Nina: Do you have any data on how hot and how long the heat must be there for
Verticillium to go dormant.
And is this a virus or a bacterium?
Alan Walker, Lake Charles, LA, USA
http://LCBSBonsai.org http://bonsai-bci.com

Do I look like a virologist? Do I look like a bacteriologist? I do
not. I look like a mycologist, and Verticillium is a fungus.

My reference (Sinclair, Lyon and Johnson) does not give a
temperature, but says that the fungus is killed in above-ground parts
of trees in California, and survives in the [cooler] root systems. I
found a paper by some scientists in Syria who were enclosing olive
trees in plastic tents to cure them of vert, and they were using
temperatures of 30-36 C.

In bonsai, the whole plant can be heated up, and theoretically cured.
I have never heard of a nursery trying this, however. The best
treatment is prevention: buy clean stock and plant it in soil-less
media. If you don't splash infected soil around, and you use clean
tools, it will be difficult for the fungus to get into the bonsai
soil.
--
Nina Shishkoff

Frederick, MD

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