Virused Bulbs
Nathan Lange (Mon, 07 Apr 2014 12:31:16 PDT)

When trying to decide whether or not to discard a suspected virus
infected plant, keep in mind that there is a tremendous amount of
misinformation out there. I have seen and heard about a number of
very bad recommendations concerning plants suspected of having virus.
Most variegated plants are not the result of viral infection (of
course, there are certainly many examples of ones that are caused by
virus). To the untrained eye, many nutrient deficiencies in monocots
can mimic the appearance of virused plants. For good examples, look
up some of the many pictures available online of nutrient
deficiencies in corn. Petal variegation is most frequently
misdiagnosed as virus in origin, probably because many people have
heard about tulip breaking virus. There's even a photo of a pink
Sparaxis flower on the PBS wiki that is likely misdiagnosed as being virused:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
The diagnosis on the orange Sparaxis is also suspect. Many
misdiagnosed variegated petal patterns such as these are likely the
result of harmless transposons.

Heat is known to suppress the appearance of some viral symptoms in
plants. For example, on more than one occasion I have received Crinum
bulbs through the BX from peolple living in much warmer summer
climates than where I live. The resulting plants exhibited severe
viral symptoms as soon as they leafed out and I promptly destroyed
them. Given the sources, its extremely unlikely they knowingly sent
these infected bulbs to the BX.

Nathan