Garlic/Grass/Allium Rust

[Whwoz]

Rust - I noticed something the other day hat may lead to my Garlic plantings being curtailed entirely, or a move to a selected small range of varieties with a more serious attempt at seed growing being made. Not sure yet, still have a lot of thinking to do over this but the big problem that I noticed was rust on some of the fog grass in the lawn. We are in a winter/spring wet area with plenty of fog grass around us, not only on our place and it all has rust on it.

I believe that the Turban varieties that I grow were harvested before the rust (a fungus from the Puccinia genus) became established on them, while all the later varieties were infected to some extent.

I do like the clove size of the porcelain group garlics and would rather not stop growing them, but may have to. Alternative is go made on the attempt to cross pollinate some of the Porcelains in the off chance that there are some resistance genetics in the mix.

If anyone has any thought ir comments, they would be appricated

Have cross posted this in my GLOG.

[bower]

I have seen Puccinia type rust on a few plants here, mostly native willow.. Have not seen any grass or grain infected (grain does have some other rusts - leaf rust, stripe rust) and have not seen any spread to alliums.
Here they talk about a species complex, but only alliums are hosts:
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/onion ... rlic/rust/
Here too, only alliums are listed as hosts:
https://bladmineerders.nl/parasites/fun ... nia-allii/
So.. unless you have wild alliums in the mix, it's unlikely the fog grass is hosting the problem species.

Here's some folks with experience in Aussie:
https://goodlifepermaculture.com.au/garlic-rust/

[Whwoz]

Thank you for those links @bower, I have come across that Good life Permaculture article before in my readings in an attempt to understand what is going on.

Logically one would think that fog grass and garlic are too far apart to support that same host except that when one moves something out of its natural habitat funny things can happen and on a macro scale they do look very similar. i need to get something setup for micro scale photos I know.

[bower]

Yeah a home microscope setup would be so helpful eh.
We're doomed to learn more about plant pathology....

There is another possibility, that there are two Puccinia rusts not infecting the same plants, but appearing at the same time because both rusts are enjoying the same kind of conditions that you've been getting.
This article says the spores can persist on plant debris and in the soil for several years - and may be passed on by your seed as well. So maybe some kind of seed sanitation would help, as well as rotations and field cleanup.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... s-A_Review