Hosta Virus X epidemic

janet · Post by **janet** » Sep 02, 2004 2:19 pm

I have a question that I don't think has been asked yet. When I receive an order of bareroot plants, I unwrap and soak their roots in a bucket of water for a few hours before potting them up and watching them for a few months. I've always done this, even before I heard of HVX.

However, I am now wondering if the virus could be transferred from one plant in an order to the others by soaking the roots in that communal bucket of water. It is not uncommon for plants to arrive with roots broken in shipment. or a leaf. Would the virus be too diluted by the water? Should everything be soaked separately? Too late now for this year, but it would be handy to know for the future. Any ideas?

Liselotte · Post by **Liselotte** » Sep 03, 2004 1:55 am

Yes Janet! This im my worst nightmare!

There are 10 infected Striptease sitting in a pot in my isolation area along with other suspicious looking Hostas. My Dutch supplier has confirmed, that he found the virus among his Striptease shiped this spring. I soak the new arrivals and TRIM (probably spread the disease via tools) the wilted leaves off. This was done during the time I was dividing a lot of Hostas. All Hostas are washed and divided, washed again . The water is recycled and used in the garden. The suspicious plants were divided around that time during handling new plants.My supplier told me, that the problem in the US is much greater, because the plants shipped to the US are power washed with recycled water!

Post by **Chris_W** » Sep 03, 2004 9:43 am

Soaking hostas in a bucket together has never been a good thing to do. Even without HVX this was a bad idea because of the threat for spreading nematodes. You get one plant with nematodes, soak it in water with 6 other hostas and pretty soon you've possibly spread the nematodes to the uninfected plants.

One customer told me she had soaked all of the plants in her shipment for an extended period of time and wondered if there was a chance of HVX spreading from one plant to another. I didn't think so, but HVX apparently did show up in another plant in her shipment via testing, and that was probably the only plant that we had divided before shipping because it came from one of our clumps of that plant growing here (which have since tested negative).

Lisolette, I wonder if you have found it?

When we get hosta plants from the Netherlands the roots look like they have been sandblasted clean. Imagine taking all of those hostas, blasting off the outer layer of the roots, all of that root tissue collects in the water, and then is used to blast the next batch...

We use compressed air to clean our roots before shipping, and use fresh water rinse them off when they are actively growing.

The main thing to do now is be diligent about every aspect of new plant handling, be diligent about cutting, cleaning, and especially diligent about dividing. And the practice of soaking hostas together in one bucket should stop no matter what.

Tundra_Queen · Post by **Tundra_Queen** » Sep 03, 2004 10:10 pm

Lisolette, I'm so sorry to hear about your hostas getting infected.

I would never have thought about them getting infected from soaking together, though now that u brought it our attention it does make sense. Geezeee

Debbie

Patrushka · Post by **Patrushka** » Sep 04, 2004 12:38 am

Wow! Thanks for that information Chris. I always soak several hostas in one bucket of water. I will certainly discontinue that practice in the future.

Richiegirl · Post by **Richiegirl** » Sep 04, 2004 11:48 am

I, too, have soaked my arrivals together in a bucket of water before planted. YIPES! So far, no problems that I'm aware of ... meaning I've been darned lucky. I will not be doing that again! Thanks for this info. I hope everyone here on the forum has read these posts about soaking and washing roots. My suspicion is that a lot of people have done this.

Richelle

janet · Post by **janet** » Sep 04, 2004 12:33 pm

I'm glad I asked and will change the way I handle any mail order plants I may get in the future. I have never had any problems either, but I haven't gotten bare root hosta since 2001 and I suspect things were "safer" then. Thanks, Chris, and I'm also betting there are many folks who soak new plants in one bucket.

keith_novascotia · Post by **keith_novascotia** » Sep 04, 2004 10:09 pm

Well back to the cleaning of tools again if I may.A friend who is into both hostas and dhalias was telling me about the dhalia virus and that the solution he now uses to clean his tools with is TSP. This is sold in the paint section of the local hardware. The solution is made up ;tool soaked for a few mins and then rinsed off in another bucket. This product uses heat to kill the virus. In fact if not rinsed off the tuber will look burnt when cut.Solution is similar to using a burner. Rubber gloves may be advisable as well.We suspect that unlike bleach etc. the solution should stay active lomger. Opinions please.
keith

janet · Post by **janet** » Sep 05, 2004 9:13 am

TSP (trisodium phosphate) can cause severe eye damage, burn exposed skin, damage some metals, etch ceramic tile, clean masonry, stain wood and degloss paint...not to mention phosphate damage to the environment.

Think I'll stick with the aforementioned bleach, ammonia or alcohol treatments. Like Chris said, "the idea is to neutralize the sap from the previous cut, not to completely kill the virus". Seems like the least caustic way to accomplish that would be the way to go. Just my opinion.

Liselotte · Post by **Liselotte** » Sep 05, 2004 5:48 pm

TSP sounds just too dangerous to me and I will stick with Chlorine Bleach. As for washing Hostas, I will have to change the procedure totally.
What about the soil? can the virus live without a host, how long? and what if, the soil dries out completely, would the virus still be alive?
Virus test: was this test developed by Dr. Lockhard, or can any research lab perform this test?

Ginger · Post by **Ginger** » Sep 07, 2004 3:07 pm

TSP who would have thunk it? Hubby is a house painter and he uses TSP to clean woodwork before he paints. TSP does work great to remove grease and grime from woodwork and does not damage the wood if used properly. You run the same risks with bleach (eye damage, burns etc)but bleach is alot cheaper!

G

thy · Post by **thy** » Sep 07, 2004 9:57 pm

First : Thank you Liselotte, I will never soak more than one hosta in the same water..... Yes Chris it make sence to me too...
Next: Thank you Chris for letting us know the problems you have, most nurseries here would just close their eyes and make it a "customer problem"......I would love to see a list of nuseries who takes the problem seriously

I am so very glad I got El Niño last year (bonus plant from Chris and Brian) and it do look good and normal

Do any of you have a pic of an infected Paradise Joyce ?

My hostas looks normal, the only one I have seen some strange colors one ... and only in this week, so I do think/hope it is a late seasonel thing is on h. Paradise Power, new from this year... if you see it , please take a close look

before you bye it.

Are there any source for testings in Europe ? have tried to Google it but nothing came up... and I can not send an maybe infected plant to the US

Chris please: What do you mean when you say

.-...
as if the virus was passed on at harvest.

... is it the water cleaning methode ???

Once again: THANKS FOR THE INFO ... LET'S STOP THE PROBLEM.
Pia

Liselotte · Post by **Liselotte** » Sep 08, 2004 4:21 pm

Chris, for Europe, the Hostas don't have to be power washed. This means, perhaps less problems.

Pia, I know that Marco Fransen is taking the virus very seriously. He had to destroy Hostas, received this spring, but his own stock is clean. there must be others.

As for Switzerland, it seems that no one ever heard of the virus. I have talked to some nursery people yesterday at a plant symposium. I think only 2 horticulturist take me seriously. But as one said, the market is too small, that any lab would bother with testing.

One of my Hosta addict friends is a microbiologist. She is familiar with the Elisa test, but says it would be outrageously expensive. Although these days she is working 14 hr + days and has no time, I think she might be interested to look into it. I would like to get in touch with Dr Lockhart.

FreakyCola · Post by **FreakyCola** » Sep 09, 2004 11:27 am

Chris, you keep saying to check the tags that come with our hostas to find out who the grower is. Is it possible for nurseries to buy more tags than they buy plants?

Reason I ask is I was at a local nursery and was shown into the back where the public doesn't go. They were repotting one kind of hosta but they had boxes and boxes of the same tags.

It looked to me like they were cutting each hosta apart and potting one eye per pot. That would explain the excess plant tags.

But I'm wondering if they could have put the tags from Nursery Grower X on other plants they received from Grower Y? So we may not really know where our plants come from, right?

Denise,
How did the Gold Standards you saw at Franks look? After your informed tour, do you still think they look virused?

To whoever was talking about putting oil in a bucket of sand: I started to do this & forgot to put in the oil, which I should do right away. I was wondering how long will the oil last in sand? Does oil go bad? And how would you dispose of it at that time?

And what do you guys do with your bottles of bleach water after using them? How do you dispose of that?

Post by **Chris_W** » Sep 09, 2004 12:03 pm

Hi Ellen,

If I mentioned the tags, it was more in response to what I shipped. When we ship from a certain batch we try to keep the tags separate so we can identify batches of plants. It isn't foolproof, though, because sometimes we don't have printed tags or sometimes we get the tags from a printer and not the supplier. Also, just because we got a positive test result from one batch from one supplier that wouldn't be enough to prove that all of those plants were tainted, although it may be likely... So tags aren't proof, but at least would indicate a need to watch those closely.

For the bleach, I just add fresh bleach to the bottle once in a while if I haven't used it all. Bleach will evaporate over time basically leaving a bottle of water.

And Pia, what I mean about the hostas being infected with HVX when they were harvested... I believe they were infected at the grower end at some time before they were packaged and shipped, although I do not think that all of these hostas were infected when growing in the field. If they were infected in the field we would see larger damage done by HVX, and the tests would have higher concentrations of HVX in the plants. Many of the tests have shown low concentrations of Hosta Virus X, so they were not infected for very long before they were shipped to us.

I hope that helps to explain it.

Chris

Justme · Post by **Justme** » Sep 11, 2004 12:39 am

Chris, I got an El Nino this spring from you, but I don't have a tag for it. I either planted it under the dirt or more likely lost it

. I can't tell if it is sick or not as it is very small. If I am following this thread correctly you just aren't sure if all the El Ninos this year are sick and only some of them maybe infected, correct? I am waiting to see what happens next year.

Tami

Justme · Post by **Justme** » Sep 11, 2004 12:40 am

Chris, I got an El Nino this spring from you, but I don't have a tag for it. I either planted it under the dirt or more likely lost it

. I can't tell if it is sick or not as it is very small. If I am following this thread correctly you just aren't sure if all the El Ninos this year are sick and only some of them maybe infected, correct? I am waiting to see what happens next year.

Tami

Post by **Chris_W** » Sep 11, 2004 10:32 pm

Hi Tami,

Keep an eye on the El Nino if you want, or pitch it and let me get you another one or something else next spring. Just remind me about it. We are hoping to be able to replace next spring any and all of the El Nino sold this year, just to be on the safe side. We will also be getting in some Hosta 'First Frost' in case people want that instead.

Also, I'm holding some of these so I can see what the virus does to them, but keeping them away from everything else and won't be dividing them at all. More will be tested this week too (have to get the last of the tests in while the hostas are still leafed out).

Take care,

Chris

Justme · Post by **Justme** » Sep 12, 2004 8:48 pm

What is "First Frost"? Haven't heard of it. But, yes if you are sure that I have a virused El Nino then put me down for a new one next spring.

Tami

Liselotte · Post by **Liselotte** » Sep 15, 2004 3:49 pm

I got First Frost last year (TCs from Q & Z), they are still very small, but just beautiful and would replace El Nino.