I think there are nameless rots out
there, and at the risk of sounding like an idiot I'll also say that irises
are, after all, plants, and as such they will shed leaves and have little
episiodes of situational troubles with sun scald or freezing or whatever and
parts of them may die off naturally just as happens with other garden plants.
While we need to keep an eye on them we don't have to assume that everything
that happens is a dire calamity that reveals crummy cultural practices on or
part or crummy genes on the plant's part.  So, I don't know what the brown goo
is either, but it is clear that that rhizome is a goner, but I think it is
basically just one of those things.

If anyone else knows anything specific Dennis and I would like to hear it.

Anner Whitehead
HIPSource@aol.com  

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