Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 07:11:27 EST Sender: Daylily From: Patrick Stamile Subject: Re: winter and rust I am extrapolating upon comments made by Dr. Williams-Woodward and initial observations. Further research may not substantiate these protocols. In the deep South and gulf coast you may not have a cold enough winter to acheive the desired results. However if I were in the North and had rust in the garden, I would wait until there were a number of severe freezes so that all the dormants were safely underground. This was sometime between late December and mid January in NY. I would them cut back all the remaining mushy semievergreens and evergreen foliage to the ground. This in a large garden may have to be done with a rotary lawmower set on high, weedwacker set with a saw blade, a large serrated knife or a good pair of 10" Fiskar scissors (my choice). Collect and remove the foliage and compost after several months in a black plastic bag if you can't burn or bury. If you do nothing else this may be enough to eliminate rust from the garden even without spraying. An extra precaution might entail a spraying with Daconil afterward or Daconil mixed with Immunox. A number of things are happening here. First, we are assuming no Patrinia in the vicinity and the consequent formation of teleospores which would easily overwinter. Second, you are removing all the foliage that might have harbored rust over the winter. Third, you are doing it at a time when the rust spores possibly released from your cutting are least likely to germinate. It is unlikely but not proven that rust will not overwinter on dormant resting buds. By removing all the rust in the evergreens and semievergreens and by not having an overwintering spore phase you may just have eliminated it from the garden. By using Daconil you are inhibiting germination of any uridenial spores in the air should it turn warm. [Correction (MRH): teliospores form on Hemerocallis and are overwintering stages, but do not infect Hemerocallis or Patrinia. They germinate in the soil into basidia, which form basidiospores, which in turn can infect Patrinia. Two life stages later, aeciospores from Patrina can infect Hemerocallis. Rusts have an ungodly complicated life cycle. But the point still pertains, that the sexual life cycle on Patrinia contains important overwintering stages.]