| Roger Batt and Dave Hallinan are walking around in the Dyers Woad patch and Roger finds some plants that are not flowering and look really wilted. He asks Dave to tell him what is attacking the plant. Dave explains that what Roger is seeing is a biological control that is a fungus called rust. This fungus pretty much shuts the plant down and you can see the little spots underneath the leaves that Roger is holding up. The fungus curls the leaves up and stops all seed production. However, Dave explains that the problem is that you can see in the patch the size they are standing in only a few plants, maybe 3-5 are being affected by the rust. The fungus is naturally occurring and you would think it would do a lot better job of controlling the weed. However, spreading from plant to plant seems to be limited and sporadic. On the plants it does attack it does an excellent job, but it is so selective in the areas that it attacks and climatic conditions have to be just right.
Dave explains that they are finding this rust is not a good viable control for Dyers Woad. As a result they are searching for other biological controls, like an insect, that will attack this weed.
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