Virused Bulbs
Nicholas plummer (Mon, 07 Apr 2014 10:53:44 PDT)
Is there any data on how long plant viruses can hang out in the soil? Last
year, I grew some Gloriosa superba from a commercial vendor. The plants
exhibited color break in the flowers and some oddly deformed foliage, so I
threw them out at the end of the season. I now have some new plants I grew
from seed that came from Silverhill, and I wonder about locating them along
the same fence as the old ones. The questionable plants were in pots, but
roots may have invaded the ground.
Same deal with Cannas in a flowerbed. I ripped out some clearly virused
Canna about five years ago and would now like to replace them with
virus-free stock from Tony Avent. Should I pick a different location?
Nick
On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Nhu Nguyen <xerantheum@gmail.com> wrote:
Imagine having to dig up and throw out fully mature
Haemanthus nortieri, sanguineus, amarylloides, Brunsvigia herrei, Boophone
haemanthoides and other rare species! It was incredibly heart-wrenching but
had to be done. The plants were infected at some point and each year
produced smaller and smaller leaves and sicker looking plants.
One bad bulb can spoil the rest. You can read more about viruses and how to
keep your collection clean on the wiki Virus page:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…