Re: CULT: first casualty
- To:
- Subject: Re: [iris-talk] CULT: first casualty
- From: C* M*
- Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 15:17:49 +1030
From: "Colleen Modra" <irises@senet.com.au>
Hi
I was expecting casulties of a different sort. Almost 6 inches of rain,
followed by hot weather (90sF) was sure to cause problems. However I've just
been digging a lot of stock and barely a trace of rot. Now the weather seems
to be cooling a bit it seems we might have escaped. Everything is looking
just huge with some fans having babies on their babies, if you know what I
mean.
Colleen Modra
South Australia.
-----Original Message-----
From: Gullo <tgf@frontiernet.net>
To: iris-talk@onelist.com <iris-talk@onelist.com>
Date: Tuesday, 7 March 2000 1:52
Subject: Re: [iris-talk] CULT: first casualty
>From: Gullo <tgf@frontiernet.net>
>
>Hi Jeff,
>
> Sorry to here about your casualties, it is always frustrating to lose
some
>of one's cherished plants. Might be an opportunity to see if any cultivars
or
>species managed to survive the onslaught, and perhaps might be more
resistant.
>Could be useful information for hybridizing purposes. I wondered if you
grow
>any rebloomers, and if so, how they fared this winter. I've been doing
some
>reading on salicylic acid ( aspirin ) and would suggest that trying some
might
>not be a bad idea to see if it helps control the Botrytis. I'm going to do
>some testing with aspirin this season and see how it effects overall plant
>health. Good luck to you and your irises.
>
>Michael Gullo
>West Walworth, New York, USA
>zone 6
>
>Jeff and Carolyn Walters wrote:
>
>> From: "Jeff and Carolyn Walters" <jcwalters@bridgernet.com>
>>
>> dkramb@badbear.com writes:
>>
>> << While doing spring cleanup in the gardens today, I found the first
iris
>> casualty of the year. >>
>>
>> The loss of any treasured denizen of the garden is a cause for distress,
>> but now that a semblance of spring has arrived here and the soil has
dried
>> out enough for me to get out into the garden and view the situation at
>> close hand, I find that the iris beds bear some resemblance to the
>> vegetable equivalent of the aftermath of Pickett's charge. The cause of
all
>> the slaughter is not canister shot and minie balls, but Botrytis, which
has
>> flourished to an unparalleled extent in the relatively mild weather we
have
>> endured this winter. Temperatures were 10 degrees or more above average
for
>> January and February, which brought them into the range at which Botrytis
>> is capable of active growth and meant that precipitation fell either as
>> rain or snow that melted with the repeated thawing periods to provide the
>> ample moisture at soil level needed to sustain that growth. The damage
has
>> been both more extensive and intensive than I have ever experienced
before
>> (and Botrytis here is the bane of the iris grower in the same sense that
>> borers and soft rot are where they prevail). I have found damage in
nearly
>> 30 clumps so far, including medians, which have not usually been affected
>> in the past, and the spread of the rot within the infected clumps is much
>> worse than usual since the fungus has been active for such a long time
>> (usually Botrytis is only active for a couple of weeks during the "big
>> thaw" at the end of winter). I was aware that I had an active Botrytis
>> problem earlier in the winter, and sprayed affected clumps that I could
>> reach with fungicide, but that does not seem to have been completely
>> effective in suppressing the futher growth of the fungus where it was
>> applied.
>>
>> The good news is that the dwarf bulbous irises (reticulata, danfordiae,
and
>> hybrid cultivars) sprang into bloom over the weekend, nearly a week
earlier
>> than they ever have before, so the iris parade is under weigh, even in
the
>> Zone 4/5 borderlands (admittedly after the equivalent of a Zone 7 winter)
>> at an elevation of 4800 feet!
>>
>> Jeff Walters in northern Utah (USDA Zone 4/5, Sunset Zone 2)
>> jcwalters@bridgernet.com
>> Where we are currently experiencing the attenuated effects of the storm
>> Dennis Bishop and Mike Sutton have already mentioned
>>
>>
>>
>> .
>>
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