i'm in a different position  from most of you. there is no other fig tree within 50 miles of here. that means there can be no disease here unless i bring it in.

the way we deal with seriously infected cattle here is by burning them. it works, even if an entire herd must be destroyed.
the tree i got from hirt's was a tissue culture, and i think that that method of propagation eliminates the virus problem. not so?  .

susie

by the way, nasty comments add nothing to the discussion, even if you think i'm stupid.

susie.

tissue culture does not prevent virus. virus is form of life form that invade into cellular level. once it's in the cell, the outer capsule will break down and its generic material will start producing protein. if the tissue it's being cultured already has the virus' generic material in the cell, it has the virus.

is that for sure, pete?

susie

how virus propagate part, i'm rather sure. i was microbiology major in graduate school. tissue culture part, i'm rather sure. you have to have the tissue that is free from virus in order to have virus free tissue culture. 

if the plant where they took the tissue is already infected, then only thing they are doing is propagating infected tissues. 

some say they are doing heat treatment for kill the virus, but virus is made up of two parts. outer capsule and genetic material. what they are doing is using heat to denature the DNA/rRNA or what not which are the genetic material of the virus. but if the heat is great enough to denature viral DNA/rRNA.. guess what will happen to the host DNA? 

Susie, you have a point. If a chicken is infected with Avian Flu (virus),  most or all of the chickens in that farm are slaughtered. And I think if the general public knew that the tomatoes and peppers are infected, I bet you the sales will plummet!

rats! i thot i had a surefire wayto avoid virus. well, i guess i'll buy a bunch of trees and incinerate some.

susie

as i understand it,  fmv shows up early in a tree's life. i got my ch when it was 4'' tall with 2 leaves. it is now 18'' tall with many leaves. i know every leaf on this tree and none have ever shown signs of  virus. so, i have a tree free of the most virulent form of fmv, correct?

susie

Well here's an unusual idea if you are not into the "hot fig of the day".  If FMD (FMV) is an issue for you, try some of the unknowns from NYC, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, etc.  Many of these show no signs of the virus.  Just a thought.

oooh, cool idea, steve. how does one find such an unknown? i'd love to have one.

susie

Check the website frequently in the fall, many of the members will be offering cuttings of their unknowns.  Sometimes you only pay postage and sometimes it is completely free.

Also do a search of the website using the "search" function.  I'm sure you'll have many hits.

thanks a bunch steve. that's a whole new area for me to look into. all i want is a tree with no  visible signs. it may be all trees  are infected but i bet not all strains of fmv are nasty.

susie.

Susie,

Unknowns are a type of fig worthy of exploration in my opinion.  You never know where the next great find is going to come from.  Sometimes the fun is taking an unknown from one part of the country and seeing how well it does where you live.

Here's my recent example which seems to be doing very well here in Houston's heat and humidity, nothing like the NYC area where it came from.

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Krmk-Dark-fig-photos-6449118

awesome! the thrill of the unknown, sailing uncharted seas. i think i'd rather play with a fig like that than some well known variety.

susie

Susie get Alma it is thought to be immune to FMV because it is a hybrid of F. palmata.

oooh, brent. i didn't know there were immune varieties. i'll get an alma this fall for sure.

thank you.

susie

Labs with very sophisticated methods can remove FMV from figs while doing tissue culture but it is not a standard practice because the volume required to recapture such costs require sales to large growers and growers have accepted FMV as a fact of life.  It's not that nurseries are "laid back" about the problem, it's just accepted by a fact of life among growers.  Why would I care about FMV?  My Panache shows some signs of it but it has already put on 5-6 feet of growth and is loaded with a big crop of figs.  Duarte Nursery in California is reportedly scaling up to provided virus free fig trees.  They have done millions of virus free grapevines, citrus, almonds, stone fruit, etc. every year (I think their growing grounds had a capacity of 7 million plants a few years ago but have since been expanded) so their cost is probably easily absorbed in their operation.  Even then, the growers buying those trees will buy with the assumption that their orchards will eventually become infected but they will have a slight advantage in getting their young trees established a little faster than with a tree that is infected with FMV.

I've read here in the past (maybe Jon when writing about MAD002?) that seedlings don't carry FMV.  You could buy fruits and grow a lot of seedlings and in 5-10 years maybe have a lot of good new varieties that are virus free (and many more that aren't so good that you can discard).

There are so many great figs that just do fine despite the presence of FMV that I think you'll be avoiding a lot of great figs by placing so much emphasis on FMV.

Steve, I was so lucky to have an amazing member send me cutting from a Bronx tree, early on I had a huge gnat attack and lost many cuttings, but this Bronx tree is doing very well, grows rapidly and had a fig in it, that I allow it to grow so i can see what it looks like. So, you are correct, that is a good choice, if you can have your chance grab a few. Surviving NY is like...surviving anywhere, right?

Others have given goodd advices. If you like to have FMV Free plants, get cuttings from Southern Italy. Never seen any symptoms of FMV on plants that were propagated from cuttings that had came from that region of the World. Maybe it is due to their warm climate and long growing season, that those plants have developed immunity in being infected or etc.....

Navid.

Please, discuss the method of FMV transmission.  I thought that mites transmit this virus from tree to tree, and that the mites cannot survive in cold climate areas.  So therefore clean trees in colder climates, stay clean.  No mites.  I have never seen FMV symptoms on any NYC trees.  Every local tree, is clean, and productive, in fact, except for the end-of-season Rust infections, the trees are all symptom free from FMD.  I'm sure other locations, like Philly, Conn. etc can claim the same story.  This seems to be a problem in Southern, and warmer climates where the mites can survive.  Yes, no, maybe so?

Now, if a tree already showing symptoms is "imported" into my collection of symptom-free, locally-grown trees, will the virus jump to my trees?  Does the "imported" tree have to be carrying active mites in order to transmit the FMV virus to the symptom-free trees?

I've read that the cold kills off the mites, so even if a tree is sent in from a nursery, with symptoms, and with mites, and is brought into a mite-free, colder climate, the mites will be killed off after the first Winter.  So you are left with a tree that has the virus, but not the infecting mites.  Is this a valid assumption?

My very unscientific, conclusion is that active mites need to be present for the virus to jump to a presumably, clean, tree.  So, I isolate all new trees coming into my small collection if it shows symptoms, and take precautions with tools, my hands, etc.  After the first Winter, the mites, if any, I hope would be killed off by the cold.  That's the theory.

None of my trees show symptoms, except one, which recently came into my collection.  If this infected tree performs poorly, it's going to be removed.  I'm no Florence Nightingale for figs.


Frank


EDIT:  For those who want and grow the more exotic and rarer varieties, I think living with infected plants is a fact of life, and you will have to find ways to deal with the virus.

FMV is a virus, if it's truly a virus. if that's the case, once infected, the host is infected forever. it's like STD/VD. you don't really get rid of the virus in your body. the symptom can be suppressed, but the tree will forever be a carrier. way we propagate the fig is using cuttings to make copy of the mother tree. if the mother tree is infected, the cells in the cutting will have copy of that virus in them. so it's just duplicating the same virus.

harvey mentioned seedlings. seedlings are little different. there is better chance of not having the virus in sexual reproduction. when sexual reproduction occurs, it's one cell from male and one cell from female make up a new cell that will have both genetic material from male and female. the process where the male and female cells will divide to carry only half of the genetic information from the parent cell does something and lessens the chance of carrying the viral material. i forgot what that process or how it works. but think of HIV infected mother giving birth ot HIV free baby. but with figs, seeedlings will not have exact properties of the mother tree and that might not give what we are looking for.

this thread is turning into a great education. mites? is that true, frank?

frank, i'm sure gonna keep my eyes on duarte nursery, because people making that big an effort sure take figs seriously.

pete, your posts are jewels.

navid, i already want a tree from southern italy. i didn't know they were fmv free, tho.

susie

I agree with folks here. The main method of transmission is propagation via cuttings and thats how most collectors trade.  As the trees grow older and with feeding and care, they push past the effects of the virus usually.  I for one like and enjoy finding a special one that is not showing signs and many I have do not seem to have it, others do. Cultured fig stock from lab cloning operations is being sold by several operations in the south offering LSU purple and other common types, but the stock is usually small and will take several years to grow into productive trees.  Look for potted trees in the 3 -5 year age group, and the stress of potted nursery stock can show FMV signs if strong in the plant, but if dormant not. Be prepared for dealing with and caring for the affected plants, even the best places can have it. I have not had a migration of the virus to other trees, but rust is another issue that is easily spread if one does not dispose of dropped leaves carefully.

jack, which operations in the south offer cloned trees? pete says clones can carry virus, but my tissue cultured CH seems clean.

susie

Tissue cultured clones do not carry over the virus unlike other forms of propagation.  Cutting propagation is also "cloning' but guaranteed to host the virus. There are a few greenhouses in FLA and GA that have labs for propagating large volumes of their nursery stock.  if you go on eBay, search for LSU purple fig, here is one example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ficus-louisiana-purple-LSU-fig-Tree-plant-/370863601961?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5659317929