"Spider" wrote in message
...
A few years ago, someone helpfully posted a recipe which used aspirin to
help cure virussed plants. I'm sure I marked it as interesting, but now
cannot find it.

I have a patch of isolated Leucojum bulbs in the garden which are
displaying virus-like symptoms. When in flower, the green marking on each
petal is elongated into a central stripe, which is potentially *very*
attractive. Sadly, there is some distortion in the flowerheads (due to
virus?) which spoils their beauty and prevents me from propagating them.

I'm really interested in curing the virus and growing these bulbs on to
find out if the attractive striping i)persists without the virus, and
ii)if that striping is generally stable over a few generations without
reverting to the virussed distorted from, which certainly isn't
attractive.

Does anyone remember the aspirin recipe or, indeed, have any other advice?
Thank you for your time.

Standard treatment to remove virus from chrysanth stools is hot water.
Stools are immersed in water at around 126F. for five minutes and then
plunged into cold water, prior to boxing up. The old 'Burco' type boiler was
ideal for this. I have also experimented with Dahlia tubers and found that
they require ten minutes for the treatment to be effective. Leucojum bulbs
should respond well to this treatment, a large saucepan is all that you need
but take care that the water does not rise above 130F.

Phil