SCHNITZ Quote: >Hi Oliver. All testing so far has been with Critter Creek Labs.
Interesting. Of course, knowing that the plant is infected does not take one much further forward, unless you throw it out. I recall some Australian experiments (on crop plants) which showed that in common with the sort of virus that you or I encounter, high temperatures upset the ability of the virus to reproduce. They put infected plants in chambers with light, 100% humidity and a temperature around 55C for a couple of weeks, from which they emerged pale, thin and virus free. I suspect orchids would emerge virus free because they, like the viruses, were dead. Actually, very little is known about plant immune systems. They have them: assorted agglutination compounds analogous to antibodies which gum up the works, and more active systems which use short-chain RNAs to 'silence' genes on the virus genome, or to shut down part of the plant's biochemistry on which the virus depends. These get triggered by e.g. jasmonic acid, ethylene and related messages but they are not at all understood. I have no idea whether there is a documented example of a plant "throwing off" a virus infection. ______________________________ Oliver Sparrow +44 (0)1628 823187 www.chforum.org _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) orchids@orchidguide.com http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
