That's an awesome full-summary of rust, thanks! I agree its best to take all survey information with a grain of salt, and with an eye toward _keeping_ all those that survey as rust-suseptible within the active gene pool (used for crosses, especially if one parent is believed to be resistant and might add strength), especially since it seems that rust does not usually destroy the plant. I also agree that the data is more helpful in regards to those that are reporting rust, rather than those who report 'resistant' so that is another variable to support the good practice of not eliminating a potential parent based on rust surveys, but only using survey data to possibly guide choices when/if there seems to be a common problem among offspring.
I'm thinking of fuchsias which also have rust and thrips, but also suffer now from burrowing mites (often devastates the plant). They've made real steps toward using survey data to cross in more resistance against the mites, and maybe that also could be of some use with rust and thrips, is such info were ever gathered...
Thanks so much for the Texas A&M link, I'd seen it referenced but had not found it!
It also looks like the daylily rust survey is ongoing, for anyone who can help by reporting or updating rust found on plants in their garden:
http://www.daylilyrust.org/survey.html (see ElizabeteRutens post below)
