Re: CULT: aspects of rot - long

Bill,

>For me
>cure rates run in the ten to twenty percent range with or without my
>intervention.

Surprisingly, the oxytetracyclene almost certainly worked on rot.  This
lends credence, I believe, to the agrimycin treatment mentioned here on the
list.  The ones I treated were so far gone I didn't even bother to clean the
rot away.  Probably 80-90% or more was pure mush.  Coating them with the
injectible antibiotic stopped all rot.  All of them still survive.  Whether
they have enough living tissue to really form a whole rhizome and fully
recover remains to be seen.  I doubt it, but several are growing at the
minute, there's just not too much left to grow.  There has been no further
evidence of the rot progressing or reoccurring.  The rotted matter, for the
most part, simply hardened.  On the really large areas, it stayed soft but
not as mushy.  It retained an unpleasant odor, but is not the same.  It
quite simply smells dead.  All the rot turned a shiny dark brown, whether it
was the interior soft area or the outer surface.

Where rot occurred this year has been entirely unpredictable.  I simply
cannot identify an familial link as to whether one will get it or not.
Arilbreds that are presumably quite susceptable have not fared any worse
than other beardeds.  Probably 50% of the new acquisitions last year are now
gone.  Rot in all probably accounted for about 15% or less.  Simply being
consumed in toto by grasshoppers accounted for some.  Some cooked in the
heat.  Some were eaten so continually and so often, they simply lost any
residual strength and gave up.  This last probably accounted for most of the
loss and, unfortunately, is still the scenario here.  The first of October
and I can't plant or expose any iris without it being chewed - some more
than others - but all severely.  So all this years' acquisitions are sitting
in pots and doing well there for the most part.  But I'm wondering if they
will have to wait until after the first frost for planting.

>Due to the grasshopper war posts, I began paying more attention to the
>varmints behavior. They rarely descend to ground level here while foraging.

Good observations.  The difference this year was the density of
grasshoppers.  Also, during the daytime they forage much lower than after
dark.  They are much less visible to their natural predators by staying
lower in the light.  Plus, with the increased density and continual feeding,
the upper part of the iris foliage was continually reduced to a lower level.
Fairly early in the season there weren't many iris fans above 4 inches in
height.  Though they continued, and are still trying, to grow, it has been
some time since they can produce new growth faster than it can be consumed.
So I'm looking a lot of iris plants and still don't know whether they will
be here next spring or not.  They do have plants they bother little or not
at all, but in my case those would be the lantana and achimenes.  They
don't, however, avoid crawling around and hiding in either.  Also, look now
and see if, as fall progresses, they stay lower.  They seem to do that here
the later in the season it gets.  Maybe because they are also laying eggs
for the crop next year.  I have holes by the trillions at the moment - in
just about any soil soft enough for them to manipulate.

It's not much of a war.  More of hunkering down under siege and hoping when
the siege is finally over, there is some percentage of survival.  There are
three TBs that for some reason the grasshoppers have bothered much less than
the rest.  HOLLYWOOD NIGHTS has escaped most of the damage.  It's odd to see
it sticking up around all the next door neighbors all eaten to nearly ground
level.  In another bed, LOS COYOTES and STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN have fared well.
In a bed of about 60-70 other clumps, they were chewed but still maintain
leaf fans near normal size.  Until last week, in yet still another bed with
another 60 or so, FREQUENT FLYER would also have made the list.  I guess the
'hoppers developed a taste for FF because since then it has been reduced to
nearly nothing like all its neighbors.  There are also a couple of seedlings
that seem to have fared better than their neighbors in the row of primarily
seedlings mixed with purchased cultivars.  I can't think of any plausible
reason why these haven't been eaten the same as everything else unless they
simply taste different.  Not much out of the quantity planted.

Redoing the one bed probably wasn't a really good idea.  In the end, only
three more recent additions were totally gone.  All were diminished to one
degree or another.  But planting them back in the reworked bed seems to have
simply made them attractive fresh food again.  Since the tops were pretty
much reduced to 2 inches or less, it took less than a day for the first
batch that got planted back in the bed to be reduced to ground level.  The
growing point of some rhizomes were eaten away.  Those that suffer that fate
will probably perish.  Irises, being the tough plants they are, will
probably manage to surprise me with a better survival rate than I think.
Bloom is going to be diminished for a season or more on the survivors
though.

There should have been more rot than I had.  VANITY, e.g., has been visibly
out of sight for several months.  It is not a naturally dormant plant here.
Yet when I dug into where it was supposed to be, I found rhizomes that
appeared strong.  No new increases had survived and the rhizomes obviously
hadn't grown, but there was no rot.  Yet they were underneath a soil cover
during a time when rain did occur.  Still no rot.  Why not, I wonder?  Other
clumps had a rhizome or two showing a bit of rot, but not extensive, some
had none showing.  Still, whether rot was evident or not, they clearly have
had a rough summer.

Donald Eaves
donald@eastland.net
Texas Zone 7b, USA




------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Sell a Home for Top $
http://us.click.yahoo.com/RrPZMC/jTmEAA/MVfIAA/2gGylB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index