Re: Re: CULT: cure for scorch

I'm not sure about how this method might cure scorch, but one can't argue
with results.  Having seen scorch only once or twice in the last 40 years,
I can't offer any personal observations, but it does seem that some of you
are experiencing a great deal more of it than usual.  Are you sure about
your diagnosis?  Stunted stalks and funny fans can be the result of
"pineappling", which comes from damage to the growing point, either by cold
or some sort of physical damage.  The meristem is so small that even a tiny
insect bite or aphid puncture at a crucial time can mess it up.

As for burying rhizomes, I know this works for increasing plants from old
"back bulbs."  Every leaf axil on a rhizome has a dormant bud, which is
normally suppressed by the hormones from the actively growing divisions and
by light.  Cut free from this influence and buried, many of these buds will
begin to grow.  I'm sure many of us have had the experience of missing bits
of rhizome in cleaning out an old bed, to have them reappear in subsequent
years.  I was talking with Ken Roberts about this at the R4 meeting last
week and he indicated that even in old beds given over to field grasses,
the iris keep emerging.  I have the problem in my Louisiana bed, where tiny
sprouts appear constantly--pull them up gently and a long, white "string"
can be seen to attach them to a tiny bit of old rhizome.

These irises are resilient things sometimes (and sometimes very tempermental!).

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@mail.hsc.edu>

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