Hi Guys sorry I meant to post this for Marilyn a couple days ago but have been enjoying our great weather here and getting the beds cleaned up and the dead leaves off the plants we have had a week in the 70's and the forecast is calling for almost 80 on Monday so I have been taking advantage of it
The plants have taken off and started growing with tulips and alliums popping out of the ground. I think spring is here
but this is Iowa and history tells me we will get another snow storm before May so I better enjoy it because we can be back in a deep freeze next week but this weather is Awesome and welcomed here.
This is what Winter Kill Botrytis looks like notice the grey/Black mold at the base of the plant where the leaves attach and stood out right away after the snow melted, it has a real distinctive look the plants I had affected with this were all planted late this year and I suspect this is why Although I have had this occur in the past it is nothing compared to the monster below.
This was my problem last year while not 100% sure it is Botrytis it sure seems to fit the description I wish there was more information on it out there, a few years ago when I had a bout with Scorch a friend sent me a small pamphlet from a DR. named R S Jackson that did a study and talked about what he called the worst fungus disease of Bearded Iris Botrytis Rhizome Rot, it basically says that at the time of his writing it had basically eliminated the commercial growing of Iris in certain areas of the US which I'm guessing is the Midwest while other areas of the country it is of little significance the pamphlet goes on to explain how difficult it is to detect and diagnosis it correctly and is commonly confused with Bacterial Soft Rot his thoughts was the infection normally occurs in the fall but the signs are not recognizable until spring after the damage has been done. He recommended spraying the plants on a bi-weekly program in the fall until the ground was frozen with a fungicide.
I battled this all last spring and tried spraying the Bleach's and Comet powder on the bulbs and a couple different Fungicides that I could buy at the box stores on it like Paul mentioned and nothing seemed to stop the rot what surprised me the most was I scraped it out like soft rot and the main bulb seemed to get hard and I thought great, got it beat and under control and then as soon as we got rain which was constant in the spring the bulb was soft and the rot returned again this is what was so frustrating because it started out just in the main bulb and over a couple months it spread to the increase as well so I lost the whole plant.
I finally figured out if I just cut out the rotted bulb it stopped spreading and I was able to save some of the increase or at least for most of them it worked until I had time to dig everything. I kept some infected bulbs of it around to experiment with and left some in Full Sun on the sidewalk for a month to see if it dried out in the heat and killed it and the rot was unfazed
. I ended up digging everything in the garden and removing the dirt around the Berms with a Bobcat and replacing with new soil so I knew it was know longer active in the soil here. This spring there are still some pockets of it here but nothing like last year out of 2000 seedlings planted last spring I might have had 50 with it I quickly cut out the rotted part and the increase has taken off. If I would have done this earlier last year probably would have saved a lot more.
I had another grower with experience with it recommend a fungicide called Pagent that has been successful in stopping it so going to experiment with it and another one called Terraclor 400 both claim on the label to be a preventive for Botrytis and Bulb Rot so we will see what happens and if either of them work will Update this.
