Hi Diagnosticians, 

A few Christmas tree growers in Upstate NY are having problems with Fir Broom Rust (Melampsorella) on their fraser firs.  This disease, with the disfiguration it causes on random branches, has lead to loss of hundred of trees that became unmarketable.   The main alternate hosts for this disease, chickweeds, have been controlled in the affected plantings about two years ago.  The disease still is presenting a problem for some growers.  One reference indicates that ferns may also be alternate hosts.  The growers have some naturalized ferns (hay scented and sensitive ferns) with no apparent symptoms in nearby hedge rows.       Not much has been written about this disease.  Does anybody have insights they could share.  Fungicides? Timing?

Thanks,

Brian

Brian Eshenaur
Cornell University Extension
New York State Integrated Pest Management Program
Internet:        http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu

249 Highland Avenue
Rochester NY 14620
p 585.461.1000 ext 240
f  585.442.7577

Content-Type: text/plain; name="CANIT-VOTING-LINKS-948903426-2332d04102cd.txt"
Content-Disposition: inline;
    filename="CANIT-VOTING-LINKS-948903426-2332d04102cd.txt"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: MIME-tools 5.420 (Entity 5.420)


--
BEGIN-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS
------------------------------------------------------

Teach CanIt if this mail (ID 948903426) is spam:
Spam:        https://antispam.osu.edu/b.php?i=948903426&m=2332d04102cd&c=s
Not spam:    https://antispam.osu.edu/b.php?i=948903426&m=2332d04102cd&c=n
Forget vote: https://antispam.osu.edu/b.php?i=948903426&m=2332d04102cd&c=f
------------------------------------------------------
END-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS

--