Hello bulbophiles:
I have an accession of a cotton species, Gossypium tomentosum that looked diseased, and in my ignorant opinion, looked virused. It is the only one of that entry so I tried to save it. I put aspirin tablets in soil, cut off leaves and sprayed growing points with silver solution. It grew back normal. I can't prove anything without more science but maybe there is truth to our folklore remedies? An adjoining species, however did not grow back normal so apparently genetics is also playing a role.
James Frelichowski
Cotton Curator
Hippeastrum hobbyist
College Station, TX
--- On Fri, 7/23/10, Adam Fikso <adam14113@ameritech.net> wrote:
From: Adam Fikso <adam14113@ameritech.net>
Subject: Re: [pbs] Why we should care about pathogenic viruses in our plants
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Friday, July 23, 2010, 9:31 AM
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