Ignorance Isn't Bliss

[JBtheExplorer]

Ignorance isn't bliss. Last year, I noticed one of my black-eyed susans looking weird. And then another. And another. I probably should've looked it up immediately, but I ignored it. This year, all but one black-eyed susan came up looking ugly.

A similar story with my Common Milkweed. I noticed some that looked sick last year, but never looked into it. This year, they all looked bad. Plus, my Swamp Milkweed came up looking sick, too. I decided I needed to look into it.

Phytoplasma. Aster Yellows and Milkweed Yellows. No cure, and once you have it, leafhoppers can easily spread it to other plants in the same families. Any plant that has it has to be removed.


I wish I would've gotten ahead of the problem instead of letting it persist and spread. I had to remove ALL of those three species, and there is potential that it could have spread to other plants in my garden. I'm very nervous about my many Purple Coneflowers, which is an important nectar source in the summer. It's bad enough I lost much of my Monarch host plants.

Had I looked it up last year as soon as I noticed, I might have prevented it from spreading, or at least limited the spreading. Ignoring it was the easy thing to do at the time, but local wildlife just paid the price for my mistake, and it could get worse if more species show signs of infection.

All things said and done, I'm glad I found the problem. I was wondering why I was struggling with these species that should have no problem growing. If I can get ahead of this problem and get the phytoplasma out of my garden, the future will be bright, and now I know what to keep an eye out for in the future.

 

[alp]

For me, I don't really have a lot of problems with my plants. When I see people asking for suggestions for their curly and brown leaves and the names of the blights, I told myself, "Please don't come here and damage my plants!"

Yes, it's a good idea to be alert.

 

[Ian]

Ah, what a pain that is! I really hope you've managed to get rid of it all. At least now that you know what it is, you can act quickly if you see signs of it elsewhere.

When we first moved in to our house, the whole front garden seemed to be one basket of diseased plants - a year later we had to get rid of huge chunks to stop it from spreading. I've been keeping a watchful eye on it since, but it's been ok thankfully .

 

[Becky]

Sorry to hear that @JBtheExplorer As they say, hindsight is always 20/20. Don't beat yourself up about it though, at least you'll know if it starts to happen again in the future

 

[DirtMechanic]

Ignorance isn't bliss. Last year, I noticed one of my black-eyed susans looking weird. And then another. And another. I probably should've looked it up immediately, but I ignored it. This year, all but one black-eyed susan came up looking ugly.

A similar story with my Common Milkweed. I noticed some that looked sick last year, but never looked into it. This year, they all looked bad. Plus, my Swamp Milkweed came up looking sick, too. I decided I needed to look into it.

Phytoplasma. Aster Yellows and Milkweed Yellows. No cure, and once you have it, leafhoppers can easily spread it to other plants in the same families. Any plant that has it has to be removed.


I wish I would've gotten ahead of the problem instead of letting it persist and spread. I had to remove ALL of those three species, and there is potential that it could have spread to other plants in my garden. I'm very nervous about my many Purple Coneflowers, which is an important nectar source in the summer. It's bad enough I lost much of my Monarch host plants.

Had I looked it up last year as soon as I noticed, I might have prevented it from spreading, or at least limited the spreading. Ignoring it was the easy thing to do at the time, but local wildlife just paid the price for my mistake, and it could get worse if more species show signs of infection.

All things said and done, I'm glad I found the problem. I was wondering why I was struggling with these species that should have no problem growing. If I can get ahead of this problem and get the phytoplasma out of my garden, the future will be bright, and now I know what to keep an eye out for in the future.

I was particularly interested when you mentioned coneflower, as the essential oil from that plant popped up in some literature I was reading while chasing an early blight subject. Having such a inherently strong antiseptic by coneflower nature, I became curious as to what pathogen phytoplasma might be to attack coneflower and what is done to fend it off. I read on the wiki that it falls under candida, and thought uh-oh. I have heard Doctors cuss that name. Candida by definition cannot be grown out in petri dishes for testing and can be a form of yeast. It has also made me curious if it may be a form of archaea, the recently discovered third domain of life between bacteria and fauna.

Phytoplasma is described as a prokaryote, the word is also a definition of archaea.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea

I will enjoy learning more about it as it seems challenging and nasty. Rosarians and others use systemic antifungals, but some are motive more so than others which was something I was not aware of, and I would think it is important when chasing things which are small and often anaerobic.

I ran across this on the web and it specifically mentioned Alliette as a mobile systemic.

"Systemic fungicides, sometimes called “penetrants”, are absorbed into the plant and have the ability to move from the application site (similar to how blood moves through our bodies). The distance that systemics are able to move within the plant is dependent on the nature and type of fungicide used. Some systemic fungicides stay in the leaf tissue. Others have the ability to travel from the leaves to the root system, but not back up through the plant structure. Only a few systemic fungicides, like Aliette, can travel up and down freely within the plant. Some of the common systemic fungicides used in rose gardening are Aliette, Fertilome Liquid Systemic Fungicide, Monterey Fungi-Fighter, Rose Pride (Funginex) and Bonide Systemic Fungicide."

Perhaps this mobile fungicide idea will help. I read where tetracycline was tested to prevent aster yellowing, also a phytoplasma. When I looked into what tetracycline was, I found streptomyces. That was a good find, as those bacteria colonize not only the root but also the body of the plant. (actinovate, mycostop, streptomycin)

Scientists named phytoplasma as undescribed with the candidatus labeling. Here is the wiki. They call it a bacteria now, but I would not think of it that way after what I have read so far. I am off to find out if streptomyces can be systemic. I don't see why not, and that may solve your problem and mine, should it show up around here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidatus

 

[DirtMechanic]

This lengthy and exhaustive article covers the use of beneficial streptomicea and their colonization of internal plant organs. It was a little heavy for a holiday morning but worth the read.


https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/92/8/fiw119/2470069