Historic killer fungus?

Birks collection was wiped by Rust. At least that is what I remember him saying.

 

I thought we'd shaken that stereotype ...

 

We haven't. I keep hoping though.

 

I think it's the hippie's. Lot's of places for thing's to grow on them.

 

Sure, blame the hippies. I get so sick of that crap, I could scream.

Who has a clip, I need to unwind.

 

Clip? In my day we used a tube.

 

was that yesterday?

 

Nah. I'm an old man now. Remember? I have a stache.

Oh... and I'm pretty sure it was arrogance that killed Birk's plants.

 

A tube? For what?
Not an alligator clip or some hemostats?

Kids.

 

No. We weren't ghetto, MJ.

 

F*ck you.

 

It was too bad Birk lost his manuscript and photos for his last book. Incredible that five back-up positions would all fail at the same time. You don't see that every day.

 

Clips, hemostats, stache are we talking abut the same thing? I thought Lance was cool, like Jon and Forrest.

 

crunch in the end of a coke can punch a few holes - oh god i wonder what happened to my clips they had cool feathers and stuff..damn !

all the cool diseases start out here don'tcha know

 

I am exporting a lot of orchids to Europe, and have a large colelction myself, so I can speak about that.

There are some sicknesses that appears on some jungle plants or specific nurseries.

- The rust that Lance Birk describes fits perfectly well some colletotrichium I have seen in Thailand. It is definitely extremely difficult to eradicate, and sporulates like crazy, hence disseminates all around the greenhouses. 10 years ago, it was absolutely impossible to cure, and I have seen some nurseries wiped out in Thailand by that thing. Now, 1 shot of Azoxystrobin, and the problem is gone, because we have now chemicals powerful enough.

- In the various messes, pseudomonas cattleyae attacks many species, including many bulbos in Malaysia, where I was last week. Many people don't know how it looks like, always imagine bacterias to be a kind of sludge/slime, but that one makes a brown patch with a yellow halo. Unlike a fungus, whose symptoms are perfectly similar, pseudomonas, as a bacteria, will never do any spores or fruiting bodies. That one is hard to cure, and spreads quickly by the sciarid flies, water droplets, or even touching the leaves. The only cure is a course of antibiotics, not in use by the standard hobbyist or commercial nursery.

- Xanthomonas is to be found as well in quite a lot of orchid nurseries all over Asia, that one too is extremely difficult to cure.

Regarding those stories, there are diseases that can wipe out a complete collection. Sclerotium or Fusarium sporulating in a greenhouse, and you can dump 1/3 of all of your plants in the next 2 months. Stories like Lance Birk or Fred Hillerman are not casual, there are many, but some will never speak about it. De Wilg in the Netherlands lost to collectotrichium a few thousands paphiopedilum plants. And there are more...

Now, there are many new chemicals available, from the strobilurins fungicides to the famoxadone, and more, so what could have been an incurable deadly disease 10 years ago is merely a small problem now.

www.hark-orchideen.de has pictures of diseases, they can be of interest to anyone. Some pythium pictures would be diagnosed by sight as bacterial disease, and some bacterial diseases as sunburn. Yet, Hark diagnosed everything by PCR or microscope, so you can believe that the diseases are properly identified.

 

Excellent post, Sanderianum. After some looking, I found the actual page where the orchid disease information is found:

http://www.hark-orchideen.de/Pflanzenschutz/uebersicht.php?lang=en&navID=99

 

"Excellent post, Sanderianum." i concur Ed.

innane gibbering of drug-addled hippies i think someone needs a bong hit , besides ME

 

Sanderianum, are you familiar with the white fungus on sticks? I have one that has grown large enough to swallow Rhode Island! I can't seem to kill it with either Physan or Clearys, any suggetions?