----- Original Message ----- From: "Annalee" <pasogal@ameritech.net> To: <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 1:13 PM Subject: viruses in Hippeastrum and everything else. > The ONLY thing I have found useful in controlling viruses in bulbous or > other plants is good cultural conditions (meaning those which the plant > likes and which enable it to thrive) and an aspirin (acetylsalicylic > acid) drench from time to time. A good working solution is 2--325 mg. > tablets per gallon of water. This will not kill the virus since viruses > are not killable, but it does trigger the plants immune response and may > suppress the virus's effects. It also works well fairly on Erwinia > carotovora, but on Erwinia, the infected parts of the "bulb", tuber, or > rhizome need to be cut off, sterilized with, say, a chlorine-releasing > drying agent or scouring powder such as Comet. > > This treatment will also enable Arisaemas to resist fungal infections that > develop from infection under moist conditions where there is insufficient > air movement. The tuber will re-emerge the folowing year without the > fungus > > The reason that viruses cannot be "killed" is because technically, they > are not "alive" in the usual sense. They come "alive" only when they have > infected a host. The tobacco mosaic virus, for example, can survive > boiling water for hours, alcohol soaks, and can only be "killed" by being > "taken apart" , as it were, actually lysed to its molecular parts which > can only be done by killing the host--not a usually acceptable method of > treastment. Good if one is willing to destroy the entire population. A > bit more technical stuff: The difference between being dissolved, and > lysed is that after being dissolved, a compound or a biological entity can > be reconstituted by drying, and evaporating the solvent. With lysing, > this does not occur, the molecular structure has changed forever and > cannot be reconstituted. The same is true for human viral infections,m > i.e., chickenpox, one "gets over " the disease, but it can recur years > later in the form of "shingles". Which is very painful and can be lethal.