What can cause a sunflower flowerhead to look so terrible?
It's almost shocking to see something so beautiful looking so diseased or insect-eaten or damaged in some way. The leaves are mostly fine. I believe this is a red sunflower. Any thoughts as to what could cause this? All the heads are like this.
Comments (18)
docmom_gw
8 years agofloral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Just bought 3 Burgmansia and they look terrible. Pictures inside
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Comments (9)Yeah, My Wild Horses is like the last picture, too. It is very distintive and a clump is goregous! I just love Doddle Bug, and it did make me smile! I don't have Red Volunteer, but I have some seedlings that have some of the markings it has, the red streaks that runs threw it. Its a beautiful plant. I have several older unknown reds in my garden beds that make me just say wow! I'm looking at some of the older ones to make some crosses with because they are just plum beautiful! I've had quite a few plants that have had blooms like your last one, all of them on the plant will be withered, dry up and fall off, or look like yours. I'm blaming it on last years freaky weather. I hope that's it. I do not need some kind of weird sickness!!! The bad ones will be right next to some really good plants so, I'm just guessing at the cause, or hoping. Yours are all so pretty, thanks, Mona...See MoreDune Sunflower -- will it stay nice looking??
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Comments (18)Don, the first 3x I tried starting seeds, it didn't go well. [g] By that 4th try, I had fixed multiple things I was doing wrong and since then I rarely have a problem, so hang in there. I agree with those who point to the potting mix. I would start again with something that has very few additives in it - not Miracle Grow - peat moss/perlite - even just those two ingredients would be better than what you are using. To make it easy on yourself look for an organic seed starting mix. Simple. I never fertilize my seedlings. I think they grow better outside in well prepared beds I plan to transplant them to, so I try to time them so they don't have to keep being potted up to larger and larger pots. One transplant to a larger pot from a small seedling in a cell. is all I plan on before I put them in the garden. So no fertilizer while they are in the house before they are going out, a little on the small side. They make up for lost time/size once they establish in the garden. I also use an oscillating fan on plants under lights, which was a big fix with problems I had with seedlings. Strengthens the seedlings and keeps fungal problems away. And I set mine on the 2nd speed to get a good breeze going. It dries out the potting soil so I check it a couple of times a day and water when dry. The grow light needs to be close to the seedlings, as some others have described. If not they can get leggy and not be as good as you want. Good luck with your seedlings!...See Moreken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
8 years agoRick (zone 6b, MA)
8 years agoThanks, everybody. Yes, it does seem that there are some seeds behind all the detritus but as I take them out they don't look like they ever got ripe. There's mostly detritus and the unripe seeds are very hard to pull out. The flower is only a few weeks old -- the seeds were planted in mid-June.
I can't swear to this but it seems that the seeds never ripened but were destroyed by something before they had a chance to. I've seen spent sunflower flowers before but these all look like they were ravaged by something before they had a chance to age gracefully.
Is it possible that there is a species of wasp that eats unripe sunflower seeds? I found this gentleman and an awful lot of his fellows manically digging deep into the detritus this afternoon:
Rick (zone 6b, MA)
8 years agofloral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
8 years agozen_man
8 years agoRick (zone 6b, MA)
8 years agozen_man
8 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
8 years agoRick (zone 6b, MA)
8 years agoRick (zone 6b, MA)
8 years ago
sandyslopes z5 n. UT
8 years agoRick (zone 6b, MA)
8 years agoFollow-up to this discussion a week or two ago. After cutting the affected heads off, I let the plant sit for a week to see if any of the tiny new buds would develop into flowers. Nope. So I cut the entire plant down and took a peek at the cut bottom of the stalk:
I don't see a hole at the bottom of the stalk, but maybe I'm missing it. The interesting thing is that I also have had two other sunflowers (I can't remember if they were from the same seed pack as I planted seeds from a few different seed packets) in another part of the garden that just never seemed to develop. I decided to cut them down as well, and found the same thing inside the stalk: a gritty, mealy, dark brown detritus that reminds me of what the head of the main sunflower (photo above) where the wasps were so happy. These two flowers never seemed to have any wasps (that I saw!).
So ... wasps? Beetles? Unknown? Or maybe this is fairly typical of what a cross-section of a sunflower stalk looks like? Thanks for any thoughts.
docmom_gw
8 years ago
dowlinggram