I just checked my bottle of Ultra Dawn, it is anti-bacterial.
I shall be out by daylight spraying

thank you Chaylse, may spray the one's I've already trimmed.

Speaking of Dawn I stopped at a lady's house and she was spraying the whole front of her house, lawn, and trees with Dawn water for Boxelder bugs. It did kill them almost instantly. BRIGHT IDEAL: try that on Japanese Beetle's.

I use dishwashing soap-water all the time on aphids! It really does a great job, though aphids also re-appear - from flying adults that can avoid the plants being sprayed and lay new eggs. They are always one step ahead of any eradication!

I hope your plants might do better with the amount of rust they would show in the future, if you use the mixture as a preventive spray! And, even though it can't cure or remove rust that is already there, it would be so interesting to hear about results in home gardens when it is applied twice, once just before your next rust season arrives, and then again two weeks later, as was done in the university experiments.

Linda - I would be reluctant to treat them with an anti-bacterial soap. It will kill the good bacteria in the soil that also aid plant growth and health. There is a regular Dawn or Joy soap without the antibacterial additive which I am going to try.

Something I've been thinking about .... all my daylilies were grown from seeds. All are unnamed seedlings. So where did my rust come from? No daylily plants were acquired that I can remember. I don't know any neighbors who grow daylilies. And the only ones I've seen around my community have been the landscape daylilies and I have not seen rust on any of their foliage. Hmmmm .... maybe I should try to scout for seeds from those landscape daylilies? If they are rust resistant, might be good genes to add to my hybridizing trials.

chickhill said:I just checked my bottle of Ultra Dawn, it is anti-bacterial.
I shall be out by daylight spraying

I was told NOT to use the anti-bacterial kind. I can't remember who said it but I was told to use the original Dawn or other dishwashing soap like Ajax (but Dawn was best) that was not anti-bacterial. It doesn't specify in the study if it was plain Ultra Dawn or anti-bacterial Ultra Dawn.

Here is a more recent study done in 2010 and 2011
http://apsjournals.apsnet.org/...

Thanks for linking the new study, Michele, which is of interest for those who use commercial fungicides in spraying programs. Like Sue mentioned, Dawn or other soaps have not been included in any of those more recent studies.

So, Becky, I am not the only one who gathers pollen and seed pods from some of the landscape daylilies in nearby parks? When we walk our dogs at a lake by our house we pass by the most gorgeous, tall, brilliant red daylilies. My DH knows now to wait up a bit when we get to it ... so I can grab some of its long, pollen-laden stamens, and then he kindly holds them for me until we get home.

All plants need good bacteria to help fix nitrogen in soil. As Michele says, the anti-bacterial Dawn will kill the good bacteria as well as the bad. It's best to not use it because it will get into the soil, adding just one more problem for the daylilies.

Great information to keep in mind! I'm glad everyone is in agreement about it.

Also important to remember, before discussion drifts too far away into trying to suppress rust ...

Suppressing rust does not eliminate rust that is growing unseen inside the plant - it can appear months later and survive like any other rust infection over winter under certain conditions.

Commercial and home hybridizers risk masking the true level of rust performance for cultivars that are exposed to suppressing treatments. Rust performance by new hybrid seedlings is likewise masked if they are not exposed to active, un-suppressed rust infestations.

There is one new industrial fungicide in the 2010/2011 article linked above that did perform well when used as a root dip prior to seedlings being transferred from growing pots to fields, for those who otherwise maintain season-long spraying programs. However, chemicals in the fungicide dip were found to leach into the soil, and both that and the practice of directly drenching the soil or field plants with fungicide were said to result in half-life residues that impact other life within the soil. Some discussion also focused on rust building up a resistance to the fungicides (the rust strains may have developed reduced sensitivity to the studied fungicides over time). I did not see any claim that the industrial fungicides cured or removed rust from daylilies, but simply suppressed spores from appearing on leaf surfaces for up to nine weeks.

Betja said:When my XYLOPHONE JAZZ got a terrible case of rust a couple of years ago and I couldn't get rid of it after several months, I remembered reading in one of the plant descriptions on the Floyd Cove website that Guy Pierce said anytime he sees rust on a plant he immediately cuts it to the ground, so that's what I did -- and it came back beautifully and I've never had rust on it since then, which I consider amazing!

Yes, this works, but I think cutting back is supposed to be done only once.
My plants also had scapes with big seed pods on them and I didn't want to cut those off just yet.

I think if I'd known how to ID rust, leaf streak, and spring sickness earlier, my plants would have been much better off.
Everything I knew about daylilies to this point was how "carefree" they were and my old plants certainly were.

tink3472 said:Ted Petit (now Greg Goff) is doing that type of line, resistant landscaping daylilies. He's had them out for awhile and you can find them in the AHS database (or here); they were actually out before they were registered. They are being sold in "big box" stores but not sure what areas and being marketed for landscaping. He wanted to come up with small, compact, landscaping daylilies that were resistant to rust.

Good to know. He's just a few miles from me.

Xenacrockett said:

Good to know. He's just a few miles from me.

I don't think that he has any at his garden as they are grown and marketed elsewhere.

http://www.gardendebut.com/ind...

They are called Enjoy 24/7™ “the no work plant collection”

We talked about this either last year or the year before but I can't find it, it may be in one of the Petit threads or a bloom thread.

The discussion thread from 2013 is here:

The thread "24/7 Daylilies" in Daylilies forum

But following links there, as well as by viewing the actual patent in the US patent office, it turns out that parentage of those daylilies is unknown, and there are no rust tests described or results noted to support the claim of rust resistance. The hybridizer, in blog posts, documents their full commercial fungicidal spray and dip program, which they elsewhere note will mask rust performance. Normally in a plant patent, if there were steps taken to asses plant health or performance, such as placing seedlings with non-spraying gardeners for observation, it would be noted in the description with results provided, but there are no indications that was done with the plants.

Plant patents only protect the sale and use of a particular cultivar - the patent office itself, and the assignment of a patent, does not make or infer any claim about resistance or rust performance. Since claims are not supported elsewhere in the patent through some type of documentation, a plant patent stands only as an account of the hybridizer's description, and not in any way a confirmation regarding performance. Again, preventive spraying to suppress the outward appearance of rust makes it impossible to directly observe a cultivar's actual performance, resistance, or susceptibility to rust.

There was actually another discussion besides the one you provided.

What Ted Petit does is he does not spray his plants while they are seedlings and lets them get rust to see which ones are more resistant. I would assume that somewhere along the way these were done the same way.

You would really have to email Greg or Ted for more info because there is more to it than what you find on the Internet. He explained it at our regional meeting but I was so busy with behind the scenes stuff I didn't get to listen to his whole presentation where he talked about these plants.

Thanks, Michele. I didn't mean to imply that I know the process he used for the particular cultivar. With people having in the past ascribed patents with verification, I was just connecting the dots back to the limitations of what can be known from a patent registration. That also applies to gathering more information to view patents in their larger picture (which certainly can include contacting the patent applicant when their description has made claim, but not provided information about the process used to produce the result noted about their specific invention application).

If anyone wants to follow up by sending email to seek and share information on how testing was set up, performed, and documented I think that would be awesome. It could even lead to publication documenting how commercial hybridizers might adopt similar programs.

Looks like some versions of the Enjoy 24/7 Daylilies are sold out.
Also says "PP23403 Plant propagation prohibited" ...does that mean you can't propagate/hybridize with them?
How would one stop a daylily itself from propagating?

Anyhow here's an easy to read rust control info:
http://www.petersonnursery.com...

Yes, a plant patent just protects the plant from other uses beyond purchase, and from being re-sold, or sold by anyone who is not licensed by the original seller. So, you really wouldn't want to use such plants to hybridize (could be construed as a type of infringement if it somehow negatively impacts their business?), and you cannot include it in any sale inventory. Sharing a patented item (fans or plants) is more of a grey area, as would be collecting pods that might form from self-pollination on the patented plant with or without assistance ... those thing might also be seen as infringement if done on a large scale or for some reason that would benefit the sharer or deprive the seller of assets they would otherwise have received.

That is true, Tina.

Jackson & Perkins had the same deal with some of their hedge roses. You had to sign a sheet that you wouldn't multiply them.

However, wait til China gets hold of anything. They don't seem to respect patents.

Patents or registrations, there seems to be those who will take "shortcuts" by using others' work as their own, no matter where in the world you spotlight (and, from what I hear, the practices are common enough in the US, too ...).

All the reason to question, and ask, when something seems off, or does not seem to be fully disclosed. There is nothing for anyone to lose when all is well, and only knowledge to gain, even if it may mean sometimes leaving off the pursuit of a particular thing if it is not adding up with sound resolution.

Tina, Pat, Michele, Sharon, Becky
What a nice group you all are w/ plenty of info and TIPS
Glad I didn't get up early enough to spray Ultra Dawn this morn. I do not want to kill my big earthworms. Will get regular Dawn.

Whew! That was close!