BYGL Mail, Part 1, Week of June 13

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Below are a few selected bygl-alert user comments from mid-June.

1). Mary Beth Breckenridge wrote:

Read your cicada article in BYGL with interest. But have you eaten one?

I have not, but the outstanding writer and journalist Mary Beth, of northeast Ohio’s Beacon Journal newspaper has, and to prove it, go to:

 https://www.facebook.com/MBBreckABJ/videos/10154444348473296/

Collin Foltz,  a student in my OSU Sustainable Landscape Maintenance class this past Spring Semester also ate one (you could request to follow him on his Instagram moniker of cfoltz27). He did not appear to enjoy his snack as much as Mary Beth.

 

Symptoms of rust on Callery pear leaf

 

2.) Gary Eichen of Michigan’s Mike’s Tree Surgeons, wrote regarding our alert about rust on Callery pear: 

I just read your BYGL article on pear rust. I would not be a bit surprised if it turns out to be Gymnosporangium sabinae. We are dealing with a pretty substantial infection area up here...

Thanks, Gary. We shall keep an eye out for this rust. To review, rusts caused by Gymonsporangium spp. typically infect rosaceous hosts (certain genera in the rose family) from basidiospores arriving from juniper in mid-spring, with orange-red symptoms on top of the rosaceous plant leaves appearing weeks later, followed by further fungal development occurring in the leaves and then cluster cups or aecial pustules developing on the bottom of the leaves by early summer. The aeciospores in these pustules (which cannot re-infect the rosaceous host) then migrate back to junipers, starting a two-year life cycle anew.