Rusty Jack in the Pulpit

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rmh

New Member
I have some newly aquired Jack in the Pulpit plants from a local nursery. I had to keep them indoors awhile due to the terribly cold and wet spring here in NW Illinois. When I planted them, I noticed rust on the leaves. Now they look rather pathetic and bedraggled due to more wind and rain, rain, rain after planting them. My question is, will the rust harm the corms, or can I expect the plants to emerge OK next spring?
 

Dale

Super Moderator
Staff member
Hi and welcome to GardenForums. I did some research and couldn't find an answer to your problem. Hopefully someone else in the group will have an answer for you.
 

Crabbergirl

Super Moderator
Staff member
rmh,
Hi ,
sounds like a virus or fungus from watering the foliage. I'll do some checking when I get home from work. I have a guide to diseases and fungs.
By the way welcome glad you joined us.
 

rmh

New Member
Thanks for the welcome. I didn't expect a reply so soon. More rain where I live today. April was a total washout, and May is becoming just as bad. Poor farmers can't plant. I didn't see one field today without standing water. All the little creek beds and formerly dried up waterways are overflowing. I am frustrated, too. This is about the third year I've pretended to be a gardener. So I finally feel like I know a little something and am ready to get going. But it's too wet to dig in the dirt, even if by chance the sun is out. In my 53 years on this planet, I cannot recall any spring being this wet and miserable.
 

Randy

Super Moderator
Staff member
Our spring here (Newber, OR) has been long, cool, and wet also and I am late getting the necessary preparations made. But I shall perservere. Today was such a pretty day and I was not able to spend time in the garden. I did manage to go buy a posthole digger for my tractor though and that will make my berry patch project much easier.
 

Mainegal

Super Moderator
Staff member
Where are you located rmh?
I'm in southern maine and it's been wet this month so I'm behind, my garden is not tilled. Been working alot of overtime too so have not had much time. Worked today and working tomorrow which will be double time.
It's chilly here today, only in the 40's and damp and windy too. BRRRR
I did go get some tomato, cuke, summer squash plants and some petunias, snapdragons and impatients after work today.
BTW, welcome and hope to see you around more, lots of great knowledge among the members and lots of ideas on here.
I've never seen that, wondering if it's cause they were in the house? I have no clue, sorry
 

Spider_Lily

Active Member
Hi rmh I don't know the answer either.But just wanted to say hi and welcome.
We have had alot of rain here also.In fact it's raining out there now.hoping it will move out.Before it ruins my lilies.
 

myfedora

New Member
Ortho 3-1 Flower care controls rust on flowers. You can try that and see what happens or like mentioned above, ask where you bought it from what to do.
 

rmh

New Member
Thanks to all of you for your kind words and/or suggestions. Poor little plants. This week has been drier in NW Illlinois. But looks like more rain is in the forcast for Memorial Day weekend. You know you have had too much rain when ducks are swimming in the cornfields. That's right. Swimming. I work for a physician's office, so sometimes it is too late to work in the yard when I get home. So I end up being a weekend warrior. And with the rain and cold and soggy soil, my kitchen table still looks like a green house. But a friend at work gave me some wonderful compost. I may dig some big holes and fill with the compost and worry about breaking up clods of removed soil later. LOL.
 

treeman

Member
Welcome, rmh..... If it looks like rust, then it is probably one of the rust diseases, uslly exhibited on the underside of the leaf. The good news is that they rarely do a gre4at deal of harm to the plant, tho premature leaf loss is likely. Since your plants are so young, I'm not sure if that is going to be a problem as the roots may not have had sufficient time to resore energy used for leafing out. Is uspect they will be ok if planted in a suitable location. One of the interesting things about gardening is experimenting and learning what does well where in the garden.

Rust diseases are usually pretty host specific. There should be little chance that it will infect other plants in your garden, other than an alternate host. Typically the rust fungi require two different hosts to complete an 8 stage (sometimes more) life cycle. Part of the lifecycle is spent on one type of plant (i.e. Ariseama) then the rest of the life cycle requires another type of host plant. The key to control is breaking the lifecycle by removing one of hosts. Unfortunately I have no idea off the top of my head what the alternate host is for the Ariseama rust. You can research that on the web. The rust will likely look quite different on the two hosts. Dispersal is usually spores via the wind.

A more typical example of a rust cycle is the cedar-apple rust (apple and eastern red cedars as hosts) or cedar-crab appe rust. Another commonly encountered rust infects the leaves of blackberries.

You can't do anything about the weather, which probably encouraged the rust so hope for better spring weather next year. Not knowing the incidence of this problem in your area, its hard to tell if your plants were infected prior to purchase. Its possible but that may be good news too, in that the alternate host would have been in the nursery or garden center and not in you locale. Re-visit the nursery you got them from and see if their remaining inventory is infected.
 

Papa2mykids

New Member
Rust is an airborne fungaus that thrives when conditions are right, like to much rain, poor air circulationand foliage remains damp for long periods of time.

Yes, these spores are in the air we breathe.

Once any plant contacts a fungus, the best you can do is try to minimize the damage, you can't get rid of what is there.

The corm depends on this years foliage, and may be affected to some degree as far as energy goes for next year. Add another year or two of fungus and you will have problems.

Spores winter over on dead foliage and the earth, you may need to use a fungicide.

But it wont winter over on the corm itself.

Interesting thing about jacks.............. conditions and growth dictate if it will be a male or female from one year to the next.

If it is that wet, I would be more concerned about rot.

Ron

www.gardening-for-wildlife.com
 


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