Stagonospora infection - collected threads

[mark smyth]

Jennie the spiders web marks dont look like virus. Some named ones do have virus but it doesnt affect their vigour - Florence Baker and Augustus

Can you re-edit your bulb photos and concentrate on the bulbs. One has a deformed growing point and one looks like it is rotting. If you want to email me your full sized images and I'll edit them to show what's needed

[mark smyth]

My edits arent any better than yours. I am stumped as to what is making the tracks on some of your leaves

The bulbs of Robin Hood need a good soaking or strip everything back to clean white flesh. Soak them for maybe a day in a good fungicide.

The plicatus leaves are not happy.

[Paddy Tobin]

Jennie,

My thoughts re the Jeyes Fluid was to use it to drench the soil where bulbs were to be planted. This would equate to standing the bulbs in a solution for some time. And, yes, it certainly would be a dilute solution.

Paddy

[kentish_lass]

My head is spinning with all the snowdrop problems this year.  I had two tiny patches of Robin Hood - one got eaten and one has stag - glad it was not one of the most expensive ones.  I only noticed something was wrong because all of the flowers had fallen over for no reason, although they were not rotting at the base of the stem.  They are now in fungicide.

Thanks for your help Mark.  I have just checked my camera settings to find I was still on 2.5mega pixels from last summer which means all photos this year are small files 

All plants are going to get a spray with fungicide - my organic gardening will have to wait until later in the year 

Paddy - I got a Jeyes in a shake on powder form a couple of weeks ago - I wonder if the bulbs could be powdered with this or might it harm them?  Just a thought

Jennie

[Paddy Tobin]

Jennie,

I think the Jeyes powder might be too strong to apply directly to a bulb.

Paddy

[Sean Fox]

The leaf markings almost look like some kind of leaf miner damage Jennie, but must admit I've never had any problems with them myself before with snowdrops. Has anybody else?

[mark smyth]

gulp   

[daveyp1970]

Can i ask does Narcissus fly prefer plicatus,elwesii to nivalis or hybrids?,this may sound like a daft question so i apologise in advance.

[mark smyth]

Davey any Amarylidaceae

[johnw]

Mark - Does stag always exhibit such dramatic foliage effects above ground?  I have seen the very occassional reddish blotch on the foliage and these bulbs are quickly turfed.  In what stage of decay would the bulbs be when the foliage gets to this stage?  I may just be battling various rots here rather than stag, every year keep lightening the mix.

johnw  

[mark smyth]

John I'm assuming this is stag. I've removed the tips and drenched the soil around it

[johnw]

Mark

Amazing a snowdrop in such a state can send up a flower.  I have consistently failed with Mrs. Backhouse #12 and dug one up back in January that had a woobly shoot and flower.  The large bulb was completely rotten but I found a good part right in the centre the size of a match head with roots coming out through the rot. I doubt if it will survive the extensive surgery.

johnw

[snowdropman]

I doubt if it will survive the extensive surgery

John, I am constantly surprised at how resilient snowdrop bulbs are - after surgery, and drenching the bulb in a fungicide, did you pot it up in grit/sharp sand, rather than soil/mix, which both helps to reduce the chances of re-infection as well as encouraging root growth (and then drench the pot again a few weeks later)?

Of course, bulbs planted in this way will need to be given a liquid fertilizer to provide some nourishment.

[snowdropman]

Does stag always exhibit such dramatic foliage effects above ground?  I have seen the very occassional reddish blotch on the foliage and these bulbs are quickly turfed.  In what stage of decay would the bulbs be when the foliage gets to this stage?  

John, there are 4 main signs of stagno above ground viz

1. brown tips to the leaves
2. a kink in the leaf, which makes the leaf look deformed
3. red/brown blotching on the leaf
4. red/brown staining at the neck of the bulb

The last part of your question is more difficult to answer - there seems to be a lot of variability between different snowdrops. As others have mentioned elsewhere, 'Sophie North', for instance, can look absolutely immaculate above ground, but below ground it can be so far gone with stagonospora curtisii that it is not even worth trying to save - with other snowdrops almost the reverse can be true viz the visible symptoms above ground are an early warning sign that the plant has just been attacked and below ground there might be very little evidence as the infection has not yet spread to the bulb.

I think that this variability comes about because stagno spores can attack a snowdrop both through the air e.g. in a rainstorm the splash from an infected plant can land on a perfectly healthy plant, or spread by insects etc, and also below ground, through the soil, where spores of stagnospora curtisii first attach themselves to the outer scale of the bulb (they appear initially as a series of tiny brown bumps on the outer scale of what should be a clear white scale) and then these spores start to eat their way into the bulb.

[Martin Baxendale]

I have observed just what Chris described with 'Sophie North'. I think, given Sophie North's very, very thick leaves and thick flower segments, and reluctance with me to set seed despite hand-cross-pollination, and reluctance to produce pollen, that it may well be a triploid. As triploids tend to be strong growers, that may give it the strength to put up good leaves and flowers even while the bulbs are being killed by stag, so that you only realise there's a problem when the bulb is on its last legs. I find the same with 'Bertram Anderson', which is a triploid.