Commercial/wholesale growers selling HVX infected plants

morgansrgr8 · Post by **morgansrgr8** » Jun 13, 2005 11:43 am

I have those same fears. I haven't bought any this year at all. Not having any spare cash helps there too. LOL There is no way of knowing how many could have been infected before I knew about the disease. And the thought of accidently infecting my moms plants makes me sick.

Linda

Post by **Chris_W** » Jun 26, 2005 10:50 am

This was mentioned on another thread, but thought I would bring it here too.

Langeveld sold the following hostas that tested positive for HVX or showed clear HVX symptoms: Sugar and Cream, So Sweet, Sum & Substance, Golden Tiara, Gold Standard, and Janet.

I also heard there were other plants from them showing symptoms of the virus, but don't have a complete list yet.

Right now Brian and I are very short on cash so we don't have the money to do testing but when we start doing testing of the quarantined hostas (plants from Holland received this spring) I bet we find some interesting results, just like we did last year...

janet · Post by **janet** » Jun 27, 2005 6:59 pm

In 2001, I bought 'Blue Mountains' at a local retail nursery. The wholesaler, according to the tag, was Netherland Bulb Company, parent company of Langeveld. This hosta is one of my very favorites and has shown no signs of HVX. I will, however, watch it more closely than most and, since I have traded it twice, will notify the recipient of its origins.

Chris, does the virus in 'Janet' manifest itself as it does in 'Gold Standard'?

Post by **Chris_W** » Jun 27, 2005 7:43 pm

Hi Janet,

Yes, the virus in Janet looks just like Gold Standard.

It seems that some of these older plants not on the "highly infected" list might be okay, especially going back to 2001, but we won't really know for sure for a while.

Now that the growers in the Netherlands are actively checking the fields and actively testing roots and leaves they will eventually get it under control. And the governments in Europe are taking a very active stance on it because it is such an important part of their economy. In time I believe we will see the hosta supply coming from Holland as more actively inspected and tested for HVX than some of the growers in the US.

Right now the growers need to: 1) actively find the virused plants in the fields 2) destroy all of the plants that show symptoms, test positive, or are in the vicinity of plants that show symptoms or tested positive, regardless if they now test negative 3) quarantine hosta plants for a period of time before digging and selling them (not likely in the real world) and 4) learn how and why the virus has spread so far and wide in the fields.

Another thing would be to try and develop a test that detects the virus at lower concentrations. This could be a major undertaking, I would imagine, but could really improve the diagnosis of the virus in the fields.

janet · Post by **janet** » Jun 27, 2005 8:29 pm

Thanks Chris.

What they need is a small, easily transported meter that reads various chemical levels in plant sap...much like the blood glucose meters that diabetics use. Then growers (and collectors?) could test plants in the field and toast 'em on the spot if they fail!! Sounds easy enough, eh?

wingnut · Post by **wingnut** » Jun 30, 2005 7:47 am

OK Chris I have a troublesome question. I buy my Hostas from just a couple different nurseries, not Kmart or walmart etc. How do I tell who they buy their hostas from? Most of they repot into their own containers and only one that I have in a pot yet to plant has a lable on it and that is BGN. How do I know?

And this is ALL too scary! I think Im done buy Hosta. I think I have my limit anyways but WE all can not afford 1 infected hosta to infect the whole lot.

Also theres alot of seed selling/swapping are the seeds from affect plants then also infected...?

How much is testing?

Post by **Chris_W** » Jul 01, 2005 1:17 am

Hi,

The best price for testing I've heard of is at the Univ. of Minnesota. $25 for the first sample and $5 each additional.

It would really be very hard to tell who your nurseries buy from unless I was to see the tags and if they used the wholesalers tag I would be able to tell you. However I posted this list more to alert nursery owners about which suppliers have been selling infected plants. The other topic about virused plants found on the market might be more helpful to gardeners.

I still don't know if the virus is passed on in the seeds or the pollen. It is a very good question.

Primroselane · Post by **Primroselane** » Jul 01, 2005 9:43 pm

Hi Chris
My friend was in Weigands Nursery today and noticed that they had Blue Cadet and Stilleto and they both had the virus, she told them about it and they did take the two plants off the shelf. They seemed to know nothing about the Virus.

combellack · Post by **combellack** » Jul 07, 2005 6:10 pm

Just a note from north of the border. In Ontario Mori nurseries (Moristar perennials) have been selling HVX infected plants to quite a few different retail nurseries. Mori purchases their plants from different wholesalers and seems unwilling to share this information so it would probably be best to avoid all their hosta for the time being . I have seen infected Gold Standard, So Sweet, Sum and Substance, Striptease, Krossa Regal, and Undulata come in from them at the nursery where i work and at other nurseries in the ottawa area. We did of course imediatly pull all the batches showing infected plants, but some other nurseries have not been so pro-active unfourtunatly.
Mark Combellack

dhaven · Post by **dhaven** » Aug 28, 2005 12:48 pm

Add to the list Peedee Gold Flash from Sawyer Nursery. This spring they sent 2 year old tc plants, and 3 of the bunch were obviously very heavily virused. Their reaction was to offer to refund the price of the three, but they claimed that the rest of the plants in the tray were healthy if they didn't show the symptoms yet, and refused to accept that if one of a batch is virused, the rest are too. In fact they were a little hostile about the notion that HVX is a major problem--they apparently consider it a minor inconvenience. All the plants were immediately disposed of, and I have the other varieties I got from them quarantined.

I have also seen a virused batch of Lady Guinevere this spring, but haven't tracked down the wholesale source yet (the plants were never put up for sale), will post here when I find the wholesale source. And just this weekend I saw a Winter Lightning for sale that was clearly virused. Yes, I know it's a very unique plant, but this one had a solid colored leaf that was obviously infected, meaning the rest of the plant is as well.

thurlowbrook · Post by **thurlowbrook** » Aug 28, 2005 1:33 pm

Way to go Chris for alerting us! I've been suspicious of some of the plants bought over the past two years from Van Bloem, DeVroomen and Langeveld. Now I will definitely be watching them closely! It has been frustrating to say the least buying from these growers over the past few years. I can't begin to count how many times we've received bare root from these companies, grown it on and found it was not the plant we purchased - i.e. Hosta 'Thunderbolt' emerged with the exact opposite variegation! They can't guarantee which Hosta it MIGHT be, so now we have a whole block of unnamed Hostas we can't sell after paying a healthy price for the bare root stock!! Just one example in a long list of complaints. We have been doing business with these companies for years, but future orders with them will be slim to none after all the hassles.

I will definitely be watching here for more cultivars and/or companies. Debra

Post by **Chris_W** » Sep 10, 2005 2:42 pm

I just updated the original post with results from our latest round of virus testing. Patriot, Minuteman, and Halcyon from DeVroomen tested positive for HVX by ELISA. Guacamole and Katherine Lewis from Van Bloem also tested positive, but these were already reported as having HVX based on the visible symtoms, so the ELISA tests simply confirmed what I had already reported.

We tested 35 batches of plants, 29 varieties. 8 batches tested positive for HVX (Patriot, Minuteman, Guacamole, Sweet Susan, Venucosa, Halcyon (2), and Katherine Lewis). 1 (Whirlwind from Van Bloem Gardens) tested positive for an unknown virus by electron microscopy techniques.

Buckeye · Post by **Buckeye** » Sep 11, 2005 8:15 am

Sorry to hear this Chris. Are these all new batches you got in this year? If so then the Dutch certainly haven't cleaned up their act yet, but I assume you should be able to get credit for those. How many of your samples were showing visual symptoms? Also, this Whirlwind sample is interesting. Did they do Elisa tests for the other commonly seen viruses and it came back negative? Was it showing some kind of symptoms that they resorted to electron microscopy, and by the way, who did the testing? Do we now have another virus to be concerned about? Am I driving you crazy asking so many questions in one post? Are you....never mind I will stop.

Post by **Chris_W** » Sep 11, 2005 12:07 pm

Hi Buckeye,

Yes, these were all new batches from this past spring, so they were plants harvested last fall before they were doing any active research or testing.

The Halcyon, Minuteman, and Patriot show no visible symptoms. Because we sampled so many plants and still got positive ELISA tests we are very concerned about those particular varieties being widespread on the market.

The Whirlwind does not show any symptoms.

We are just doing systematic testing of all new batches, and when those are done we are going back through all of the older batches to make sure nothing has been missed.

The testing is being done at the University of Minnesota.

wholyhosta · Post by **wholyhosta** » Sep 12, 2005 2:37 pm

Chris

Did you say that 100% of the Patriot, Minuteman and Halcyon samples you had tested came back HVX POSITIVE?

Sorry, your worries just seem to be increasing as more varieties test positive. I still run into folks in the hosta world who dismiss or pooh-pooh all the reports. Nothing like having an HVX-infected Gold Standard or S&S make a convert out of you! Brenda

Post by **Chris_W** » Sep 12, 2005 5:23 pm

Out of 100 plants of Patriot and 100 Minuteman, we sampled 3 leaves of Patriot and 3 leaves of Minuteman at random, from separate plants. Out of 50 Halcyon we sampled 6 leaves from 6 plants and had them run 2 tests on them. Both of the Halcyon runs tested positive, so I am confident about this batch being infected. We will run some further samples this week on Patriot and Minuteman - we'll sample 6 more plants of each - and if we get repeat postives then I would say that the whole batches are probably infected.

With Guacamole we got one negative and one positive, so that batch is probably hit and miss. With Katherine Lewis we also got one negative and one positive. However, the positive testing plants showed symptoms in these cases, so I do not doubt the results, and we have destroyed those entire blocks of plants.

We were really hoping for better news by now, but it looks like we'll still be seeing problems for quite a while. Next year could be especially bad since by then a lot of the infected plants that did not show symptoms this year will start to show them next year. And our quarantine will now continue longer than we had hoped.

mooie · Post by **mooie** » Sep 12, 2005 10:10 pm

geez........I almost hate to open this section of the forum up. It scares me to think what's gonna happen in the next year or two...

mooie