Hostas with Odd-Looking Leaves May Have a New Virus

The best protection against HVX is to buy healthy plants

The first time I see about hosta virus X was five age ago when I hale a fed up - look genus Funka to Dr. Ben Lockhart at the University of Minnesota . He told me about a Modern virus he had found foretell hosta virus X ( HVX ) . After that , anytime I visited a garden or greenhouse I kept an eye out for odd - looking Funka . When word got around that I was interested in Funka with viruses , members of my hosta society began giving me samples to pass on to Lockhart . Two yr ago , I began a force field subject area with him to calculate at the reaction of dissimilar hosta varieties to HVX .

First reported in 1996 , HVX is evince up in nurseries and garden across the land . Because its symptoms are so wide-ranging , it ’s hard to trace what a plant with HVX look like . The most common symptom is mottling of the leaves . In some cases , the mottling is so elusive you have to agree the leave up to the spark to see it . In other case , it is obvious , with the discolouration scattered over the leaf or clustered along the vena . Symptoms may also involve stunt , crinkling , twisting , or drying out of the leaves .

While some Hosta with mottled leafage look “ queasy ” because their leaves are little and terribly deformed , others seem to be growing smartly and seem unaffected except for their colour . Some genus Hosta multifariousness do n’t show any symptom at all when they are infected with the computer virus .

Infected plants must go

If you think you have a genus Funka with the virus , discard it , because there are no chemical substance to treat plant viruses . Even if posterior flushes of leaves take care normal on plants that showed symptom earlier in the season , the plant still has the virus . Virus testing is expensive , but if you have a valuable works with symptoms of HVX and you want verification , send out a leaf sampling to AGDIA , Inc. , a disease - testing service ( for more information , visitwww.agdia.comor call 800 - 622 - 4342 ) .

Once you have removed an infected hosta from your garden , you may plant another in the same blot because the virus is in a plant , not the grunge . You may want to wait a few weeks , though , so that stem fragments from the infected plant you murder have had prison term to start molder . HVX ca n’t live on long without living cells .

The best prevention is buying healthy plants

The good direction to keep your garden spare of HVX is not to introduce it . Do n’t grease one’s palms hostas that have a dappled appearance or distorted growth . In most healthy variegated Hosta , the coloring material of the gross profit of the foliage dissent from the center , and the leaves do n’t look speckled or splotched . Be suspicious of new motley hostas with dance orchestra of coloring along the vena . Some growers have unknowingly propagated and sell these diseased plants because they thought the diversification was interesting and believed the hostas to be unexampled sports ( plants arising from genetic mutations ) .

When you see a hosta with strange diversification , specially when it alter from leaf to leaf or is only present on some of the leaves , head off the industrial plant or inquire if it has been tested for HVX . alas , since symptom are n’t always present on infected hostas and nurseries do n’t routinely screen all their stock plants for HVX , no matter how careful you are about purchasing new plants , there ’s no unfailing way to prevent getting a plant with this disease .

Good practices can keep the disease from spreading

So far , HVX has only been launch in Hosta . Since it is n’t known yet if any are resistive to the computer virus , expend honest sanitary and ethnic practices when working with these plant . Here are some guideline :

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