The Next Disease

The recent announcement that chrysanthemum white rust is losing its quarantine status took me back to my days as a flower grower in New England.

About twenty years ago, white rust hit our greenhouse, and we destroyed most of that year’s hardy mum crop.

Whatever crop you grow, new diseases will continue to appear. You can’t afford to wait for resistant varieties before protecting your plants. Existing plant protection products may help, depending on the disease, but much of the preparation is familiar: inspect incoming plants, maintain sanitation, scout consistently, and act quickly when something looks wrong.

These practices have been part of commercial cultivation for decades. The challenge is applying them consistently when there’s no obvious problem demanding our attention.

We don’t need to know the name of the next disease to start making it harder for it to enter and spread.