Michele, any remote chance you're thinking of the article Dips, Drenches and Foliar Applications of Fungicides for Management of Daylily Rust in the Daylily Journal of Summer 2011, pages 10 to 12? It has comparison tables and figures and included the nickel test?
Just to add to what I said earlier about its being theoretically possible to bring rust in on seeds, this is a seedling I was able to infect with rust by adding fresh daylily rust spores to seeds that were germinating on a damp kitchen paper towel. The pencil is to give an idea of the seedling's small size at the time a pustule became evident, my recollection is that this was three weeks after germination. There is one rust pustule on a leaf.
Under normal circumstances and normal germination practices this would be unlikely to happen because the spore/s would have to contact a leaf while still viable, but it does show that even germinating seedlings can be infected so it may not be impossible.
