HVX in Seeds and Streaks

[eastwood2007]

I am new to the forum, and although I have read many of the postings and haven't seen these questions, I am sure this question has been answered somewhere, so I apologize in advance if this is old news. The questions I have are: 1. whether the virus can be transmitted thru the seeds and if so, does it show up as they begin to germinate or do they have the same length of show as what the parents typically do? 2. On the streaky hostas such as "Winter Lightning" and "Korean Snow", do they ever test positive for HVX? 3. If you have a hosta showing streaks, speckles, etc. and you have it tested, if it comes up negative, can you be certain it is negative? Or can subsequent testing on the same hosta show positive results when more mature? Thanks in advance...as others, I am really freaked out by this HVX situation. It is tragic.

[Chris_W]

Hi Eastwood,

From what I've been told by Dr. Lockhart is that HVX does not spread by seed. Most plant viruses do not spread by seed, and apparently this virus does not either.

Streaked hostas in general display a different coloration than what you would see in Hosta Virus X. Streaking appears as layers on the surface of the leaves while HVX can cause thin or thick patches through the leaves along the veins, or sometimes bumpy areas and on solid colored leaves the discoloration is often translucent. Once you've seen HVX in person the differences are pretty easy to tell apart from streaking. That's why the discoloration from HVX is known as mottling and not streaking. It really is different.

I have to agree that the streaking in Winter Lightning looks quite odd and is pretty close to a mottled coloring. I've had it tested repeatedly and it tests negative so the normal coloring is not caused by a virus. However, it would still be possible to infect Winter Lightning and then an infected plant could test positive. If that happened in time you would probably see some additional, different discoloration of the leaves.

It is possible for any plant to get a negative ELISA test and still be positive. This can happen if the concentration of HVX is too low to register. For this reason it is best to test leaves in late summer so the concentration has a chance to build up. Also, if you really do suspect HVX is causing discoloration and distortion of a leaf it is recommended that it be tested 3 years in a row. If all 3 tests are negative it is considered safe.

However, if you have a plant with mottled coloring it is important to be extra careful not to infect it. These leaf types are sometimes hard to distinguish from an HVX infected leaf so if they do become infected at some point it would be really difficult to tell from looking at it.

I hope that helps some. I'll try to add more later too.

Chris

[thy]

Ups

Forgot to delete my post
It did belong in a new topic