"Dave Hill" wrote in message
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On Jan 10, 9:50 pm, "Phil Gurr" wrote:
"Spider" wrote in message

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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- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Never heard of hot water treatment for virus, always thought it was
for root eelworm, Interesting!
I wonder how a combination of hot water and asprin would work?

David, I did a lot of research on this many years ago and had some articles
published in 'Amateur Gardener' and the National Chrysanthemum Society
yearbook. It was uncertain at the time whether the viruses were just
inactivated or killed. The temperature quoted for killing eelworm was in the
region of 117F., but plant tissue will survive up to a temperature of 136F.
above which cell proteins start to coagulate leading to tissue death. When a
tempertaure of 130F. was used, the resultant chrysanthemum cuttings were
found to be free of virus. The same occured with dahlias. Hot water
treatment of celery seed is standard practise to eliminate virus which can
(unusually) be transmitted through the seed.

HTH

Phil