Rust is a fungus that affects many species of plants, especially rose bushes. Once it manifests it is quite difficult to remove and produces a regrettable aesthetic effect. His preferred environment is humid. When the rains come, it proliferates at great speed but it really shows itself visibly after two months.
The first symptom that we can observe is the appearance of warts of different colors on our leaves. This is followed by yellowish spots that turn brown, like the color of rust. The problem is not only aesthetic since it dries out the leaves, the fruits, and the trunk, and can kill the plant. If you want to know how to combat rust, keep reading this article.
Classes of rust
There are many kinds of rust that we classify based on their visible color . Black, brown, yellow or orange are all the same disease and are spread by vegetables, fruit trees or ornamental plants.
As we said, the rose bush is its main victim, although geraniums, wallflowers, dogwoods, apple trees, tomatoes and a long etcetera also suffer. In the face of such a general aggression, our measures have to be applied to the entire garden.
How to avoid rust
Really the only way to avoid rust is prevention .
- First you have to remove and burn all those infected leaves from the previous year.
- We must treat our plants with mineral oil combined with fungicide, in order to eliminate the spores that were deposited before autumn.
- In this way and with treatments every 15 days for two months, we will reduce the possibility of the appearance of the disease.
It is important not to use infected plant residues in our compost as we will spread the pest in the future.
What about the damaged parts
It must be remembered that the damaged parts of a plant with rust never recover , so we must remain attentive to the first symptoms. Rust’s best friends are high humidity and moderate temperatures, so nighttime waterings should be eliminated when summer is over.
Regarding the rain, we cannot do anything, just have a good drainage system that prevents the formation of puddles.
