Rust Never Sleeps, Pedro Gets Up at Dawn

Those who have spent any time in the Toronto area during summer know that this region is famous for its high humidity. Even though the full extent of hot, sunny days, and humid, muggy nights haven’t arrived yet, the forecast for next week is temperatures in the thirties (Celsius) and night-time humidity going up to eighty percent.

Pedro is back, checking and double checking all the details of our growing different varieties of Hybrid Tea Roses in our three, custom-built glasshouses. One day last week I decided to leave him completely in charge of our Command Bunker to give me time to go into Toronto and do some shopping.

I got an emergency call on my cell just as I was digging into a low-calorie lunch at a Yorkville bistro. Pedro sounded really upset. He discovered some Rose Rust on our Blue Girl Roses. Needless to say, I skipped lunch and drove immediately back to Mississauga.

Blue Girl is a delicately beautiful lavender Rose (so far rose hybridizers have been unsuccessful in producing a truly blue rose). I knew that it was susceptible to Black Spot, but now it seems that it is also prone to Rust.

Caused by a number of species of the fungus Phragmidium, Rose Rust is widespread in the western United States, but it also makes the occasional appearance in the Midwest, as well as Canada (it now seems).

The first signs of Rose Rust are bright orange, powdery pustules on the underside of leaves. Eventually, yellow-to-orange-colored spots appear on the top side of leaves, thus accounting for the name of the disease.

Stems could also be affected, and so could sepals, if our plants were already in flower and had calyxes. As it is, they are still in the vegetative stage, so Pedro caught this fungal infection early enough, before it ruined our crop and made our cut-flowers unmarketable.

If the disease is left untreated, the reddish orange pustules will multiply on the leaves. These are reproductive structures called uredia, according to my research on Google. I punched up Rose Rust on my laptop in the car, and looked for it stuck in a jam on the 401.

Different cultivars of roses react differently to Rust. Some lose all their leaves just after one pustule, some go on producing flowers. Other may wilt in the middle of summer. Since cool, moist weather is necessary for the fungus to spread, during the hot, dry summer months there is little chance of it spreading.

I was breathless as I rushed into Glasshouse Number One to see the damage for myself. Pedro was removing the infected leaves and reprimanding the staff member who allowed the humidity in this greenhouse to rise above eighty percent during the night.

Even though we use Barricade and Scorpion Juice religiously, and we also spray with horticultural oil and baking soda during alternate weeks, somehow the high humidity allowed the fungus to grow during these hot, humid nights.

A de-humidifier should have kicked in during the escalation of humidity, but it was disconnected from the system. The staff member is question unplugged it to service it, then forgot to plug it back in.

It was a compendium of human error and Pedro unceremoniously dismissed the staff member from our employ. “He should have realized that the de-humidifier was not working just by glancing at the board in the Bunker,” said Pedro, still visibly upset.

“If I catch anyone else napping while they’re on duty, I’ll fire them faster than Donald Trump,” said my partner. He can’t stomach incompetence. “Should I spray with Protector?” he asked.

“Protector is primarily designed for Powdery Mildew,” I answered. “But it wouldn’t hurt to immunize our Blue Girl plants against that fungus also,” said I.

A few days later Pedro sprayed all our Roses with the horticultural oil and baking powder solution. “I don’t want to burn Sulphur just yet,” he said, “but if any more fungal infections crop up, I might have to.”

Since the Blue Girl plants were shocked by the invasion of this insidious fungus, Pedro decided to treat them with No Shock, which he had on hand for transplanting seedlings.

No Shock contains Vitamin B-1 (Thiamine Hydrochloride), Fulvic Acid, Mono Potassium Phosphate, and Urea. It is a well-proven product designed to aid plants in overcoming transplant shocks and other forms of stress. Fulvic Acid helps with nutrient circulation, so plants bounce back much faster with this treatment, than untreated plants.

How did the fungus get into our greenhouse in the first place? That is a very good question, and Pedro suspects the fired staff member of moonlighting at a rival greenhouse and bringing it in on his clothing.

As with other fungal infestations, removing all infected leaves is the first remedy. Make sure to clean up any fallen leaves or debris on the floor of the greenhouse. Also, if any pustules from on stems or canes, they must be pruned back to their healthy parts.

Burning sulphur leaves a sticky residue on plants and is not always effective. Feeding your Roses a healthy diet (ours consists of Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, Humic and Fulvic Acids, Organic B, Sensi Zym, as well as the root colonizers Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice) goes a long way toward making sure that they stay healthy and provide you with beautifully fragrant blooms.

Pedro also includes Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract in the nutrient mix of all three greenhouses. He swears that the auxins, gibberlins, and cytokinins that occur naturally in kelp help our Roses with root formation, cell division (growth), and nutrient distribution. These hormones are widely cited on the Internet as the secret weapons of expert horticulturalists.

Pedro also sprays all of our growing Rose plants with Colossal Bud Blast. He discovered in the Advanced Nutrients Advancedpedia that this product is a flower enhancer that can be used even during the vegetative stage of blooming plants.

Consisting of a base-tea extracted from seaweed, alfalfa, potassium phosphate, bat guano and azomite, Colossal Bud Blast also features 22 L-amino acids which are designed to intensify the growth of plant tissues. Azomite is a natural source of minerals and trace elements.

Pedro gets up at the crack of dawn and before any artificial light is turned on in the greenhouses, he goes around spraying both the topside and the underside of each leaf with Colossal Bud Blast.

For the best absorption of foliar nutrients, you must spray early in the day and turn off any HID illumination. During intense light, whether coming from the sun or high intensity lighting, the stomata of the leaves close up and the product is wasted.

The heat of the day also causes the liquid Colossal Bud Blast solution to dry out, increasing its salinity and leaving brown spots on our Rose leaves. Pedro avoids this by waking up early.

I’m really happy to have my partner back and we’ll be interviewing for some more reliable staff in order to avoid any mishaps in the future.