Why we should care about pathogenic viruses in our plants

Adam Fikso adam14113@ameritech.net
Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:31:00 PDT
Thanks, Lee.  You raise a question that I've not checked out:  Why not 
vaccines for plants? Maybe no antibodies?  The only thing I'm aware of in 
this area is acetylsalicylic acid as a trigger for what approximates an 
immune respnse in plants,and I followed that literature for a while and 
occasionally drench a n endangered plant of mine with an aspirin solution to 
help it get well. Haven't kept any records though except to note that it 
doesn't help arisaemas infected wtih Uromyces.  It appears at first to 
help-- but they're don't survive to the next year..


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lee Poulsen" <wpoulsen@pacbell.net>
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 8:36 AM
Subject: Re: [pbs] Why we should care about pathogenic viruses in our plants


Jacob Knecht wrote:
> Dear PBS members,
>
> Though I am not a professional pathologist, I am a passionate 
> horticulturist
> and conservationist.  Ben Zonneveld brings up a good point.  Not all 
> viruses
> reduce a plant's vigour nor are viruses responsible for many variegations
> (especially foliar) found in ornamental plants today.  Some viruses are 
> now
> essential to modern biological research methods...

I enjoyed Jacob's essay and it caused me to think of a couple of points:

1. Not only are some microorganisms not bad, the "flora" in human
gastrointestinal system for example, which we've known about for years,
is considered to be essential. So much so, that scientists decided to


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