Mary Ann.. Sorry to hear that I didn't think your area got cold enough to have the same issues we are having. Would you take a few pictures of what your seeing and post it. Botrytis has a distinct look to it and has no smell at least not until the bulb is completely gone and most of the time with it the bulbs are soft and squishy although it fooled me last year I scraped it out and treated them like you would treat soft rot and thought I was OK until it rained and then realized I wasted my time.
Arlyn.. I had both the dried out winter kill look but it was only on plants that I put in the ground too late. The majority of the problem here is the main bulb has died over winter and the leaves pull off completely in your hand, exposing the bulb which has a dark brown or orange rot to it that turns into a mushy yellow color when left , depending on different stages of it there is no smell at first but with time the bulb will turn out and look similar to bacterial soft rot that normally would only occur only with humid conditions and heavy rainfall. Pageant is the only fungicide I have heard that will work to stop it, still not confirmed here yet though but I'm working with it the paperwork lists it as a preventive not a treatment so we will see what happens with it. I am experimenting to see if it will dry the main bulb up so I can leave it in the ground or if they need dug and treated? Won't know till after we get more rainfall. If you find something that does in fact work Please post it. There is so little info about Botrytis out there and for as bad as it is we need to find something to kill it or at least stop it from spreading to the increase of the plant without having to dig them all.
Last year it hit everything probably because of the record cold and no snowfall, This year it is still here but greatly reduced compared to what it was instead of the whole garden it is mostly in the brand new seedlings that have not gone through a winter yet and I expected to lose some over winter not everything is going to be hardy in Iowa
so I am taking notes on what varieties got hit the worst and I know what I can use this year in crosses. The named plants that got hit were mostly new additions from last year very few that survived the previous winter had any problems at all which is Awesome and leads me to believe that it was just a horrible winter.
