Fw: CULT: aspects of rot - long/ souces



Margie's post providing a source for Terrachlor also referenced a webpage.  That webpage coincides with Linda's earlier post.  One item in the article caught my attention especially.  That is the one in reference to substances in some insects saliva that triggers the growth of protective chemicals for the plants benefit.  I wonder if my grasshoppers have a substance that suppresses the protective reaction.  I've wondered if this may be the case for some years now.  When they select and chew on a seedling, that seedling never seems to grow as well as its siblings and classmates.  This year I had a comparison.  At the same time I had grasshopper damage, hail damage and the supports for the shadecloth cover collapsed knocking all the top off the seedlings under the collapse.  So I had three kinds of damage that pretty much set the seedlings back to starting over with their fan growth.  The hail damaged seedlings and those damaged from the collapse recovered quickly and for the most part have grown normally.  Those taken down by the grasshoppers are still 'new seedling' size.  They appear healthy enough - good color and no sign of stress - but they haven't grown.  Sometimes there are seedlings that exhibit this kind of growth regardless, but those thoroughly eaten by grasshoppers exhibit it invariably and inevitably.  So, do the grasshoppers naturally select plants with the characteristic or do they poison or alter the growth hormones in some way with grasshopper tobacco?  Those this year have had months to recover under the shadecloth with no further munching, but though some have tiny fans with new leaves, they never get large - just remain perpetually in a miniature stage.  Since anytime a grasshopper really takes one down, even though it has reached 6 inches in height and the plants never seem to recover and grow, I think the grasshoppers do something that causes the inhibited growth.  I had one such seedling live three years - a TB bee pod seedling - and it never grew beyond a 2" height. This is the first year 

I've had other disasters happen to give me the comparison.  There are, of course, a few that simply didn't grow and look the same.  However, if a grasshopper really eats a seedling off, I can count on that seedling not growing.  If my observations were to prove correct, then it follows that the chewing is having some kind of negative effect on mature iris plants.  Perhaps not, but it seems the substance would still be at work just not quantitatively in amounts to give a discernable difference to the eye.

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




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