I'm very new to daylilies. I'm in zone 8b (Dallas). I purchased 8 dayliles from the local society at a sale and they all have rust. None of my other ones have it.

I'm wondering what the best course of action to take is or is it better to just pitch them ?

Thank you in advance for your advice

I am in zone 8B and it took me a while to realize just how big a problem rust is in our zone. I started off buying the highest rated rust resistant plants I could find, based on the limited information I could find on rust resistance. I have found in my area even the highest rated rust resistant plants often have rust, just not to the extent the more susceptible plants show it. You will learn that the weather and time of year have a lot to do with how prevalent rust is in your garden. Early spring and fall are the worst times for rust for zone 8B. Once the temperature raises in the summer rust seems to pretty much reduce the degree it is apparent in my garden.
But, what course of action should you take now? There are several options, cut back the foliage to just above the crown, spray with chemicals to block the rust, or a combination of the two, and lastly do nothing. You should isolate the new plants until you get the rust under control, then you can space them out among the other plants.

Any reccomendation on best chemicals to use? I've seen a wide variety mentioned, but not sure what works the best.

Seedfork said:I am in zone 8B and it took me a while to realize just how big a problem rust is in our zone. I started off buying the highest rated rust resistant plants I could find, based on the limited information I could find on rust resistance. I have found in my area even the highest rated rust resistant plants often have rust, just not to the extent the more susceptible plants show it. You will learn that the weather and time of year have a lot to do with how prevalent rust is in your garden. Early spring and fall are the worst times for rust for zone 8B. Once the temperature raises in the summer rust seems to pretty much reduce the degree it is apparent in my garden.
But, what course of action should you take now? There are several options, cut back the foliage to just above the crown, spray with chemicals to block the rust, or a combination of the two, and lastly do nothing. You should isolate the new plants until you get the rust under control, then you can space them out among the other plants.

Jason,
As much as I have read, as many people as I have listened to, as many different things I have tried, I have not found (in my experience) s specific chemical I would actually recommend. Most all of the treatments have worked to some degree, but nothing I have used has worked as good as I would like. I will say tops on my list to try is Azoxy 2SC Select Fungicide, active Ingredient: Azoxystrobin 22.9%.
The reason I have not tried a lot of the more effective (according to what I read) products has been the expense. Azoxy 2SC Select Fungicide is $124.99 a pint, the cheapest I have found it (if anyone has found it cheaper please let us know). Now this amount even in a pint size is more than I would use personally in years, and that is the problem. I feel after just a couple of years the product would began to lose it's strength. If it would stay effective for five or more years it would be worth it to me.
I have had decent results from the "contact" products, but not so much success with the systemic products. I say that because I had to spray more on a 7 to 10 day spray schedule with them, when I wanted to be more on a 15 day or more spray schedule.

Great, thank you!!!

Seedfork said:Jason,
As much as I have read, as many people as I have listened to, as many different things I have tried, I have not found (in my experience) s specific chemical I would actually recommend. Most all of the treatments have worked to some degree, but nothing I have used has worked as good as I would like. I will say tops on my list to try is Azoxy 2SC Select Fungicide, active Ingredient: Azoxystrobin 22.9%.
The reason I have not tried a lot of the more effective (according to what I read) products has been the expense. Azoxy 2SC Select Fungicide is $124.99 a pint, the cheapest I have found it (if anyone has found it cheaper please let us know). Now this amount even in a pint size is more than I would use personally in years, and that is the problem. I feel after just a couple of years the product would began to lose it's strength. If it would stay effective for five or more years it would be worth it to me.
I have had decent results from the "contact" products, but not so much success with the systemic products. I say that because I had to spray more on a 7 to 10 day spray schedule with them, when I wanted to be more on a 15 day or more spray schedule.

I have no knowledge of Azoxy SC Select so I looked it up and found it at a company called Pestrong for $102.75 a pint. What is the ratio of the product to a gallon of water? We use a 13 gallon Mantis Sprayer and right now the rust is really coming on because of the perfect weather conditions, warm and wet. I'm not sure of the benefit of spraying now because the weather is supposed to turn much cooler and drier, but I would like to know more about this for I am sure we will have to spray next year, unless we get lucky and have a very cold winter--good luck with that!!

The more I read the more I became confused, so maybe Azoxy SC Select, is not recommended for daylilies.
I did however find this :
http://www.mountainviewturf.co...
NOTE TO USER:
The DIRECTIONS FOR USE for this product for the uses described below were developed by
persons other than Syngenta Crop Protection Canada, Inc. and accepted for registration by Health
Canada under the User Requested Minor Use Label Expansion program. Syngenta Crop Protection
Canada, Inc. itself makes no representation or warranty with respect to performance (efficacy)
and/or crop tolerance (phytotoxicity) claims for this product when used on the crops listed below.
Accordingly, the Buyer assumes all liability arising, and agrees to hold Syngenta Crop Protection
Canada, Inc. harmless from any claims based on efficacy and/or phytotoxicity in connection with the
uses described below.
DAYLILIES
Target Disease: Puccinia hemerocallidis (Daylily Rust)
Product Rate:0.282 kg/ha, (0.3 g/L)
Water Volume(L/ha): 940
Application Interval (days): 14-28
Remarks:
Apply as a broadcast spray to
foliage, prior to disease
development and continue
throughout the season at the
14 – 28 days interval following
resistant management
guidelines.
The problem I seem to have is there appears to me their are more than one formulation for Heritage and all types of mixtures of Azoxystrobin.
This mixture of Heritage appears to be:
GUARANTEE: Azoxystrobin ..........................................................500 g/Kg
Maybe someone smarter than me can give better information I am having trouble figuring it out.

Sorry, I had to edit because the format did not print correctly.

Anyone familiar with my story of rust one year knows my response..... Pitch the rusty ones now! Your winters are not cold enough or long enough to kill rust, so even after winter comes and goes, there is a distinct possibility that rust will rear it's ugly head in late spring and infest your other currently clean daylilies.......That's what I did the one year I had it. In full bloom, brand new costly daylilies were given the heave ho. It hurt me like the dickens at the time but all these years since I've had a clean garden without the labor or the expense of spraying daylilies ( I have roses for that) ......Here's a few tips to keep your garden rust free after you get rid of the rusty offenders: Buy only from rust free gardens. ASK if they are rust FREE, don't assume. Buy in early spring before any new imports the nursery might bring in can spread rust to their existent stock. If they are northern vendors (where winters can kill rust spores) make sure they don't use a greenhouse over winter to store their daylilies. Then pray your neighbors do the same as rust has wings in your climate..............Maryl

You can pitch till the cows come home down in here the south, but rust will always find you. I dont get to whipped up about it, have tried so many things, just grateful it isnt deer. It wont kill your plants.

LOL Pam on pitching. I can't speak for those in warmer zones then mine. The rust has to come from somewhere, so if your garden is clean to begin with, it would be a mystery to me where it was coming from. Maybe other daylily gardeners, or wild daylilies? By the Grace of God, I've kept mine clean now for over 5 years by adhering to my buying practices. It's not a perfect system of course, but so far so good. .........The deer I think would be the absolute worst. They eat almost everything....................Maryl

So I ended up cutting down five dayliles and leaving five daylilies and then applying the spray below to both groups. Within one week, the rust was almost gone and within two weeks it was completely gone. I paid around $100 for it. I used barely any.

Then a week later, one other daylily just started to get it, I sprayed it and it was gone in a week or less.

Obviously it would be more economical if you bought this with a group. For me, in zone 8A, it worked great. There are other strategies you could use. This was one option. As always, do what's best for you in your situation.

@JasonT,
Do you know exactly how much you mixed with a gal. of water?

Seedfork said:@JasonT,
Do you know exactly how much you mixed with a gal. of water?

Here you go. Here are the directions. I literally have a full container in my garage lol.

JasonT,
Thanks, so much.
One teaspoon per 2.5 gals.! That is great, guess I won't need a gal.
Now I would love to find that info for Azoxystrobin!

Yes, you don't need much. Still no rust coming back. Checked today. Sprayed twice and still have a bunch left in the sprayer I'll have to throw out. At least I won't have to worry about rust next year because I'll have this ready to go at the first sign.

Seedfork said:JasonT,
Thanks, so much.
One teaspoon per 2.5 gals.! That is great, guess I won't need a gal.
Now I would love to find that info for Azoxystrobin!

Seedfork said:@JasonT,
Do you know exactly how much you mixed with a gal. of water?

Here you go. Here are the directions. I literally have a full container in my garage lol.

I thought I recognized that fungicide Tebunconazole. I use it on my roses for blackspot. Bayer has it. Be mindful that Bayer has other fungicides on the market as well as this one, so always check the list of active ingredients to make sure you are getting the right one. Walmart, Box stores and Amazon carries it. The concentration of the box store products versus growers products may be different (usually is) resulting in different amounts used. The Bayer Bio Advanced Disease Control has done well for me on roses and does list rust on it (but there are all kinds of rust too so it may not be effective for all rust species). Anyway, someone may want to try a cheaper version of it first before investing in the more costly version...............Maryl
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bay...

I finally ordered one pint of Azoxystrobin, ordered from Peststrong.com, and it was "only " $99.95. My best calculation was one to two teaspoons per gal. of water.
EDITED ON 01-06-22:
Actually ended up using only one half teaspoon per gal. of water.

Larry If the Azoxystrobin that you bought is the 22.9% Azoxy 2SC you may want to recheck your math. The instructions for Azoxy 2SC that DoMyOwn sells, calls for 1.9 to 7.7 oz per 100 gallons or about 50 tsp per 100 gallons or 1/2 tsp per gallon.

@OldNuBe
This is what I based my calculations on from the Pest Strong site, but I do think it is going to take a little experimenting to find the best rate of application, due to the stage or rust on the plants:

Active ingredient: Azoxystrobin -- 22.9% (2.6x more AI than Heritage TL)
Rate: 0.38 - 1.35 oz in 2 - 4 gallons of water per 1,000 sq. ft. (see label for details)

So I divided .38 by 2 and got .19oz.=1.14 tps
I divided 1.35 by 4 and got .337 oz.= 2.022 tps.
I certainly hope I can get by with .5 tps. per gal. that would be great!