CULT: rot in Milwaukee (was Re: ot-bio Rich Norts/Milwaukee)

Richard A. Northouse wrote:
> Well this year my faithful green companians are as fussy as the roses,
> dahlias, etc. Their leaves are getting brown spots, some get tiny,
> vertical  knife like cuts in the leaves, and then the leaves just pull
> out of the ground. The area where it breaks is moist, and appears to be
> rotting.
> What is wrong with my little buddies?
-----------------------------------------------
> Tom wrote>>
> 
> Sounds like bacterial soft rot. It's important to dig them up and
> discard any infected rhizomes. Sometimes, 
> 
> I gave my buddies an extra shot of fertilizer this year, plus it has
> been both very wet and very hot. It seems to be raining all the time.
> Perhaps the combination caused the problem??  They have grown much
> larger than other years which has caused some over crowding. I replanted
> them two years ago.

Sounds like a surefire receipe for rampant stinky soft rot to me - too
much nitrogen, too crowded, too much water and heat at the same time. 
This spring after bloom we had an unusually prolonged wet cool spell. 
Usually right after bloom season is when rot hits here bad, but it
normally also gets very hot then.  This year, I expected a fierce rot
outbreak because of all the late spring freeze damaged foliage,
especially with all the rain, but very little rot materialized until the
temperatures shot up many weeks later.

If you want to have only cultivars that are highly resistant to rot in
your growing conditions, don't dig and doctor them.   The ones that are
still there next year, will always be there regardless of rotten weather
(is that where that expression comes from?).  Hmm, on the other hand, if
you grow roses, a little bleach job won't seem like a big deal.

Linda Mann lmann@icx.net
east Tennessee USA
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