Hi, I have only a few daylilies, but got some new ones from Michele (tink) last summer. They are doing fine but last fall some were certainly showing some signs of rust. I generally just kept the infected leaves trimmed off, and did not treat them. But I fear it's time to start a preventive program. I know I will be constantly battling this, what with our humid climate here, and every fungal spore known to man floating around.

Please may I have your best methods? What to use, how to apply, and how often?

Thanks

I've gone through the same thing and can't afford a gallon of the expensive treatment so here is what I've found also living in Florida:

I try not to water so late in the day that plants can't dry off.
The organic 3 in 1 sprays can work. I hold plants so under leaves can be sprayed too.

Right now I'm trying that "Green Magic" process and that is promising in controlling rust. You can get a gallon off Ebay for $20.
(Simple Green is not the same, it has to be "Green Magic") Use 4 oz per gallon for 1st spray and 2 oz per gallon each week after.
Rusty plants are cut back prior to 1st spray for effectiveness. I also use Green Magic in a spray bottle to hand spray under leaves of rusty ones.

Also (although I'm not a fan of the Bayer Company) the Bayer systemic fungus spray does work and I think that is about $16.95 per quart.

I have all my rusty plants in a "rusty row" single file for easier treatment. I try to buy only plants with a good rust rating although I have some well-known that were traded to me that have a rusty line, so I may not be using those in my crosses.

Nitrogen flames rust so using high N fertilizer may not be a good idea. Fertilizer with a high last number are better at retarding rust. I also use soil mineralization to make plants stronger. "Ocean Solutions" is good to use, but I don't like the high shipping charge; may break down in the near future and order some more since I've not found anything that really replaces it.

I've been told to soak new plants in Green Magic solution for 2 minutes upon receipt. Haven't tried that yet.
Rust here came INSIDE plants from a well known NC seller (Not Blue Ridge).
Plants I got from Tink were clean, but rust spores abound everywhere.
Wynn Daylilies uses some kind of $500 a gallon spray and plants I got from there have stayed clean. It also depends on how rust resistant plants are. I have plants here that have totally resisted rust thus far.

Thanks SO much Pat! Lots of good advice there. I do always water in the mornings, but nothing you can do about rain in the afternoon . . . the new starts are not in their permanent home yet, so I will space them for good air circulation, and treat them when I move them as well.

You're so right, some have it and some have none at all. Very surprising that they can breed in a resistance like that.

I'm not a fan of Bayer products either, but I do buy the 3-in-1 for my orchids, which are very susceptible to scale. A bottle has lasted me 3 years, so I sure don't use much. Probably I should use it on the daylilies before it expires.

I have never heard of the "Green Magic" treatment, any scientific studies to back up the claims the guy makes for it. Sounds like a snake oil salesman with a cure all solution. Any major daylily growers that actually recommends the product he claims they use? Why are they using 500 dollar a gal. products rotated with other expensive chemicals if the "Green Magic" stuff actually works?
I will be interested in knowing how it works in your garden. The frustrating thing is that two years ago I had a bad rust breakout on my daylilies so I sprayed and sprayed. If I had used sugar water at the start of 2014 I would have sworn sugar water killed rust, because I had no rust at all till very late in the fall on just a couple of plants. But nearly everyone in the area experienced the same thing! The weather has been so warm so far this year, I fear a really bad year for rust!

So a really cold winter last year reduced your rust problems, you think Larry? That's awesome, but as you say not dependable and well, down here we're never going to get enough cold weather to knock down the fungus, I think.

I'm striking out on the search for "Green Magic" anyway. So far I'm getting an organic beauty soap from the Philippines, a hydroponic plant food ($1600 for 2 gal. !! ) and other than that nothing you'd use on plants.

@Xenacrockett May I ask what the name of the organic 3 in 1 stuff is that you mention above?

It was being promoted on the lily auction site.
http://www.daylily.com/cgi-bin...

There's an article on daylily rust controls from the Daylily Journal available as a pdf here: http://www.daylilies.org/RustR...

For those thinking of using a detergent, a study on treatments for daylily rust included dish soap, the kind you get in your local supermarket, in their tests. You can read that study here (edited to add - skip to the pages numbered 51-52 and on if you don't want to read it all):
http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7Ethsi...

Great articles, Sue. Thanks! I use a soapy water spray solution on my veggies and citrus trees all the time. I'll try it on the daylilies, too.

Guess that's really what the Green Magic treatment is. It says it's a 'degreaser' so must be a detergent.

Seedfork said:I have never heard of the "Green Magic" treatment, any scientific studies to back up the claims the guy makes for it. Sounds like a snake oil salesman with a cure all solution. Any major daylily growers that actually recommends the product he claims they use? Why are they using 500 dollar a gal. products rotated with other expensive chemicals if the "Green Magic" stuff actually works?
I will be interested in knowing how it works in your garden. The frustrating thing is that two years ago I had a bad rust breakout on my daylilies so I sprayed and sprayed. If I had used sugar water at the start of 2014 I would have sworn sugar water killed rust, because I had no rust at all till very late in the fall on just a couple of plants. But nearly everyone in the area experienced the same thing! The weather has been so warm so far this year, I fear a really bad year for rust!

Just want to clarify that the folks using the $500 fungicide are NOT using Green Magic so far as I know.

All I can tell you is my own experience with it. I thought I'd try it and if it didn't work on daylilies I could use it to clean around the house so money wouldn't be wasted.

It is still to soon to tell if it will totally get rid of rust here although I've heard of a major producer having good luck with it. You'd have to talk to the product maker for names if available.

What it does here is dry the rust up. When I rub Kleenex on a leaf and get yellow rust spores, I spray with Green Magic and then check in a few days and the rust no longer rubs off. The plant tissue where the rust was does die and turn brown.. I just pull those leaves off. This stuff also seems to sort out leaf streak before it shows since after a spraying those streaked leaves will show when they didn't prior.

Some growers on Facebook daylily sites have used it and report good luck and have pictures to show. I'm still evaluating it. Thus far it seems to work as well as any other product that I could afford.

Elaine, "Safer" makes a 3 in 1 spray and I think a company called something like "Organicide" does too.

Remember too that rust thrives at certain temperature and humidity combinations.

When temps here get into the upper 80's rust dies back in the late Spring/early Summer.
Rust is not so bad in the Fall either since the humidity tends to be lower then.

So if you have rust bad in the Spring, it may die back in Summer heat.
I'm continuing spraying now to keep from a huge Spring outbreak that might mess up pod production.

We can only hope there might be a reprieve from the summer heat, right? The rest of the year it's probably ideal conditions for rust to spread.

At least I've been doing one thing right, getting rid of the affected leaves so hopefully a few million less spores flying around.

I wish they had done a more extended study using Dawn detergent, it seems to work in the short term but still, it could seriously damage the plants in the long term according to the report. I wonder the same thing about the Green Magic? I think maybe the same could be said of some of the expensive chemicals also though, don't know how long they have been tried on daylilies so I assume they base how safe they are on how they reacted on other plants they have been used on for longer periods of time.
The first year I noticed any rust I was very zealous with removing the leaves, (the only treatment I knew) it seems to me to actually stunt the growth of the plants, but then again it could have actually been the rust itself that did the stunting, or just a bad daylily year I suppose.
I did use Dawn detergent early in the year two years ago and it seemed to be working(reducing the amount of visible rust) , but I did not have much faith in it and switched to different fungicides, not sure they worked any better.

Rust seems to wear plants out.
Makes them look ugly too.

This is an old thread, but I am interested in it since I am in the area where rust is a constant problem. I first noticed rust on some of my plants in 2020. I had never heard of it and was fairly new to daylilies, so I had made my purchases without considering rust resistance. I sprayed the affected plants with fungicide but the rust came back this spring with a vengeance, affecting the same plants and several more in my back yard.

I consulted a friend who is more expert than I am, and she obtained and gave me the directions for the Green Magic treatment, so I purchased a bottle and followed the directions to a T. I cleared away and got rid of all mulch around the plants. I cut down all the affected plants including those nearby. I mixed the solution and sprayed all the plants along with the surrounding ground. I did the same thing for my next-door neighbor's Hyperions and NoIDs. She has about 50 plants, and they were all rusty. I don't know if it started in her yard or mine, probably mine since I had made purchases and brought new plants into the area.

The affected plants all seemed to recover quickly, putting out new growth. However, some of the plants haven't bloomed, or have bloomed much less, than in previous years. I have a feeling the Green Magic may be responsible for that, but I don't know. Some plants that got rusty last season (Frankly Scarlet and Little Business, for example) didn't come back. I still have a few Frankly Scarlets, but they aren't thriving. I may pull them. I wonder if the bed where they are is somehow permanently contaminated.

My neighbor's daylilies, although their bloom was reduced this spring, have not shown a speck of rust since the treatment, I am happy to say. (Crossing fingers)

My Joan Seniors were the most severely affected. I was heartbroken as they had been prolific spreaders and bloomers for me. They have seemed to come back fine after the treatment, but the foliage isn't nearly as gorgeous as it was formerly. I have been so paranoid about rust that I have been maybe a little overzealous about cutting off foliage with any yellowish spots at all (most of which is probably perfectly normal) since the treatment. I must say that unlike some of the other treated plants, the Joan Seniors have bloomed as much as ever this spring. They are still in full bloom right now. I am going to cut them back again in the fall and give them another treatment. I'll decide on their eventual fate next year.

I have ordered some new daylilies recently and intend to soak those in the Green Magic solution before potting and quarantining them.

I wanted to report on my experience with Green Magic.

Green Magic is said to be a cleaner-degreaser, I don't know if anyone has asked for the SDS to see what's actually in it. Years ago Ultra Dawn dish "soap" was shown in an actual scientific study to have some effectiveness for daylily rust but it's worth remembering that the actual rust fungus is inside the leaves, what you see on the surface are the spores, the reproductive units. While cleaning products may well kill external spores they are not likely to reach any fungus inside the leaf that has not yet sporulated. Edit, of course Ultra Dawn is not actually labeled for use as a pesticide, I don't think GM is either but it should say on the label. In general the strobilurin fungicides are the most effective for daylily rust and are systemic so reach into the leaf.

The last couple of years, I've been treating my remaining rusty daylilies with a biologic fungicide called Actinovate. In spring, I douse the plants with it, then once the weather is warmer I spray every two weeks. I also use it on my plumeria, cannas and regularly on my orchids.

I'm having fairly good results with this, and it's more or less affordable. You buy Actinovate as a powder, and mix with water. It's not cheap, but you don't use very much either. There is a caution that you shouldn't store it too long, as it loses potency the longer it is kept. So I buy the small envelopes of it off amazon, or Gardener's Supply.

To be honest, though I've reduced my daylilies down to the few that are so far rust resistant - Siloam Double Classic, Licorice Twister and Buttered Popcorn do very well and stay clean with no spraying. The rest of my daylilies have either petered out or I've taken them to Utah, where I make a garden at my daughter's house.

Now, I'm only planting new cultivars that are rust resistant.

I posted this earlier in the wrong thread: So I have copied it here where I meant to place in the first time.

Looking in the database here, the rust rating for Joan Senior does show it is prone to get rust.
Rust Resistance: Shows Susceptibility
Rust Resistance Decimal Score: 2.5
I have used Green Magic, but not consistently enough to give it a fair rating. I did not notice a drop off in the blooms.
Rust is so variable year to year in the garden, it is hard to know if a treatment is responsible for the reduction in rust or if it is just a year when rust is really bad, or a year when there is almost no rust.
I have tried some new chemicals this year and really thought they were doing a great job because I was seeing no rust in the garden. Then I visited some other gardens in the area to find that I had been using expensive chemicals and had no rust, but these other gardeners had sprayed nothing and also had NO RUST. Darn, I was so shocked when people with no rust informed me that they had not done anything for rust this year and I saw no rust at all in their gardens.
Edited to add:
What I used this year was Azoxystrobin actually Azoxy 2sc Select at 1/2 tsp per gal. mixed with chlorothalonil based on the study shown here. I read it was recommended to use a sticker with it so I did mix in a spreader sticker from tractor supply 1/2 tsp per gal, and added some Miracle Grow 1tbs. per gal.
https://apsjournals.apsnet.org...

Strange how different plants in different locations react to rust, BUTTERED POPCORN is very rust prone in my garden
some years.

For those who don't feel like wading through the entire report Azoxystrobin showed to very effective against rust when used as a foliar spray. But I have also been using it on new plants when they arrive as a root dip, then when the plants are potted up I have used the solution to pour into the pots as a drench.
Quote from the study:
"Azoxystrobin was also shown to significantly reduce disease severity for up to 9 weeks postapplication when used as a root dip and as a single soil drench treatment."