[pbs] Fw: viruses in Hippeastrum and everything else.
Adam Fikso
adam14113 at ameritech.net
Sun Nov 19 17:21:32 EST 2006
----- Original Message -----
From: "Annalee" <pasogal at ameritech.net>
To: <pbs at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 1:13 PM
Subject: viruses in Hippeastrum and everything else.
> The ONLY thing I have found useful in controlling viruses in bulbous or
> other plants is good cultural conditions (meaning those which the plant
> likes and which enable it to thrive) and an aspirin (acetylsalicylic
> acid) drench from time to time. A good working solution is 2--325 mg.
> tablets per gallon of water. This will not kill the virus since viruses
> are not killable, but it does trigger the plants immune response and may
> suppress the virus's effects. It also works well fairly on Erwinia
> carotovora, but on Erwinia, the infected parts of the "bulb", tuber, or
> rhizome need to be cut off, sterilized with, say, a chlorine-releasing
> drying agent or scouring powder such as Comet.
>
> This treatment will also enable Arisaemas to resist fungal infections that
> develop from infection under moist conditions where there is insufficient
> air movement. The tuber will re-emerge the folowing year without the
> fungus
>
> The reason that viruses cannot be "killed" is because technically, they
> are not "alive" in the usual sense. They come "alive" only when they have
> infected a host. The tobacco mosaic virus, for example, can survive
> boiling water for hours, alcohol soaks, and can only be "killed" by being
> "taken apart" , as it were, actually lysed to its molecular parts which
> can only be done by killing the host--not a usually acceptable method of
> treastment. Good if one is willing to destroy the entire population. A
> bit more technical stuff: The difference between being dissolved, and
> lysed is that after being dissolved, a compound or a biological entity can
> be reconstituted by drying, and evaporating the solvent. With lysing,
> this does not occur, the molecular structure has changed forever and
> cannot be reconstituted. The same is true for human viral infections,m
> i.e., chickenpox, one "gets over " the disease, but it can recur years
> later in the form of "shingles". Which is very painful and can be lethal.
More information about the pbs
mailing list