(What is presumed to be) Beet Curly Top Virus

[Lithium]

Hola Cabana, figured now would be the time to divulge my current malady to spread some awareness and maybe shed light on issues some people may be facing.

FWIW, this is why I haven't been sharing strains or fulfilling requests in the wish list thread.

Not long ago, Beet Curly Top Virus was witnessed affecting hemp--having made the jump from...well...beets, and being transmitted via the beet leafhopper.

A photo of Curly top virus infected hemp plant can be found here: https://blog.plantwise.org/2021/09/21/hemp-a-new-crop-challenged-by-old-pathogens/


The current information regarding it is that plants can overcome the symptoms while still carrying the virus. In my garden, the symptoms seem to be outgrown during flower phase, then spring back up again when clones are vegging. There are also reports of it only affecting a single branch, as well. Aside from the obvious leaf tacoing and/or telltale leaf tip fishhooking (as seen in pics below) the virus can cause severed deformation and stunting and even death. I assume it's worse in open fields as there's no decent controls for leafhoppers (they pass the disease whether the plant is treated with poison or not) and the viral load is probably expounded by this as leafhoppers bite plant after plant for sap to fuel their ungodly orgies.

With Oregon having a massive concentration of hemp acreage in years past, it's no mystery how this disease has proliferated in my locale. I put plants outside to strengthen them up to take strong apical clones, and my land is absolutely inundated with leafhoppers. Not long after, I started noticing leaf curl in my plants and the problem spread quickly to other plants.

Just recently, I had only one plant from my last grow--GMO. It had the leaf curl but eventually showed no symptoms. Fresh GMO clones from the infected plant soon shared a humidity dome with all my new arrivals (thank you greatly, friends, for your help). Before I could transplant the new arrivals showed symptoms.

I also acquired a Gary Payton clone and Durban Poison clone from a local dispensary, put them into the grow room in all new pots, substrate...watered with clean, new utensils and they began to show symptoms in only 3-4 days. I have sticky traps everywhere that have shown no insect activity except for the one fungus gnat that slipped in when I was transporting water inside. Other than that--no insects and my room is sealed very tight.

So basically, there haven't been leafhoppers in my grow but somehow the disease has spread VERY quickly. I don't really have an answer to this...

BECAUSE the local experts at Oregon State University that deal with this problem for hemp growers are limited to who they can talk to--federally. They are only allowed to speak to and help registered hemp growers within the state. They are very specifically not allowed to talk to personal medical cannabis/hemp grower about their problems. But I was invited to a zoom meeting between the pathology experts in the field and hemp growers to discuss disease causes, symptoms, and mitigation. I don't know when the meeting will be but I'm interested in attending.

I have a few pics of my plants and couple from a friend who is a long time grower and excellent farmer in the Bend area.

Here are my friend's pics. They are a little worse off...he also has pics of his outdoor plants WITH beet leafhoppers on them

I'm assuming this is going to become MUCH more prevalent as time goes on. There are reports (with pics) of people losing their gardens from a couple years back and figuring it could dicamba/2,4-D herbicide injury, but the newest reliable diagnosis is indeed Curly Top Beet Virus.

Be vigilant, my friends!

(I have to make my son lunch...like right NOW, so I'll update if I've forgotten to mention anything or new info comes up)

 

[ClearBarbedFunk]

I’ve had it here in the mountains of CO in my outdoor one year. They hit about mid flower, only infected 3 of 20 plants. As you said, does not effect the whole plant, just the limb they have bitten. Good sized bug, easy to spot. They arrived on the wind, and left on the wind.

 

[barefoot]

dealt with for yrs in southern Sierra foothills…..much worse examples than shown…loss complete plants..was a major PIA…..morning routine while showing less vigor (leafhoppers) would scour plants and pinch dead……helped some, but as night temps went up so did pop’s….until green-up slowed…. numbers decreased..…..drought conditions made it worse….

best in control…..
ganj on….

 

[nannymouse]

I wonder if the seed from infected plants would carry the virus?

 

[Lithium]

I’ve had it here in the mountains of CO in my outdoor one year. They hit about mid flower, only infected 3 of 20 plants. As you said, does not effect the whole plant, just the limb they have bitten. Good sized bug, easy to spot. They arrived on the wind, and left on the wind.

Keep in mind, limited infection to singular branches is essentially best case scenario. Aside from no symptoms whatsoever, of course.

dealt with for yrs in southern Sierra foothills…..much worse examples than shown…loss complete plants..was a major PIA…..morning routine while showing less vigor (leafhoppers) would scour plants and pinch dead……helped some, but as night temps went up so did pop’s….until green-up slowed…. numbers decreased..…..drought conditions made it worse….

best in control…..
ganj on….

My theory is that if you can limit vectors then the viral load doesn't build up exponentially. My symptoms are significantly less severe than my friend's plants. Since there's nothing you can do aside from pre-eradicating the leafhopper population, limiting the number of times the virus gets reintroduced to the plant may help stall symptoms and prevent a total loss. Just a theory though, as I'm not allowed to discuss the matter with the actual experts on the topic, legally.

I wonder if the seed from infected plants would carry the virus?

Good point, I don’t see why not, the tissue inside is from the infected plant

I'm going to find out! Making some seed as soon as this round is done. It's been found that 'the dud'--HLVd has a 1 in 8 (or so) infection rate in seeds, based on a post by OBSoul33t on Instagram. Early culling of seedlings will likely take place, so my hope is to hunt through some seeds and find a non-infected keeper.

I watched some very telling tissue culture videos recently, and the expert was saying that they are finding a LOT of diseases in even the most healthy mother stock in the most notable gardens. So there's no telling just how long viruses can remain dormant or fallow in any particular crop...

 

[180]

Thanks [MENTION=4246]Lithium[/MENTION] for the effort you put into this thread.

I had some minor HLV-like weirdness in my garden in the past. I have a feeling the viroid is lurking there, but it shows up so rarely that it makes me question that feeling.... I have never had the widespread dudding that characterizes HLV outbreaks; my weirdness has been limited to one plant, or sometimes just one branch of one plant, once in a great while. Not enough to seriously affect my garden's output. In fact, hardly noticeable.

I guess the only way for me to know what's up is to send tissue samples to a place that doesn't exist yet....

 

[Lithium]

I’ve had it here in the mountains of CO in my outdoor one year. They hit about mid flower, only infected 3 of 20 plants. As you said, does not effect the whole plant, just the limb they have bitten. Good sized bug, easy to spot. They arrived on the wind, and left on the wind.

dealt with for yrs in southern Sierra foothills…..much worse examples than shown…loss complete plants..was a major PIA…..morning routine while showing less vigor (leafhoppers) would scour plants and pinch dead……helped some, but as night temps went up so did pop’s….until green-up slowed…. numbers decreased..…..drought conditions made it worse….

best in control…..
ganj on….

[MENTION=2781]ClearBarbedFunk[/MENTION] and [MENTION=4240]barefoot[/MENTION], can you guys tell me what years you remember first experiencing this particular problem? There's virtually no nomenclature from university studies before 2020.

Thanks [MENTION=4246]Lithium[/MENTION] for the effort you put into this thread.

I had some minor HLV-like weirdness in my garden in the past. I have a feeling the viroid is lurking there, but it shows up so rarely that it makes me question that feeling.... I have never had the widespread dudding that characterizes HLV outbreaks; my weirdness has been limited to one plant, or sometimes just one branch of one plant, once in a great while. Not enough to seriously affect my garden's output. In fact, hardly noticeable.

I guess the only way for me to know what's up is to send tissue samples to a place that doesn't exist yet....

A guy I'm chatting with now on IG thinks it HLV. Which would be odd, as I've never found a leaf curl symptom from HLV nor seen one in the hundreds of examples in the DICK thread at eye see mag. Nothing even remotely close. And my plants flower out amazing with no loss of crystals, terp, yield, or vigor--telltale signs of the dud.

He seems to be very well educated but he just doesn't think the plant can "grow out" of symptoms so he's written curly top off as a possible issue. I'll respect that, totally, but the similarities seem too numerous to discount entirely.

 

[ClearBarbedFunk]

Was 6yrs ago to the best of my knowledge, haven’t grown outdoor here for past 3, due to all the hemp pollen all over the damn place

 

[barefoot]

always had leaf hopper problem…but virus didn’t start up till 2013

 

[Lithium]

Was 6yrs ago to the best of my knowledge, haven’t grown outdoor here for past 3, due to all the hemp pollen all over the damn place

always had leaf hopper problem…but virus didn’t start up till 2013

So, herein lies the problem. Almost all the data about curly top states the first experiences in hemp are from 2020.

It will be very difficult to convince a university scholar that it existed in cannabis before then, as they write off any observations not done by academics. Kinda like when a lot of people were inquiring about the dud 10 years ago or so...the industry experts and college folk were thinking it was just root rot or bad growing practices.

I think that might have to do with the guy I exchanged with assuming it was HLV despite not looking anything like it and looking almost exactly like curly top. I don't blame him, lots of b.s. in the cannabis world as it is but there's still some common sense that seems to be thrown out.

anyhow...onward...

 

[Variety]

I dealt with a lot of dudding but have learned to just cull and move on. Most of the time the strains will grow out of it if you stay with top cuts. Tissue culture guys claim they can clean it but I call super bullshit. Sitting a piece of a stem in the grind he for six months isn’t going to do anything lol. Just another money gimmick like thc testing. I’ve seen things test for hlv then second samples sent a couple weeks later from the same mother plant and they are negative.
Now I see the big popular guys on Instagram they always share there tumi results and always clean as can be. Then they have multiple peeps in the comments ready to send into tumi as well. Big money grab while tumi is just salivating lol. I don’t think any of this industry crap is anything more then to hype your buddies and your bank account.

 

[Lithium]

I dealt with a lot of dudding but have learned to just cull and move on. Most of the time the strains will grow out of it if you stay with top cuts. Tissue culture guys claim they can clean it but I call super bullshit. Sitting a piece of a stem in the grind he for six months isn’t going to do anything lol. Just another money gimmick like thc testing. I’ve seen things test for hlv then second samples sent a couple weeks later from the same mother plant and they are negative.
Now I see the big popular guys on Instagram they always share there tumi results and always clean as can be. Then they have multiple peeps in the comments ready to send into tumi as well. Big money grab while tumi is just salivating lol. I don’t think any of this industry crap is anything more then to hype your buddies and your bank account.

The presentation I saw on tissue culture showed the guy taking a LOT of tissue cultures then finding the clean one from those...which makes WAY more sense. But more TCs means much, much more $$$ (for the customer). I can't imagine your average hobby grower could afford to do this, while TC has remarkably low costs--the startup money requirements for a clean professional facility are remarkably high.


Re: HLV testing, I think the effectiveness of testing would be limited to how thoroughly the virii have settled that particular plant matter. (Like how HLV and BCTV can only affect a single branch).

I think there has to be some skepticism regarding the veracity of those tests as some people send samples (from the same plant) to be tested every month or two...even when they've acquired no new genetics from which fresh contamination could occur.

With almost no way to cure viruses in plants, I'd like to see some actual harder data on the usage of antiviral chemicals in horticulture. I'd imagine that would be a more efficient route as opposed to testing, reacquiring, throwing out, tissue culturing...etc, that will cost lots of time and money and may not work.