a virus or a pest?

[bower]

All my plants are looking great so far except for this one... if this is a virus spread by little pests I'd like to know it so I can remove the infected plant.
This plant is a Lycopersicoides cross LA 4268, which has a gene for botrytis resistance. The plant and its three siblings have looked kind of miserable from the get go, but I figured this was just their nature, and maybe not liking the cold. Yellow spots on some leaves looked like cold stress or nutrient stress symptoms, but this is different.
Is this what a mosaic virus looks like?

[peebee]

What does the underside look like? For weeks I obsessed about dulling, mottled leaves and found out too late that the spider mites on the underside had been causing the damage all along. Looks like very fine rusty powder; Don't look like bugs at all. Now I'm into my second week of spraying neem oil on my plants but a few look like they are too weak and ravaged to recover.

[bower]

Thanks, Peebee.

Yeh, I hate the tiny pests - had spider mites on citrus indoors a couple of years ago, and finally got rid of the trees. Mites, thrips, miners and such get through my screens and give my indoor peppers a hard time when spring arrives every year, although they don't do much damage to tomatoes unless it's a plant or two they particularly like. I use neem too, at least for temporary relief until it's warm enough to get the peppers out in the ground.

There was nothing on the underside of the leaves, and I searched online and found it really does look like mosaic virus - pepino or tomato virus look much the same. If so it is a huge risk to the other plants in a crowded greenhouse, as it can be spread just by touching them, and more so by the sap, so the usual 'sanitation pruning' approach would be even worse.. Luckily the plant is determinate so I hadn't pruned it at all, and no sign that other plants have been affected at this point, so I am following the recommendations for mosaic virus, cut my losses and carefully dispose of the affected plant and soil.
Couple of useful pages about the mosaic viruses:
This one has a picture, very similar to mine
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/pepmv.htm
They aren't sure how the pepino mosaic is spreading. Seed transmission is really low, but I think it could get around on the skins of imported fruit or vegetables, easily enough..
This one gives a lot of detail about the life cycle and persistence of tomato mosaic
http://www.dpvweb.net/dpv/showdpv.php?dpvno=156
I didn't realize how variable the symptoms can be depending on the age of the plant and also on the prevailing temperatures.. It's possible the plants were infected from the get go if it is tomato mosaic virus, and I just didn't recognize it. If so, it doesn't seem like it is so infective when the symptoms haven't progressed to a visible mosaic, or I think it would have been spread long ago by the ol daily greenhouse pollination shake.

Fingers crossed...

[Heritage]

Bower,

That looks close enough to the PepMV that I would destroy all of the plants showing symptoms and any plant touching the infected plants. You probably have already Googled all of the recommended guidelines for disinfecting tools, workbenches, etc...

Agdia makes immunostrip tests for most of the viruses if you want to test the plants yourself:immunostrip for PepMV I use the TMV and CMV tests regularly and they are easy to use. I don't know if Canada has the equivalent of the US county extension agencies but, if so, you might ask for assistance to diagnose this (potential) virus.

Good luck... I hope what you have is just some strange mutation or the like. Good for you for being proactive!

Steve

[bower]

Steve,
Thanks for the link to the immunostrip tests - great product.

I'm not sure what ag services still exist here - they were pretty well stripped of federal funding a couple of years ago. I would like to get some expert advice, especially as to the risk of spreading the virus when plants are still without symptoms and look fine. I usually help out at my friend's farm one day a week, but I won't be doing that if there's any risk of bringing the unseen virus along.
The plant next to the infected plant was a second one of the same seed, and not very vigorous although it wasn't showing any mosaic - I took them both out to be on the safe side. But if the mosaic virus is very contagious and is infective before mosaic appears on the leaves, I have probably spread it to every plant in the greenhouse, since I touched every plant and went down every row just a couple of days ago collecting pollen and setting up crosses. Way too many plants and for sure there was lots of contact between the leaves and my shirt. I have no idea how long it would be before symptoms show up. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.

I collected some articles on viral treatments a couple of years ago when I had a plant with the 'shoe-stringy' symptoms of CMV, but I lost that old data when my cpu crashed this spring. I found this one today though, about salicylate... definitely worth giving the plants a booster while I wait for the signs of doom....
http://www.plantcell.org/content/9/4/547.full.pdf+html

Even if they survive, I guess I will have to get any seed from them tested, to be sure there is no transmissible virus.

[Heritage]

Thrip damage can look very similar so it's not a positive diagnosis for PepMV without running tests.

Can you tell if the jagged lines are on the surface of the leaves only (thrips feeding) or are they chlorotic throughout the depth of the leaves? I can't really tell from the photos.

Also, when I have observed mosaic it has "almost" always been accompanied by distortion in the leaves and general puckering.

That's the problem with all of the viruses - there is always something less harmful that looks similar.

btw... if you have washed clothes, showered. and don't use any of your possibly infected tools, you should be OK working on your friends plants.

Please keep us posted,
Steve

[bower]

Steve,

Really appreciate your help with this.

The underside of the leaves wasn't discoloured at all - pale green and looked perfect.
As regards the puckering, these plants always had a bit of a downward curl to the leaves. It could be explained as, just not well adapted to such cold and dark conditions we're having. I thought it might be a lycopersicoides trait too.

There are a few small pests around and thrips could be one of them. There's some leaf damage on other plants but it is a light brown colour, not yellow. the pattern is also nothing like those leaves in the picture above. I usually pick off any damage I see in the morning before watering, but didn't do that yesterday or today to avoid makng open wounds - here's a rather dark pic of the maybe thrippy damage.

[bower]

Just to clarify the scale of the above, the damage which I think is some small pest is a much coarser scale - a larger spot or line than the tiny lines making up the mosaic-like pattern in the first case.

[Heritage]

Yes, I wouldn't expect the underside of the leaves to look damaged with either virus OR thrips. But, with the thrips, it will look like the top surface of the leaf has been scraped off. Mosaic damage will look more like a variegated leaf - i.e. the chlorosis will be through the depth of the leaf. However, with thrips, you will usually see excrement along with the scraping. From what I can see, I suspect your initial diagnosis is correct. With any leaf chlorosis (especially if there are distorted leaves) I think you are wise to err on the side of caution and pull the plants. The mosaics are really tough to clean up once you have them

To continue working on your remaining plants you should rinse your arms/hands with a mixture of skim milk diluted with water/milk at 5:1 and rinse between sections or individual plants. And, of course, avoid touching plants with clothes, watering wands, etc. This will help in the future spread of any virus.

[bower]

The mosaics are really tough to clean up once you have em... wow you're not kidding.
Disposing of plants is one thing, soil is something else altogether. Even these two small containers of soil is too heavy to just put in the trash.

But the list of 'other hosts' of ToMV is huge... Chance of starting a patch of it in the garden..... not worth the risk. I was thinking to just dump or bury the soil in the woods, but I googled " mosaic virus spruce" just to make sure... And I kid you not! Tomato mosaic isolated from red spruce, infective to other plants.
http://www.apsnet.org/publications/P...e76n05_518.pdf

There was too much rain to do anything yesterday, the bagged containers sat by the door. So.. this morning I did the soil shuffle out in the firepit - main roots to trash bag, the rest into the pit and lit a fire over it and burned some sticks for a couple hours. Later I'll find a place for the soil/ashes in the woods where it won't be disturbed and hope for the best. The smaller plant had only few roots and came right out of the soil easily; so what was left went into a heavy duty bag where I poured boiling water and let it sit... fire and/or water cure... humph.

This is for sure as much trouble as I can go to, and for a first step iit is worthwhile if there's a chance I will see this virus no more. There's no way I could handle it, though, if all the soil in my greenhouse had to be disposed.

[Heritage]

How long ago did you see the first symptoms?

[bower]

There were no symptoms on the 24th when I was collecting pollen. It's possible there were symptoms on the 25th - I went through in a bit of a rush that morning, so may have been inattentive. Definitely symptoms on the morning of the 26th, when I took the photo. I cut and bagged the plant that afternoon.
It seems like a heck of a lot to appear even in two days, to me. But I collected pollen from that plant on the 24th and since there wasn't much, tried every flower, so the plant had a good looking over at the time for sure, and I saw nowt but green leaves.

[Heritage]

Bower,

You keep good records and are very observant

I don't know... it doesn't quite look like what I would expect from either a mosaic virus or from thrips feeding, but those are the only two things I have seen personally that are even close to what your photo shows. Fun, huh?

If it were me, I would just keep on doing what you're doing now, prophylactically, and hope for the best. (no more symptoms)

Good luck, please keep us updated if there are any changes. Meanwhile, I hope someone else has seen this exact same thing and posts a solution to this puzzle!

Steve

[bower]

Fun, fun... can't get nothin but fun from these tomatoes. I'm just going to carry on as if the countermeasures were a sure thing, normal until I see otherwise.

I did read that symptoms vary depending on temperature/conditions.. the 'mosaic' appeared after the weather turned cold.. again. We're starting a warm spell now, and the plants got some sunshine and a good airing today... and warm enough, 75 F.

There was one other thing, the day before the symptoms appeared I brought in some bamboo stakes from the yard - I had sawed off and burned the bottom of them which had some white rot on it. I put two stakes in that pot and tied up the plant. Other plants were staked the same way but none of them were anything but pleased to have a little more support.
But who knows? Maybe this is a virus that's in the environment here, living in spruce or whatever. Could have been on the saw... And this lycopersicoides just happened to be susceptible when others are not?

I hope somebody does post an explanation... otherwise I'll be left with some tall tale about a spruce virus..

BTW, I only keep records because otherwise I wouldn't have a clue... no sense of time nor decent memory of quantifiable things.
Will update with a picture if anything develops.