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