S. flava rhizome rotting...

From: Kong, Gary (gkong@mofo.com)
Date: Mon Jun 08 1998 - 17:37:19 PDT


Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 17:37:19 -0700
From: gkong@mofo.com (Kong, Gary)
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg1956$foo@default>
Subject: S. flava rhizome rotting...

Hi Everyone--

At the start of this current year's growing season, my clump of S. flava
began forming flower stalks (seven in all). In addition, numerous growth
points began sprouting out from everywhere. At first, this seemed like the
plant was doing quite well...until about a month ago, when one by one, the
flower stalks began to shrivel and harden. What was strange was that they
would remain green, and even now, snipped and lying in the trash, they're
still green. Finally, this last weekend, I uprooted the plant and began to
separate the living from the dead material. To my surprise, the roots
seemed quite healthy and the rhizome was all intact...until I actually began
cutting away the dead material. The rhizome, it seems, has rotted from the
inside and the roots and the leaves are the last to suffer. That means that
what may look like healthy material has already been infected and will
eventually join the rhizome in trash. I managed to save (I think) a couple
of healthy growth points, but am wondering how to treat these so the
infection doesn't spread. Also, upon cutting into one rhizome, I noticed
that the infection seems to start in the cambium layer, effectively halting
any xylem/phloem activity. BTW, there doesn't seem to be signs of gray mold
present, but the sphagnum top dressing was somewhat slimy. My questions:
 What's happening? How did it begin? How do I treat it? And will the rest
of my plant survive?

Gary

PS: I'm bummed, man.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:31:32 PST