Kay wrote in message
...
In article , Spider
writes

Kay wrote in message
...
In article , Spider
writes

b.cumisky wrote in message
...
Can someone please tell me what pests affect rhubarb ?

Thanks Dee Dee


Honey Fungus, though not a pest, is a potential killer. That's how I
lost
mine many years ago.

Are you sure it was honey fungus? It affects a variety of trees and
shrubs, but I wouldn't have thought rhubarb was woody enough.
--

I'm reasonably sure ...? Now you're making me wonder. Strawberries are
supposed to be troubled by it, though, and they're not woody. Perhaps
another urgler knows for sure?

Just to make sure we're talkingabout the same thing - what I know as
honey fungus is Armillaria mellea, pictured he

http://www.nifg.org.uk/armillaria.htm

which is one of our commonest fungi and lives on wood.

However, one lives and learns, and a web search revealed:

http://www.bspp.org.uk/icpp98/6/84.html

which describes using strawberries as a test bed for Armillaria control,
not, however, because Armillaria is a big pest of strawberries, but
because they are, as you say, susceptible to it and pot grown
strawberries are a convenient size for experiment.

So, faced with that I did two further searches, on "Armillaria mellea"
and rhubarb, and on "honey fungus" and rhubarb, and threw up just two
references to honey fungus attacking rhubarb, for example the following
from 'Wigan today'

"Given a yearly dressing of manure, one crown of rhubarb should last 10
years before it needs replacing, although occasionally some plants do
fall foul of diseases such as crown rot and, even more occasionally,
honey fungus. The only solution to either problem is to dig up the
rhubarb and burn it. Don't grow a new crown in the same site."

--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"


Thanks Nick and Kay,

That's most interesting. I'm fairly sure I have some form of Armillaria in
my garden - on Sycamore stumps, for starters. The doomed rhubarb was near
the site of a previous stump (probably Prunus sp.), but I saw no fruiting
bodies. However, it and the ground reeked deeply of mushroom after I dug it
up and there was a deep layer of white mycelium beneath the rhubarb. I saw
no sign of 'bootlace' strands.

Unfortunately, before I learned that a neighbour had Honey Fungus in their
garden (identified by a tree surgeon), I accepted a shrub sucker from his
garden. I am not unduly worried about Honey Fungus, because a different
tree surgeon assured me that a) there were many more benign strains and b)
that I grew so many trees and woody plants in my garden (he nearly got
excited!) that I was fairly safe - in the way that woodland is fairly safe
and/or copes with Armilllaria and other fungi.

To pick up the OP's thread, I am seriously considering growing Rhubarb again
(in a different part of the garden), so I'll be watching out for the slugs
and snails mentioned by another urgler.

Spider