caitlinsgarden not quite sure where you are located at but I am in central Iowa and I have had a horrible time with it this summer it started in early june right after bloom season and seemed to move through mine like wild fire. I thought I had a bad case of leaf spot so I went out one afternoon to start pulling all the dead leaves and clean up the berms and the whole plant pulled out of the ground with know roots intact they were shriveled, and this was a plant that just bloomed beautifully a few weeks previous I knew I had a problem then just didn't know what it was I had never even heard of Scorch before or never bothered to pay attention because we have never had any problems with plants.
I started emailing growers that I buy from asking if they have had it and if so what do you use to get rid of it and the only one that had any experience with it was Paul when they were in Oklahoma like Betty said what he told me was that if you have it, The scorch will never go away he called it the HIV of Iris and explained it is spread through Leaf Hoppers and Aphids they bite a plant hop to the next and so it goes on down the line. The only treatment is to heat the bulb to a temp that I don't think can be reached by just placing them in the sun. I walked around for a couple weeks stunned and in that time it destroyed over 100 of my plants so in about 6 weeks it wreaked havoc in my gardens.
I decided to pull and discard any plant that had it or had the symptoms of it and dig all my plants that were left and cut the foilage way back hoping I could get it stopped and save some of my favorites ,so far so good I think i have it beat for now.. but I think the sooner you get rid of whats affected the better I could of saved a lot of mine if I knew what it was from the beginning.I still don't know where it came from or what caused it Im guessing it is weather related from the warm winter it will also affect other plants besides Iris I had 3 daylillies and they showed the same signs and I thought I was going nuts but after reading up on them it will kill them as well and did quickly.
I tried experimenting with a clump I put the bulbs in a inch of water for a few days to see if they would re grow roots and they did but from what Paul said the plant will still have the Scorch it will just die a 2nd death and regrow new leaves with it and die again so I tossed them all except a few that I have sitting in the sun far away from the house, I am going to try and replant them at the end of August just to see if they can be cured and if they will grow back with out it but I will never get them close to my other plants, but I want to experiment with it and see if the sun will cure them. Here are a few pictures of what it looked like as it starts and then what it does to them in a matter of weeks. Good Luck I hope this helps
