Rust diseases can affect a variety of plants and trees, including firs, ocotillo, pines, and oaks. These damaging diseases come from various fungus, and they can destroy entire fields and crops of plants and trees. It is essential that trained arborists and landscapers address rust diseases right away to prevent their spread. Here is a brief guide to rust diseases:
Fungi
Rust diseases come from rust fungi. These parasites are only found in nature on living host plants. This life cycle makes it impossible to replicate in a laboratory, which makes identification and treatment difficult. Rust fungi is responsible for at least three rust diseases in Arizona: hollyhock rust, snapdragon rust, and limb rust. Hollyhock and snapdragon have short life cycles, and limb rust has a long cycle.
Symptoms
Symptoms of rust diseases can be diverse and complex, because the symptoms are often related to the fungi’s spore stage. Identifying the spore stage—which are aecia, uredia, and telia—can help identify the disease and how to treat it. Symptoms include blistering and yellow or orange spores during the aecia stage. Uredia spores also cause masses of blisters that are orange or rust in color. Telia spores are usually black, and they will follow uredia spores to infect the same host. Other symptoms might be cankers and galls in the tree’s woody tissue.
Control
It is difficult to fully treat and control rust diseases, because there are several types of fungus and a variety of symptoms to examine. Also, many fungus attack specific hosts. It is crucial that a trained arborist examine the tree and test the fungus spores to determine treatment. Treatments may include the use of fungi-resistant plants and seed treatments.
Complete Landscaping is a Tucson-based company with over 200 trained and knowledgeable employees. We have several certified arborists on our staff who can inspect, identify, and treat various tree diseases. Please visit us online or call us at (520) 323-8918 to schedule a tree inspection with one of our expert employees.