HVX Question

[thurlowbrook]

Chris, first I'd like to thank you for all the valuable information in this forum. We only recently became aware of Hosta Virus X and the vast amount of information in your HVX Forum has been a tremendous help. We have a large inventory of Hostas, purchased from Holland growers as well as from tissue culture, and are actively watching for signs of this virus in our stock. Unfortunately we have several suspects which will be tested next week - bare root stock which has been purchased from Holland over the past several years.

My question is, last year we purchased a large quantity of bare root stock (mostly from Van Bloem) of some of the newer cultivars. All of these plants emerged healthy, putting out new leaves, etc. and suddenly started deteriorating - leaf curl, leaf burn, crown rot, etc. and eventually 95% of them died. We have grown Hostas since 1985 and this was a first for us. Although I understand from everything I've read that the symptoms are easily identified in the leaves, do you think it's possible that HVX could have been the culprit? Obviously we no longer have leaves for testing of these plants and the plants were disposed of immediately. Just thought with your firsthand knowledge of this virus, you might have some input.

Again, thank you for this forum, Debra

[Chris_W]

Hi Debra,

Welcome to the forums.

The problem sounds more like some kind of rot - fungus, drought, fertilizer burn, sunburn... Some plants are more prone to problems, but HVX isn't prone to something quite like this.

Hope that helps.

Chris

[thurlowbrook]

Thanks for the info Chris. From what I've read I didn't think it was HVX but it was the strangest thing we've had happen to us in all of our years of growing. My husband says I'm getting too paranoid about the virus - but I say better safe than sorry. Debra