RE: CULT: aspects of rot - long/ souces

Donald,
	Your talk about things that cause a plant to release protective chemicals
rings a bell.  Seems like I remember reading somewhere about either an
aspirin dissolved in water or powdered milk triggered this.  Have I lost my
mind or does anyone else share these delusions?

Dana Brown
Malevil Iris Gardens
Pres. South Plains Iris Society
Region 17, Judges Training Chair
AIS, MIS, ASI, RIS, TBIS
Lubbock, TX  79403
Zone 7 USDA, Zone 10 Sunset
d*@malevil-iris.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Donald Eaves [d*@eastland.net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 9:12 PM
To: iris-talk
Subject: Fw: [iris-talk] 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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