Re: CULT: incidence of rot
- Subject: Re: CULT: incidence of rot
- From: Linda Mann l*@volfirst.net
- Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 08:23:51 -0400
Based on what I see in my own garden, I view rot resistance as something
that some cultivars innately have more of than others (i.e., genetics),
but it's occurrance and lethality seems to be strongly dependent on
stress (of all different sorts, including oven cleaner??), age? or maybe
stage of growth?, nutritional status, previous insults, and who knows
what else.
So comparing across climates might give some general information IF
everybody had the same soil physical, chemical, and biological
characteristics (nutrients, structure, clay mineralogy, moisture
availability, worms, nematodes, etc), plus rhizomes of the same
age/stage of growth with the same growth history (acclimation
influence?), plus the same pests, plus the same degree of cultivation,
weeds, companion plants, etc etc....well, you get the idea.
I'd really like to know what is going on in the physiology and
morphology of cultivars that are generally rot prone vs those that are
usually resistant. I don't know much about plants & how they do things,
but I wonder about physical barriers of surface cells (leaves, rhizomes,
roots, everywhere) that are resistant to damage and/or bacterial
invasion
- do resistant cultivars (rc's) have thicker skins or are they better
able/quicker to repair stress related damage/deterioration?
- how do rc's allocate carbon that they fix in photosynthesis - do they
use more for roots, repairs, storage than non-rc's?
- do rc's spend less energy trying to repair the damage, cut their
losses, and work on keeping new increases uninfected (sure seems to be
true for some - mother rhizome turns to soup while increases grow like
mad)?
Wouldn't it be convenient if it turned out that something relatively
easy to quantify, like maybe cuticle thickness of leaves, were strongly
correlated with rot susceptibility?
More thoughts later, plus a reply to some offlist questions.
--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
Tennessee Whooping Crane Walkathon:
<http://www.whoopingcranesovertn.org>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
iris-talk/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
iris-photos/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>
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