Blueberry leaf rust

Good morning all from a novice on a hilly acre!  My modest harvest from my blueberry bushes is imminent, and lo and behold leaf rust is appearing.  Can I still use the berries?  How should I treat it (if at all) and when?  

That shouldn't harm the berries, to treat the leaf rust you can use an aerated compost tea to spray over the whole plant and the surrounding soil.
The traditional method is spraying with a fungicide (there are some that are organic) but it doesn't work as well as a proper compost tea spray and it doesn't last nearly as long.

I personally cured my rust problems I had had for years, this year with regular organic sulfur applications, followed up with next day compost tea applications. I repeated the sulfur treatment for 2 weeks, once per week; and am currently maintaining with bi weekly compost tea applications.

This worked on hollyhocks, lillies, irises, and blueberries. Honestly, I am going to dig up all the flowers and move them somewhere they don't get shade all morning, which tends to encourage rust and other pathogenic infections.

As for the blueberries, they really responded well to the sulfur spray. I also read somewhere that blueberries perform well growing among turf grass, so I dug up some St. Augustine that I would have otherwise composted and sodded around one of my blueberry plants early this year, before the rust had taken hold. This plant did not get any rust. It did have some stunted growth compared to the other plants, but the foliage was much healthier with a deep, dark, green, and more symmetrical growth. I realize this is a bit anecdotal, but I honestly don't have enough room for all the plant experiments I have dreamed up in my head.

I am interested to see if applying only the compost tea would have done the same thing.

Thank you, Hamilton Betchman and Bryant RedHawk.    Is the standard recipe for compost tea 2 cups compost and half a cup molasses per 5 gallons water?  Plus aeration?  I have seen recipes with fish guts, urine, manure--need I go there?   LOL, I  have stage fright--the novice speaking to the Gurus.  Thank you for your patience

Susan

For a ten gallon tea run I use around 4 lbs. of compost and a pound of fresh donkey poop these are placed in cotton draw string bags I have horded for about 20 years now (they came from a grin storage company).
I usually don't add any sugar element but when I do it is around 2 tbs. of honey. My air in injected (these days) by a pipe that has been bent so the air injection creates the cyclone effect.
That "standard recipe" works great and yes you always want to add air somehow, fish tank air stones, etc. the air is necessary to keep the tea aerobic and thus grow the good organisms we are making the tea for.

Hamilton's sulfur application works great too, it also helps with some bugs that we don't want on our plants.

Redhawk

Thank you! I will look it up and try it.

Susan