GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

02-03-2006, 09:24 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

wrote:
[...]
For something completely different:- I wondered if you would know the
best way, or perhaps just 'a way' of distinguishing a viral desease
from a fungal desease. I find it almost impossible to distinguish the
two. Some start by being viral then turns into fungal deseases... I
need two examples of each, and 2 more for bacterial infection. Can you
help with something I can remember easily?

You're asking the wrong bloke, but I'd start off by assuming, rather
crudely, that on leaves a typical viral infection will be internal, and
a typical fungal one external. That will mean a virus may show itself by
discoloration of the leaf tissue -- unexpected variegation is a good
one -- and fungus by growths on the surface. A fungus could be
microscopic, of course, and not necessarily easy to distinguish; and
some fungal infections are internal. The lesions caused by either do
often admit secondary infections of the other, too.

You'll need to learn the symptoms of physiological ailments, too: till
you know them, some of them may look like virus.

I don't think plants suffer from bacterial infection, but my betters are
here to correct me.

--
Mike.