> Today I passed by a few of my cedar trees and the young ones were
> beginning to collect those ugly rust galls on various branches. I pull
> them off and bury them
> a foot underground. I am guessing that burying destroys the rust cells.
Congratulations, you have found one of the best ways you could think
of to perpetuate your infestation.
You need to _remove_ infected litter from your orchard altogether.
[snip]
> My theme: my theme is let us eliminate all apple cultivars that are not
> resistant to cedar rust. Do not waste time or money on growing apple
> trees that are susceptible to cedar rust.
What h*******t.
Just because you don't understand doesn't mean any other orchardist
doesn't know how to keep his trees free from rust. One, keep your d**n
orchard clean. Two, don't plant cedars near your valuable trees.
Three, use a proper integrated pest management program that controls
rust and other fungus.
> And that the reason so many apple trees planted that are cedar rust
> prone is because we have not focused attention to the fact that we can
> decrease cedar rust by getting rid of these prone cultivars.
So what. We can also control cedar rust through integrated pest
management. This allows us to continue to grow desirable apple
varieties that are not rust resistant.
> That we have cultivars that are disease prone when we should just chuck
> all those cultivars and start anew with cedar rust resistant apple
> genetics and then build an entire new range of cultivars all of which
> are more resistant to rust.
Maybe you can. Any farmer has better things to do than listen to such
cockamamie ideas.

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Chris Green
Mike Lyle - 31 Oct 2004 16:17 GMT
[...]
> So what. We can also control cedar rust through integrated pest
> management. This allows us to continue to grow desirable apple
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> Maybe you can. Any farmer has better things to do than listen to such
> cockamamie ideas.
Well, slash, burn, and start again seems a mite extreme; but, last
time I looked, breeding for disease-resistance wasn't in itself
generally regarded as an eccentric notion. Farmers on the whole rather
like the idea.
Mike.
Christopher Green - 01 Nov 2004 07:18 GMT
>[...]
>> So what. We can also control cedar rust through integrated pest
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
>Mike.
Agreed, but AP isn't preaching breed for disease resistance, he's
calling for extermination of rust-susceptible strains.
If I had a field of producing Jonathans (susceptible) and somebody
told me I had to cut 'em down for firewood so he could plant Eastern
red cedars in infection range, I'd be pretty blunt about telling him
where he could stick that idea.

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Chris Green