Stagonospora infection - collected threads

[Maggi Young]

Minor Scottish gripe here, chaps, ERNIE is a BRITISH scheme!!

[Alan_b]

Anyone else getting a lot of signs of stagonospora on the snowdrop leaves and flower buds this year? I'm getting loads, and lots of snowdrops not even appearing (presumed gone during the wet, wet summer). Lots of leaves coming up with red-brown 'scorched' tips and brown-red stained flower buds....

I have one or two plants with some unpleasant marks on the leaves but I have not noticed any problems with flower buds.  Do you have, or can you point us at, some pictures of what stagonospora looks like?

[KentGardener]

ERNIE = Electronic Random Number .... something.....something.

Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment

[KentGardener]

Here is a link to some pictures that Mark posted last year of stagonospora

Stagonora curtisii is a fungal infection. Symptoms are leaves, sheaths and bulbs with red streaks and spots. Leaves usually have a kink where the infection is/was. Flowers can abort in the spathe and turn grey. Two of the best collections were recently nearly wiped out.

________________________________________________________

John

[Brian Ellis]

Minor Scottish gripe here, chaps, ERNIE is a BRITISH scheme!!

Sorry Maggie, but you see I am not quite as nationalistic, to me England would mentally include Scotland, Wales and Ireland (My goodness dare I post this?).  I just can't see a difference, we all live in one country and if it is the UNITED kingdom I wouldn't mind if you regarded me as living in Southern Scotland...after all letters to the North used to be addressed to N.B as Northern Britain I believe. 

I will now duck under the flak that is coming my way

[Maggi Young]

I'm too flabbergasted for flak, Brian

[Maggi Young]

Here are Mark's photos of Stagonora curtisii affected plants:
click to enlarge

[Martin Baxendale]

Sorry Maggie, but you see I am not quite as nationalistic, to me England would mentally include Scotland, Wales and Ireland (My goodness dare I post this?).  I just can't see a difference, we all live in one country and if it is the UNITED kingdom I wouldn't mind if you regarded me as living in Southern Scotland...after all letters to the North used to be addressed to N.B as Northern Britain I believe. 

I will now duck under the flak that is coming my way

Oh My God! Brian, you do know they have all the nuclear-armed subs up there! Please stop provoking them!

[Anthony Darby]

Jings. Saying England when you mean Britain is a hanging offence in Scotland.

[Maggi Young]

you do know they have all the nuclear-armed subs up there

And vast quantities of toxic nuclear waste........

Saying England when you mean Britain is a hanging offence in Scotland

Which is letting them off to lightly, in my opinion.... especially the TV commentators 

[Alan_b]

Thanks to John and Maggi (and, of course, Mark) for the horror pics of stagonospora in action.  Is it treatable?  The only fungicide I have is a spray containing sulphur disolved in fatty acids.  I have used this a few times on snowdrop bulbs that have been eaten by insects in the hopes of protecting the exposed interior of the bulb before I replanted it. The sprayed bulbs have always survived without ill-effect but I have no idea if the spray had any positive action.

[Maggi Young]

Alan, have a look at this thread from the PBS wiwk... this post and others following it give useful advice... ot sure whixch systemic fungicides are currently permissable for use in the UK but it seems any is worth a go.. there is other advice for treating affected bulbs, too.
Well, that would have worked better if I had added the link in the first place! so, here it is :
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/pbs/2004-October/019797.html

[Martin Baxendale]

Unfortunately, the fungicides that help (Bavistin/carbendazim and benlate) are no longer sold for amateur gardeners to use in the UK. So unless you know a friendly professional gardener, nurseryman, landscape outfit or keeper of a bowling green (carbendazim is used as a fungicide on bowling greens) who can help, it's a problem. But at least now you know the fungicides that work on stagonospora and the other things that do for snowdrops (e.g. grey mould). I imagine there are ways (maybe internet, or the options already outlined).    carbendazim (Bavistin is one brand name for it) is said to ne best for control of stagonospora. Benlate was good for grey mould.

[ranunculus]

Three snowdrop pics from March 2003 that are as near as I have come to succumbing to this insane addiction....three images from a tiny churchyard in Shropshire, England that sent the pulses racing just a tiny bit.....

[Diane Whitehead]

Ah, that's the kind of churchyard I expected to find all over England
when I visited in snowdrop season.  I had been reading articles about
people finding interesting flowers among the thousands growing in old
churchyards.  I never found such a churchyard, though.  All the ones
I visited were growing only closely-mown grass.