Hi, everyone,
Thanks, Tina and Michele, for bringing up the topic of daylily rust! It’s important, though not enough attention has been paid to it recently on the various e-forums. (I did notice, in passing, that elsewhere AHS’s president Julie Covington did mention recently that AHS has a rust project in the works.)
Tina, unless you or someone else has experience to the contrary, I believe that the Daylilyrust.org Survey is no longer on-going; I tried again this evening and got the same error message as I did two+ months ago. I reported it then and from the responses I read, I don’t believe that anyone is collecting additional information. (“Internal Server Error A server error has occured while your survey response was being recorded. Please use your browser's back button and resubmit your survey. If this problem continues, please contact
[email protected] to report the problem.”)
Having said that, I find the current Rust Survey results extremely useful, especially if someone is seeking information about which parents and grandparents et al to avoid when making hybridizing decisions. (Of course, you do have to come up with a decision grid to determine how much of a threat any cultivar presents.) From my limited knowledge, I do tend to agree with Michele, though, that rust *resistance* only means that a daylily hasn’t been exposed to environmental conditions that might induce rust in the future. Even so, when comparing the survey’s results to anecdotal info (esp. on GardenWeb, but also from Oz participants of mydaylilies.com), there clearly are fairly widely used daylilies in the early-mid 2000’s that should be avoided in a cultivar’s immediate parentage.
Anyone who is hybridizing for rust resistance, should also consider signing up for Sue Bergeron’s Rust Forum (
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/g...). Although the forum isn’t very active now, the archives are filled with a *great* deal of useful information. It actually backs up what appears on the Rust Survey, as well as the anecdotal accounts on GardenWeb and elsewhere. I informally tracked a lot of this via an Excel file, and although some people participated in all three+ sources, there was enough input from the Rust forum participants who didn’t participate elsewhere to confirm initial conclusions about extreme rust susceptibility.
Wishing everyone a rust-free daylily season! : )
Elizabete
