Bullseye patterns on spots of indigestion - my experience
Nov 21, 2019 15:33:50 GMT -5
dozer1028 and zugul like this
Post by pittsburghpredators on Nov 21, 2019 15:33:50 GMT -5
Hello all! I wanted to create this thread as reference for anyone else who may see this issue in their collections. Prior to this year I had never observed this happening to any of my plants before - maybe a few plants in the past displayed symptoms but I did not see them if they did.
Simply put, a lot of my Sarracenia had developed bullseye patterns in the brown spots of indigestion on the pitchers. I noticed the bullseyes around the same time information from NC State became public about Calonectria pteridis, which is the diagnosed species of Cylindrocladium that causes death in Sarracenia and can be spread through air, human and insect carriers, and water. I reached out to the person who presented this information to the community and was told I likely have C. pteridis, but that it can't be determined without an official pathogen diagnosis. My heart immediately sank. The collection I had spent so long building had the potential to be completely dead by the end of the growing season and there was literally nothing I could do to prevent this. Of course, general prevention practices are always the best defense against anything of this nature - disinfect pots before reusing, quarantine plants for about two weeks (if you have Cylindrocladium you'll know it - the plant will likely be dead by the end of that time period), minimize use of water trays, etc.
My next step was to get an official diagnosis, so I sent off about 10 plants to the Penn State Lab of Plant Pathology. I spoke with the director of the lab on the phone and she said they can definitely do cultures for C. pteridis, along with other pathogens. In the meantime, it seemed like the bullseyes were spreading everyday into new plants and I spent the next few weeks watering my plants as necessary and avoiding touching any of them. To make matters worse, I just got back from a one week vacation to Wilmington, NC and since I had nobody to care for my plants this time, I put them all in water trays in the shade for the week while I was gone. The water trays would've allowed for a number of pathogens to spread.
I got the news back almost a month after my discoveries of the bullseyes, and it was the best news I could've received - not only did I not have C. pteridis, but the only fungus present on my plants was Colletotrichum - which may actually be a mutualistic fungus to Sarracenia. "Fungal Endophyte Diversity in Sarracenia" by Anthony Glenn and Michael S. Bodri touches more on this topic. Colletotrichum causes the common red leaf spot in Sarracenia, and can sometimes cause dieback of a leaf, or very rarely, death of the plant (information received from Plant Pathology Lab). I would hypothesize, just from using those two resources, that Colletotrichum usually has a neutral-at-worst effect on most Sarracenia, but if the particular plant it is found on is very weak, that the fungus may end up killing the plant. Essentially, no reason to worry about Colletotrichum if your plant isn't in bad health.
I'm sure that putting my plants in the shade for a week is what caused so much of the Colletotrichum to spread and the spots of indigestion to become bullseyed. While my plants definitely suffered a little bit in the fall (they didn't color up as much since a large crop of the fall pitchers were growing while the plants were in the shade, and a lot of the plants got the fungal bullseyes), I'm glad I put them in the shade - I lost a few seedlings that had dried out, so I'm sure I would've had many more losses had I elft them out in the 80 degree full sun for the whole week with no rain.
Below are the images I have of the bullseyes - whether or not the bullseyes in particular are caused by Colletotrichum, I can't say - all I can say is that Colletotrichum was the only diagnosable fungus my plants had - but the bullseyes are benign as far as I know, no matter how much they look like a spreading infection. They do look a lot like Ascochyta rabiei, but that was tested for and the tests came out negative. Hopefully this post will be of help to somebody in the future, I just wanted to get the information out there so it can be used as reference by other growers for years to come.
Simply put, a lot of my Sarracenia had developed bullseye patterns in the brown spots of indigestion on the pitchers. I noticed the bullseyes around the same time information from NC State became public about Calonectria pteridis, which is the diagnosed species of Cylindrocladium that causes death in Sarracenia and can be spread through air, human and insect carriers, and water. I reached out to the person who presented this information to the community and was told I likely have C. pteridis, but that it can't be determined without an official pathogen diagnosis. My heart immediately sank. The collection I had spent so long building had the potential to be completely dead by the end of the growing season and there was literally nothing I could do to prevent this. Of course, general prevention practices are always the best defense against anything of this nature - disinfect pots before reusing, quarantine plants for about two weeks (if you have Cylindrocladium you'll know it - the plant will likely be dead by the end of that time period), minimize use of water trays, etc.
My next step was to get an official diagnosis, so I sent off about 10 plants to the Penn State Lab of Plant Pathology. I spoke with the director of the lab on the phone and she said they can definitely do cultures for C. pteridis, along with other pathogens. In the meantime, it seemed like the bullseyes were spreading everyday into new plants and I spent the next few weeks watering my plants as necessary and avoiding touching any of them. To make matters worse, I just got back from a one week vacation to Wilmington, NC and since I had nobody to care for my plants this time, I put them all in water trays in the shade for the week while I was gone. The water trays would've allowed for a number of pathogens to spread.
I got the news back almost a month after my discoveries of the bullseyes, and it was the best news I could've received - not only did I not have C. pteridis, but the only fungus present on my plants was Colletotrichum - which may actually be a mutualistic fungus to Sarracenia. "Fungal Endophyte Diversity in Sarracenia" by Anthony Glenn and Michael S. Bodri touches more on this topic. Colletotrichum causes the common red leaf spot in Sarracenia, and can sometimes cause dieback of a leaf, or very rarely, death of the plant (information received from Plant Pathology Lab). I would hypothesize, just from using those two resources, that Colletotrichum usually has a neutral-at-worst effect on most Sarracenia, but if the particular plant it is found on is very weak, that the fungus may end up killing the plant. Essentially, no reason to worry about Colletotrichum if your plant isn't in bad health.
I'm sure that putting my plants in the shade for a week is what caused so much of the Colletotrichum to spread and the spots of indigestion to become bullseyed. While my plants definitely suffered a little bit in the fall (they didn't color up as much since a large crop of the fall pitchers were growing while the plants were in the shade, and a lot of the plants got the fungal bullseyes), I'm glad I put them in the shade - I lost a few seedlings that had dried out, so I'm sure I would've had many more losses had I elft them out in the 80 degree full sun for the whole week with no rain.
Below are the images I have of the bullseyes - whether or not the bullseyes in particular are caused by Colletotrichum, I can't say - all I can say is that Colletotrichum was the only diagnosable fungus my plants had - but the bullseyes are benign as far as I know, no matter how much they look like a spreading infection. They do look a lot like Ascochyta rabiei, but that was tested for and the tests came out negative. Hopefully this post will be of help to somebody in the future, I just wanted to get the information out there so it can be used as reference by other growers for years to come.