Moonflower problem, more light spots

These moonflowers germinated with very ragged leaves that have white areas . They continue to grow, but the leaves all have the light areas. They were started inside under lights.

That looks like Ipomoea. White Rust?

Will they infect other plants? Should I throw these away?

Maybe you could share some more close up photos as well as photos of the undersides of the leaves?

I don't know for sure if that is White Rust or not and might not even know if you physically placed a leaf in my hand without sending it to a lab to culture. Maybe others will weigh in. If it is White Rust (Albugo ipomoea-panduratae), and I don't know that it is or isn't... that's a pathogenic fungi spread by air borne sporangia. I'm certainly no proponent of fungicides around my home so I'd waste the plant but... that's me and there are others who would choose to treat it.

it could also be spidermite damage or thrips. if you mist the underside of the leaves it will kill spidermites. if you mist and it's rust, you spread the rust. i've never heard of white rust, so i can't comment any further.

Say Tracks, I bought another planter... tee he, I'm on a roll! You've created a monster! I love the looks of planters popping up here and there unexpectedly.

D
I think it depends on the mite if misting will kill it or not but a good miticide should do them in. An insecticide won't work on mites since they aren't insects so it would have to be a product specifically for mites. Thrips is a different story. Neem (I love Neem) can generally control them but Orthene will really knock them down. The only thing I would be concerned about with thrips would be the secondary fungal infection that seems to go hand in hand with them- spotted wilt tospovirus. Which round robin back to a rotten fungal infection.

lol, keep them planters comin'! it is fun, isn't it?

I have to tell you something funny. I was talking to my Mother In Law about why I put the first concrete planter in a flower bed. She took a look and said that she would have never thought of moving a planter off a patio or off a stoop but that where I had positioned it looked really nice. Well, that makes two of us who would have never thought to move a concrete planter off a patio or a stoop. She and I both decided we really liked the look of concrete up against foliage so it was decided that I should be some more to spread out in flower beds. Well, next thing I know... a concrete frog shows up. I like frogs so I decide to find a spot for him but I sort of need to keep him out back somewhere so I start walking around looking for a spot to stick my new concrete frog. Well, next thing I know... I see two rabbits in by my newly planted Amsonia. That does not make me happy. I set down the concrete frog (back breaking heavy I might add) and I run to shoo the rabbits away from my plants and find out that the rabbits are concrete rabbits that were painted to be lifelike. A gift from my MIL. I felt like an idiot. I think I better stick to concrete planters.

trackinsand, how does spraying spread the rust? Won't neem treat the rust?

I just bought Neem, but have not used it yet. Did anyone every make a small batch in a spray bottle (since I don't need to make a gallon of it in the sprayer)?

The first leaf that unfolded when it germinated looked like the picture, so I did not think it would be insects.

Neem is not for this type of a fungal infection. Treating your plants with Neem would sort of be like giving a child who has a head ache a good dose of PeptoBismol. You wouldn't give a person who has a sinus infection an over the counter medication that was to curb nausea would you? Sort of the same deal only we're dealing with plants.

Over simplification but... Fungus spores would love being sprayed. They would probably reward you by multiplying ten fold. I'm not making light of this but you'd have to use an actual fungicide for the type of fungal infection you have otherwise all those spores will do is reproduce and drive you crazy.

Fungal infections can be very difficult to control let alone wipe out.

Green Light Neem concentrate includes rust in its list of fungal diseases, as well as powdery and downy mildew, black spot, anthracnose, leaf spot, botrytis, needle rust, scab and flower, twig, tip blight, and alternaria.

Can seeds be infected and germinate this way? I had no problems until this seed germinated.

THANKS FOR THE HELP.

i meant spraying with water spreads rust.

OK, I think it may be best to toss them out; hoping they haven't infected everything else. THANKS for your help. I have never planted anything too difficult; and this year I started a lot of things from seed......now to watch for this problem in my other plants.

Tammy - We've been seeing a lot of this type of leaf damage in the office, and what we've been seeing is ozone damage. Maybe yours is, maybe it isn't. Hard to tell from the photo, but unless you can rub the leaf and have orangeish dust come off on your fingers, I wouldn't rush to obliterate your mooflowers. If it is ozone damage, it will grow out of it....

When rubbed, an orangish dust wouldn't necessarily be present for a white rust do you think?

They showed us some leaves that were believed to have been damaged by ambient ozone effects back a few years ago. The leaves were either necrotic or chlorotic and some leaves had reddish blotches on them that were browing. Leaves that are necrotic don't grow out of it because damaged tissue is damaged tissue. We were told that it was difficult to discern whether or not plants were exhibiting ozone damage or if they were simply exhibiting normal signs of cellular aging. This was a few years ago. Did they come up with some way to tell in the field now? One thing that I recall was that they indicated damage would be to older leaves as length of exposure played into the equation. I believe her leaves are new growth. I am very interested in learning more about ozone damage. Actually, I'd like to learn a lot more about ozone damage to plants.

This article suggests that there are plants that are more susceptible than others.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/687708/plants_become_air_quality_detectives/index.html
You don't by any chance know if there is a compiled list of ozone sensitive plants out there do you? I did a quick search using the words ozone, sensitive, and plants and came up with way too many hits and lots of references to there existence.

just saw your post about the concrete rabbits! LOL

it just doesn't look like any rust to me, but i can't say for sure. if no other plants around it are being affected, maybe just leave it alone and see what happens.

It does look like a fungal infection to me. Which one, ??? If those were my plants, I don't know what I'd do with them. Maybe send a leaf off to Cornell? Maybe not, I'm sort of cheap and if no other plants are affected I might be inclined to leave them be to see what happened.

Say tracks, you want me to send you the leetle wabbits? My place is sort of sparse so they stuck out like a sore thumb but you could maybe find a place for them. Besides which, it would be fun to watch your friends try to chase them off!

You're right, Equi - The "rust" pustules would be white, not orange. Tammy - Are you seeing any pustules on the underside of the leaves?
http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/IPM.asp?code=287&group=75&level=c

That's what I was thinking when I asked if she might be able to, "share some more close up photos as well as photos of the undersides of the leaves?" It was the backs of the leaves I wanted all of us to get a peek at. Those pustules can be quite distinctive. One problem, they aren't all that visible and many people mistake them for an insect population. I still think this is a fungal infection but truly can't say why I think that way.

Say ceejaytown, I don't know where you work but could you please see if you can get your hands on a list of plants from your office that are susceptible to ambient ozone damage? I don't know that such a list exists so I hope I'm not asking you to go on a wild goose chase through your office. Just curious.

lol, i have enough of the real wabbits! i'm afraid yours would just draw more of the little devils!

I will get additional pix and post later; THANKS

OK, tracks! We moved the leetle wabbits. They're yours if you want them. They're too cute for me.

Hey Tammy, sometimes it is hard to get good photos. Just try your best. Also too, if it is Albugo ipomoea-panduratae... it wouldn't spread to every plant you have. It will only spread to plants that are susceptible. I am finding Ipomoea spp as a host but I'm not specifically finding Ipomoea alba to be a host. Take a peek at this-
http://www.invasive.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1436128
That's Cercospora. That's another White Rust.

tracks- I would have never thought to put the concrete frog (actually a toad) anywhere else other than on the ground if you hadn't posted photos of your flower beds. Here's where I stuck the concrete frog-

More pictures

more.....

and more....

and one more....

Hi, please do your best to describe for me what you see in the areas I have circled-

I'll come right out and say I don't think it's Cercospora bataticola. I don't think it's Discula destructiva either which generally dogwoods get but I guess Ipomoea can get nailed with it too although I've never seen it.

The more I look at your photos the more I think it may very well be fungal. You've had me surfing the net now for an hour exploring possibilities and I'm not good enough to come up with any. This post of yours has proven very interesting! Thanks for posting all of your photos too, the last ones were really great.
http://www.lucidcentral.com/keys/sweetpotato/key/Sweetpotato%20Diagnotes/media/html/TheProblems/DiseasesFungal/WhiteRust/White%20rust.htm

Also too, when reading above... Calonyction aculeatum is a synonym for ipomoea alba.

I suppose if you want you can treat it for White Rust. If you do, any fungicide that treats for White Rust would also treat for Anthracnose so I guess you'd get a twofor.

If you think it is Albugo ipomoea-panduratae, don't try to grow any more Ipomoea for about two years. That's about as long as it persists in the soil unlike others that can go on giving forever it seems.

Best wishes to you.

Equilibrium, those areas that you circled in the photo are either reflection or the reverse of the spot on the front--the spots on the leaves becomes thinner, dry/paper look, but there seems to be no pustules of any sort. Each new leaf has less and less of the spots; the top leaf has none;but is crinklely (maybe this is normal as I have never grown moonflowers before)

I know exactly what you mean when you say "reverse of the spot" indentation thingie. My bet's on a fungal infection for this one.

yes, most spots on all six plants are a light tan, as a dry leaf in the fall. The spots are very thin and show the same on both sides of leaf, with no black, fuzzy, or soft areas.

Hello,
In the first picture that is posted, I have the samething that is on the middle leaf, but the other leaves don't exhibit the same as what is on my plants. Is it the same stuff? I don't have a good enough camera to take a picture.

Oh boy! It's hard enough sometimes trying to figure out what's going on with a plant with the actual plant in front of one's face even when one is familiar with a particular disease or has books open to photos of diseases for comparison. TammyIP has photos and I don't exactly think any one has pinned down what her plant has. Without photos, it's really tough to even narrow anything down let alone be able to day definitively that a plant has this or that.

These are the best images I could get, it looks kinda like a how a slug trail looks when they go across a leaf, but it is in patches and has some sort of small black fleck in it, and lower leaves are turning brown like the other pic. It really does look the same as the middle leaf in Tammylp's first pic, but none of the yellow spots.

oh and this picture is a grapefruit mint, but it is also on a choc mint, cinn basil, berggarten sage, and starting to show up on my siam queen.

I am so sorry but that doesn't even look like Ipomoea alba to me. Please forgive me but my vision is pretty bad. Half the time I have to download images to my desktop to be able to move them around in a program I have that enlarges them for me to look at. Sometimes I can get away with the little tool in IE that allows me to enlarge to 400% but not if the photo is blurry. What I can see appears to be something different than what TammyIP has. You might want to start a new thread using the photos you have so far while adding as much of a verbal description of what you see going on as is possible.

I think I have narrowed it down to two things, either a virus or leaf spots. Went to the library, it was driving me crazy. I had flies that I got rid of, looks like they might have left something behind.

Situations like this drive me crazy too and I've been known to drive to the houses of friends to get at their books. I know how you feel. Glad you made headway.