Rutgers Cooperative Extension
A boxwood per day helps keep the doctors away! All of us here in the Plant Diagnostic Lab must be pretty healthy then–since the boxwood blight outbreak in 2013, we get a dose of dead boxwood almost every day.
Boxwood blight leaf lesions. Photo: Richard Buckley, Rutgers PDL
A sample diagnosed with take-all patch of creeping bentgrass was the highlight of the turfgrass submissions to the Plant Diagnostic Laboratory this week. This sample marks the first in the seasonal transition on golf courses from diseases common to late-winter and early-spring (snow molds/yellow patch) to the late-spring and early-summer problems (take-all/brown ring patch). Yes, it was an exciting day for the turfgrass pathologist!
Take-all patch on a plug of ‘L-93’ creeping bentgrass. Photo: Sabrina Tirpak, Rutgers PDL
Despite a winter we all want to forget, it never ends if you are a pathologist. Everywhere I look there is plant damage due to the extreme winter. Broad-leaved evergreens seemed to take it hard again this year, particularly some of the hybrid hollies. Frozen roots and heavy winds, along with the need to transpire on sunny winter days, left them in shambles. The injury was visible early and often.
Holly suffering from severe winter wind desiccation. Photo: Richard Buckley, Rutgers PDL
The Plant Diagnostic Laboratory is in recovery from SAD – not seasonal affective disorder – but sample affected disorder! Snow cover equals very few sample submissions, so with the exception of our talk show circuit, life in a plant diagnostic facility is pretty quiet in the winter. While it is certainly a pleasure to see everybody at the winter meetings, I would much rather sit in the lab looking at dead stuff than stand in front of everybody talking about it. Fortunately, as the weather improves from week to week, the samples are starting to roll in.
A modest start to the season. Sample submissions for April 14, 2015 in Rutgers Plant Diagnostic Laboratory. Photo: Richard Buckley, Rutgers PDL
Springtime 2014 seemed like it would go on forever. Temperatures remained cool for an extended period and we had plenty of moisture, which are the conditions that always result in shade tree leaf diseases. Here are a few we saw…
Ash rust, caused by Puccinia sparganioides. Photo: Sabrina Tirpak, Rutgers PDL
The mighty hosta is no super hero, but its nemesis Hosta virus X sure is. Hosta virus X (HVX) is a rather new disease of hosta that has become a regular visitor to the Plant Diagnostic Laboratory. We get samples of hosta with the disease once or twice every summer, usually from a nursery, and we just got this year’s supply.
Line patterns caused by Hosta Virus X. Photo: Sabrina Tirpak, Rutgers PDL
