Please stay on topic in this thread. Only add information or photos of semps that have been affected by disease or pest.
Here is a link that Beatrix posted on FB. Have any of you here in the U.S. dealt with this?
https://www.facebook.com/group...

Can't click the link, when I copy the url it says i don't have permission to view

I'm sorry Alex. I guess you have to me a member of that FB group. I'll see what I can do.

Is this about the bizarre fungus semps get in Germany? I saw some photos of elongating, spotted and gnarled leaves on the sempervivum-liste.de that were a little disturbing, never seen anything like that in my backyard thankfully.

Alex, see if this link works for you. @sedumzz
https://www.facebook.com/group...

Yes Sol, we probably read the same post by Beatrix. Hopefully this new link will work. I think a person can see/read the post, but can't comment on it unless they are a member of the group.

I have sent a request to join. Hopefully that works out

Ok, now that I see what this is, I have done some research:

Bad news (sort of bad news, anyways):
1. This spreads by spores, but takes STAGES. spermogonia and aecia are the two stages. From
If you see this, discard the plant immediately!!!!!!!!! I think spermogonia is the budding/fruiting process and aecia is when it is growing.

2. This fungus mainly buds and fruits at autumn and winter.

3. It can affect/infect pretty much all of Crassulaceae so if it's infected, quarantine all nearby plants in a place SUPER away from any of your other succulent friends such as Echeveria or Crassula.

4. Too many plants to check??? This fungus mainly attacks: Sempervivum arachnoideum, calcareum, montanum, tectorum, wulfenii and rollers.

5. Apparently only leaves in early summer are affected. I don't know why though.

5. Mainly in Serbia and Romania and Italy. Or just mainly Europe right now.

6. This fungus WILL and CAN kill your Sempervivum.

7. According to researchgate.net, symptoms include "deformation or withering of the rosette, slightly protruding pustules (sori) covered with epidermal cells, and elongation of leaves". Basically:
- Withering rosettes, aka. rosettes dieing for no apparent reason
- Bumps that look like cones or just overall bumps.
- Weird elongated leaves that don't look natural (Aka. other plants in similar area don't have this problem)

8. This is a pathogen… yea…

9. It's spores are bright orangish or rusty red. Sometimes golden.

Good news:
Easy to detect - Weird cones? Bright colored mini-volcano looking things? Weird elongation?
Fungicide MAY work!
Is not a widespread pandemic YET.

Please keep an eye on the sempervivum!!!!! I dont want anyone to have a big infection!!!!1111!!1!!11

Websites:
https://bladmineerders.nl/para...
https://www.researchgate.net/p...

Im going to keep digging later when I have time

Maybe just as well we have no semps coming from Europe right now. Something we don't want to bring over here. Seeds would be safe.

We can enjoy our closed borders for SOMETHING now.

Kevin

I was thinking that same thing.

Absolutely GREAT research Alex. Way to go.

Yes Great Research. Thanks Alex.
I guess we are on our own now.. Just as well I hate to think of what WSDA would do if something like that got loose here.

It would be disastrous if that got over here, this pathogen attacks pretty much all of crassulucae!

I was aware of the Serbian study for a while, because it mentioned Domogled, Romania, which is actually quite a touristic location. I am surprised it was not discussed here before.
Weather this fungus is all over Romania is questionable.
I could say some stuff I have received from Germany is highly questionable.

While looking online tonight, I found something interesting about our fungus. According to this abstract, a couple cases have been found in Ontario and some north eastern states. The worst part is this article is from 2016.

" Epiphytotic development of the rust fungus Endophyllum sempervivi was recorded in May 2016 in the cemetery of Borzova village (Volhynian Region, Ukraine) on Jovibarba globifera, a host species and genus new for Ukraine. In northern Europe (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK), USA (northeastern states) and Canada (Ontario) E. sempervivi occurs beyond the area of natural distribution of Sempervivum and Jovibarba; however, it is apparently absent in Morocco, Spain south of the Pyrenees, Italy south of the Alps and in west Asia (the Caucasus) despite the presence of indigenous species of Sempervivum. A list of all localities in which E. sempervivi was recorded in Ukraine is provided. The article is illustrated by micrographs obtained by scanning electron microscopy."

Oh no. That is scary.

Thank you Nathaniel for the great information. It seems it may be more wide spread than I thought.

While this is not my photo, I do have some cultivars, that seems to get these mushy leaves pretty much consistently, one at a time gets mushy and often it can be a random leaf, like it would be skipping a row, I mean not necessarily the adjacent leaf, which this last fact rather fascinated me.

Can we identify the exact pathogen here?

Does anyone have this mushing issue? It's not a winter thing, I have seen it even several days ago.

Now I wonder if I should completely discard those rosettes, which of course means I would completely lose certain cultivars, yet I am not sure if there is a limit to this issue, I remember seeing this mushiness in many cultivars, but I did not gave it that much attention.

If I recall correctly "Othello" stopped getting mushy after some systemic fungicide (we have a wide amount of chemicals here), yet "Amaranth" seems to consistently have this issue, even after getting sprayed.
I will have to keep an eye on this more. yet I do not really have the time to watch these details exactly.

I have already tried removing weak cultivars that cannot pass the winter due to general rot, like 'Proud Zelda'
Unfortunately in the Sempervivum world we do not rate the cultivars for resistance against a particular pathogen like in the rose world, where we can say a certain cultivar is susceptible to black spot, powdery mildew, rust and etc.
Just because someone never had a problem with a cultivar doesn't mean someone else can't a ha problem with that exact cultivar, at least this can be the case with other plant species.
Or maybe the weakness to certain pathogens is beyond cultivar rating and selection in Sempervivum.



Photo from sempervivum-liste.de

Hmmm, the stem isn't rotten?
I thin the problem might be that water droplets get into the cracks of the leaves,w hich could cause rot, and/or creating fungal issues.

It might be some kinda mold

sedumzz said:Hmmm, the stem isn't rotten?

Actually for 'Amaranth' their even stayed several days outside any substrate and I have still seen them develop this random leaf one at the time mushiness.

Maybe the pathogen entered and continues to stay (like with Botrytis for example), but to answer you direct question about the stem, several rosettes in different pots had no rotten stems or roots.
Actually I cannot recall seeing stem or root rot like for example I know I had seen with Hylotelephium in other areas of the property.

I could be a mold indeed, surely many over the winter leaves in the spring and summer are gathered at the base of the stem beneath the thick succulent new leaves and those are just spraying with white spores when I pluck them, so I am as careful as I can without setting up a laboratory level of sanitation.
I have tried this year to use an agent good (Chinosol) against Botrytis on the stems where I have plucked the leaves, in an attempt to not throw away all the sempervivum.
Chinosol as 8-hydroxyquinoline sulfate.
But it is probably not going to be effective for reinfections as it is only to disinfect the area on contact.

But this is not exactly the mush random leaf issue that I am talking about.
Yet it might be the same pathogen since the same pathogen can express slightly different at different times, even Botrytis for example.

Now could Botrytis be the one affecting the Sempervivum?
A small magnolia tree which was around my Sempervivum plants seemed to have Botrytis for years, but I did not studied this subject until this year, but there you could see either the buds die, either the flowers blacken or get the green smargd mold (yes not grey as one would expect from Botrytis infections already seen in other parts of the plant)
This tree I have sprayed this year a couple of months ago and so far it has not expressed the pathogen so to speak, yet it barely had 5 flowers, which tells the pathogen still affected the Magnolia, yet not in the flamboyant style it usually did, where it the plant looks like something from the trash bin.
I asked the people who planted it to remove it, but you know how that does, usually people won't pull out what they planted themselves.


I wish guys on sempervivum-liste would go deeper into this issue, somewhat seems a bit brushed off now as some "mushy leaf" issue. I think a lot of importance should be given to pathogens.

I have to say it was not 'Amaranth' the Sempervivum that currently is on a random mushy leaf issues, but Sempervivum 'Seeröschen'.