Re: Mosaic Viruses
In a message dated 11/29/99 12:57:27 AM Eastern Standard Time,
COMPUTRESE@aol.com writes:
> Clorox bleach or any other product cannot stop viruses. Rinsing seeds from
an
>
I was told (and have read) that chlorine bleach was a broad spectrum
antimicrobal effective in killing CMV on contact. This is why tools are
routinely disinfected with a bleach solution....am I wrong?
> To think that remay floating row cover will thwart the spread of viruses
is
> invalid. Remay does not seal your plant off from vectors.
>
Not 100%, but it does reduce the insects' access to the plant somewhat, as
well as keep in the insecticide dust and keep insects from flying away when
dusted or sprayed. It probably isn't likely any cross innoculation would
occur of all of the plants were treated this way, which they were right after
the onset of infection.
> Besides, viruses can be spread by other means as well. In fact, they are
> often spread by pruning tools, shovels or spades, garden tools, gloves,
> gardener's hands, shoes (yes, shoes!) and even garden spray nozzles!
I thought that CMV was only spread by sap contamination by insects, pruning,
or other invasive activity. Do I have wrong information? Either way, no
plants were cross handled anyway.
> The facts on mosaics are not debatable. There is no sound excuse to
Everything is debatable, that's the good thing. Remember that odd doctor who
tried to convince the rest of the medical world that stomach ulcers were
caused by a bacterial infection? They all said he was a moron. Until they
found out he was right a few years ago, and he won the Nobel Prize.
I am not pretending to be any kind of authority on anything, I am open
minded. If there is proof that my seeds are totally worthless, or that the
measures I have taken to continue growing my plants are not sufficient, and
that by me continuing to grow my plants to maturity will have some
devistating effect, and the ONLY thing to do to prevent it is to pull and
burn my plants, then of course I would. None of this has been proven. I am
getting advice both ways, and from people who know this stuff way more than I
do, microbiolgists, botanists, etc. There better be some strong evidence of
disasterous results if I am going to destroy my ENTIRE crop, along with
hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours of work with it. So far there has
been nothing even close.
> What is to be gained by allowing an infected plant to produce? You get an
> odd looking plant with blotchy, misshapen leaves, blooms whose stigma and
> stamens are misshapen from the disease and fruit that is not able to grow
to it's
> full potential or have the attributes that it should due to virus
corruption.
Extremely good seeds, and pumpkins if the virus hits late (someone said they
grew something 500+ from an infected plant. Sounds good to me when compared
to nothing). Just because a plant looks bad, or that it might not produce to
it's fullest potential is certainly no reason to destroy a plant, unless you
have 100 others growing.
> Steve, to cultivate mosaic infected plants with plans to give away your
> seeds when you know your plants have been infected this long is wrong. You
can't
> claim ignorance of the facts now.
>
> Barb
>
Barb, it is not wrong if the person knows that the parent had a viral
infection and still WANT the seeds. It is their choice. If the risk of next
gen transmission is infitesimal, or someone is willing to experiment in a
"lab setting" as you call it, then what would be the problem with that?
Since we are on this, here are some excerpts from past posts and emails about
CMV infections....
"At a recent pumpkin seminar I attended at Guelph, Ontario, Bill Greer
mentioned one of his plants had signs of a virus in 1997. He planted in
the same area in 1998 and in fact used seeds from the infected plant and
his garden was virus free."
-Joe [Mills?] 4/8/99
"1 volume of chlorox + 9 volumes of clean water is the standard disinfectant
used in
AIDS laboratories. "....
"Viruses can only grow inside living cells. In principle, a virus can exist
dormant in soil and infect roots. However, I am not aware that any plant
virus can do so." ...."No plant viruses can infect plants directly from soil."
...."nearly every aphid God created loves to transmit CMV but in a
non-persistent manor (an aphid is infective only for hours"....
"I guess I would feel pretty safe growing AG again in the same plot. [where
virus infected plants grew the previous year.] The most likely problem will
be infection from some source. If CMV is a threat to AG growers then we need
to look for sources of
infection."
-Harold Eddleman Ph.D. Microbiologist
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