Could using tissue culture plant cloning create figs without FMV? I have seen the home kits online, anyone know if they work? Just thought it may be a way to bring back some good stock.

I don't know if it can be done, but I would be highly skeptical of being successful with a home kit. I've watched people doing tissue culture in labs, and a great deal of equipment, plus knowledge and experience of both plant material as well as using true sterile technique is required for success.

Even if you could re-establish virus free trees, how would you be able to keep them from being re-infected with such a wide-spread contagious pathogen? Most of the cuttings or rooted plants I've seen - from different states/sources - have FMV.

tissue culture the thing and keep it in bubble?

i like my fig with sprinkle of FMV.. but no RKN, please.

pete

FMV in figs was first described by Condit and Horne in 1933.
I have some literature on experiments that were done under strict sterile conditions in lab and new plants grown were tested to be free of the virus.

Also yes they can easily be reinfected.
From reading this literature its not for the gardener to do.

As a note mosaic virus is in many other plants other than figs for example squash, cucumbers, tomatoes etc it just has a different abbreviation .
Pictures of mosaic in veggies can easily be seen online if searched.

UcDavis did a study of it but not sure if they ran out of funds or what was the outcome .


I

Generally Mosaic viruses are hard to get rid of, for my work the Green mottle cucumber mosaic virus can be a killer, it can wipe out the entire crop and you're done same as ToMV and TMV, TSWV. mostly plants with resistance are bred but there is always a drop in production for the resistance.  We do a lot for cleaning in between crops and then something as easy as a bird, aphid, thrips could just as easily infect us.

Growing virus free stock can be done but like the others have said it may be difficult to maintain that; however, I think it may be a good thing to try for hard to root varieties it could make it easier to establish a large stock of hard to root ones.  Just have to make sure everything is really really clean.

Florida Hill Nursery claims to sell plants grown from tissue culture. I ordered 3 last year and they are either seedlings or as advertised. 2 plants are showing red growth tips, while one is not, all are supposed to be Brown Turkey, time will tell...

Thanks for all the good information. I should have known if it was a good idea someone would have done it already. I guess my experiment with grafting figs to wild Mulberry trees will be a flop as well.

Found a good link for those wishing to do it themselves, on the cheap. http://www.kitchenculturekit.com/StiffAffordablePTCforhobbyists.htm.

(Note - I did not read the entire site.) The type of tissue culture they are using at that site is bascially making leaf cuttings, which some plants like begonia and african violets (their example) can do without all the steps. If you did the same thing with a fig leaf, you would still have the virus since the virus is in the leaf tissue - and I doubt such leaf culture would work on figs. It is not the technique of tissue culture per se that rids a variety of disease, but rather very young, non-diseased tissue used in the culture.

The kind of tissue culture required to rid oneself of a virus is meristem culture, which is using only the very small meristem (actively growing apical tip - just a cluster of small cells) where the cells are actively dividing. For that, you would need a microscope to find and excise it, culture, and then divide. Methods vary.

Theoretically, you can get a separate plant to develop from each living non-differentiated cell since each cell has a nucleus that contains a complete set of genetic information that would be required to grow a whole plant. Because of this capability, growers now use tissue culture for making great numbers of plants from a small amounts of plant material.

In the 'old days' to get a new plant either from grafting or cuttings, you needed one node/axillary bud to grow into that plant. Today, you only need, theoretically, one cell. Many things are now propagated via tissue culture, but that is as much for propagating in great numbers as it is for rendering something disease free - though that is an added bonus if the right tissues are used.

I would not count TC out for the home gardener.  I TCed bananas for years, and if I could do it . . . .  Once you get the procedure down, it requires very little by way of special equipment. 

Having said that, I am not sure of the value in using it to eliminate FMV.

Keith

I worked at a greenhouse that used heat chambers to get rid of the virus.   They put the plants in the growth chamber and grew them under grow lights for several weeks at really warm temperatures.   This holds the virus back and then they take the meristem (growing tip) and transfer it to tissue culture to eastablish their mother stock. 

Sometimes, as with poinsettias, viruses are what gives the plants their colors and growth habit.  Without the virus, they grow totally different and undesirable.

The tissue culture process does not get rid of the virus.  By taking a meristem cutting or any other tissue and transferring it to tissue culture, you're simply using another means of propagation.  You will still transfer the virus if it's there to beging with.

Fmv is reported to be a slow moving virus in fig tree, this is why we ofter see it in some parts and not others or at least its not seen with our eyes at that point.
The meristem from what i have read is therfore the best chance to get a virus free plant if its extracted quickly as they virus may not have gotten to it.
Course extracting it properly and then producing a plant by the average home gardener is another story.

A large plant tissue culture co. in central Fl lists 5 fig varieties on their stock list:  Black Mission, Brown Turkey, Ischia, LSU Purple and Magnolia.  The LSU Purple is a new addition showing June availability.  They sell in 72 cell trays.   

John

That is the list @ Florida Hill Nursery $7 ea. Maybe I did get tissue culture plants and they sent a couple black missions and one other? I still don't recommend buying from them since my order is still screwed up, but I think they are the only one's selling retail. It would be nice if they sent 2 missions actually, they were not listed when I ordered the BTs.

It seems to depend on the type of cultivar and if you are trying to get rid of a virus or other pathogen what method or combinations of methods are used. Heat, meristem culture, chemicals.. 

In figs however, I'm not sure of the benefit of buying disease free plants since the fmv seems so wide-spread - how would one prevent healthy figs from being re-infected from nearby trees?

The following section on obtaining disease-free stock copied weird (some letters got fused), but it's still readable.