I noticed what appears to be a couple of Inflo's on my Plumeria today and when I went over to take a closer look something else caught my eye; Plumeria Rust!!%#@&!

I've never had this problem; I'd never even seen it before but after googling and doing some research I know it's Plumeria Rust. We've had a lot of rain, heat and humidity lately which is probably the cause. I need advice fast; my thinking is that I should de-leaf the entire plant and use some type of fungicide on it? I really hate to throw my one and only Plumeria tree in the trash. Help please, pretty much every leaf is covered in this awful stuff. I hate using chemicals; does anyone have suggestions on a natural fungicide that might work? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

That is dreaded rust, a spore. Looks unsightly and will cause the leaves to drop but not hurt the plant. There are fungicides you can spray on the plants to limit the spread. You can cut the infected leaves off and spray the unaffected. It is common in damp high humidity areas. Google plumeria rust and there are lots of remedies you can try.

hope this helps.

Robert

Thanks Robert!

And do NOT throw the plant away.... just cut off the ugly leaves; here in Florida we simply have to accept rust at this time of year. There is a theory that it may actually help the plant partially defoliate before the storm season so they are less likely to break in high winds....

Thanks y'all, I'm going out to remove and bag the leaves and then spray with neem or something.

Dutchlady1 said: And do NOT throw the plant away.... just cut off the ugly leaves; here in Florida we simply have to accept rust at this time of year. There is a theory that it may actually help the plant partially defoliate before the storm season so they are less likely to break in high winds....

Now that is interesting

Hmm, this is the first time I've ever seen it on a plumeria but I've only grown them for five or six years and always in containers. I only have this one Plumeria right now; gave @ a dozen away to former neighbors a couple of years ago. I will have to ask them if they've seen rust this year!

This is the year with a lot of rust infestation for me. So I've been giving my plumerias weekly haircut and bag the leaves. Per my observation, cutting off the infected leaves don't hurt my inflos or my plummies because they are still in growing season.

However, when it starts getting colder, removing the majority of leaves infected by rusts, forces the plant to go dormant.

I try not to, but sometimes a 'real' chemical is the answer. I've tried baking soda solution, and Neem but neither really has helped with the rust on the plumerias, cannas or my fig tree.

Last year I had the start of a bad bout of black plague on some of my orchids after TS Debbie rained on us for 3 days. Much surgery, re-potting and use of cinnamon (on the cuts and in the medium) later and I had most of it under control, but a little came back. Another orchid nut advised me not to fool around, get some good fungicide. She grows organic veggies for her catering business, so another anti-chemical person, but for this she says it is warranted. Her exact words were 'break out the big guns'.

Anyway, I have a small bottle of Physan 20. This year after all the rain the black spots began to appear again, and I went straight to using the Physan. It is diluted at 1tsp per gallon of water. It's widely used for sanitizing greenhouses and also as an algaecide. Once I got finished spraying the orchids, I had some left, and went out with it to spray the plumeria, cannas and the fig tree. (no figs present) I also sprayed the screen of the pool cage and the pavers around the orchids. It cleaned up the algae growth nicely.

So far, a miracle, I have seen no rust. The black plague has disappeared, too. So now I am asking myself if it is worse for the environment to use gallons of stuff that works marginally if at all, or to use 1tsp. of fungicide that does the trick.

Good info Elaine, thanks for sharing!