Rust is a fungus that affects many species of plants, especially rose bushes. Once it manifests it is quite difficult to remove and produces an unfortunate aesthetic effect. Their preferred environment is humid. When the rains come, it proliferates at great speed but really manifests itself visibly after two months.
A first symptom that we can observe is the appearance of warts of different colors on our leaves. Then yellowish spots appear that turn brown, like the color of rust. The problem is not only aesthetic since it dries out the leaves, the fruits and the trunk, and can kill the plant. If you want to know how to combat rust, keep reading this article from Green Ecology.
Types of rust
There are many types of rust that we classify according to their visible color. Black, brown, yellow or orange are all the same disease and are spread by vegetables, fruit trees or ornamental plants.
As we said, the rose bush is its main victim, although geraniums, wallflowers, dogwoods, apple trees, tomatoes and a long etcetera also suffer from them. In the face of such widespread aggression, our measures have to be applied to the entire kindergarten.
How to avoid rust
Really the only way to avoid rust is prevention.
- First you have to remove and burn all those infected leaves from the previous year.
- We must treat our plants with mineral oil combined with fungicide, in order to eliminate the spores that were deposited before autumn.
- In this way and with treatments every 15 days for two months, we will reduce the possibility of the appearance of the disease.
It is important not to use infected plant waste in our compost as we will spread the pest in the future.
What happens to damaged parts
It must be remembered that the damaged parts of a plant with rust never recover, so we must remain attentive to the first symptoms. Rust’s best friends are high humidity and moderate temperatures, so nighttime watering should be eliminated when summer ends.
Regarding rain, we can do nothing, just have a good drainage system that prevents the formation of puddles.
If you want to read similar articles to Fighting rust, we recommend that you visit our Garden Care category.
