TROUBLE IN THE POST?

In 2004 I decided it was unwise to chance buying in new varieties in any quantity, my main worry was, subjecting my healthy dahlia stock in the garden to the realities of the World outside my control. Because in the confines of my garden, and the seed bed over the road, where magic happens from time to time, I can carefully watch over my charges, and keep everything as clean as it would be in an operating theatre. I'm  stretching it a bit, but only to emphasize how important it is to keep clean stock. So this year all I ordered was one of any variety I needed to add to my breeding stock. As each nurserymen's cuttings arrived they were sprayed, and kept in their own part of the greenhouse, while they established their selves in the new pot. By the time they had to be potted on I was beginning to be concerned with one in particular.

	Fairway Pilot Virus or not?		Un-named Seedling suffering from mineral deficiency.

That's the baby on the left, Fairway Pilot, if you notice the centre of the plant is coming good, so I'm almost certain the plant hasn't got a virus, but to the new grower it's enough to give him nightmares. I sent Harry Lawson a photo of the plant and he said if it was him, he'd dump it. Because if it had one of the many viruses, and I used it as a pollen receiver or provider, the virus could be passed on via the pollen, or via the actual plant. I'm going to wait and see if it comes out of it. His email got me thinking though, on what was happening over the road on the seedling plot.

During the time that I was taking cuttings, I had observed that the water lily flowered dahlia Yvonne had a slight discolouration to it's foliage. As each week past it was obvious this variety had picked up a virus, or more to the point had had a virus when I bought it, but as last years weather was cool and damp, I hadn't seen it in those miserable days of 2004. There was nothing to it I had to destroy my entire stock of this variety, I certainly didn't want a group of virus ridden dahlias contaminating the rest of my stock. As the seedlings started to take hold of the soil in the seedling bed, a few had a crinkled look to their foliage, imagine my horror when I looked down at the labels, because they either had Yvonne as the pollen provider, or the seed bearer, needless to say, these to were removed, and assigned to the Wheelie bin. In my quest to find something interesting that no one else has, I'm inclined to put every seedling into a pot, in future I will ditch the very weak seedlings, knowing that weak they will always be, with the recessive nature of a parent that had the bad luck to catch something nasty.

 Everyone knows viruses are one of my pet hates, I'm almost paranoid about them. So what could have caused this irregular leaf pattern, other than virus in Fairway Pilot? Tell you what I think, for what it's worth, what ever the cutting was rooted in, it certainly didn't like what I was using, and so a chemical reaction was set up which upset the plants ability to create chlorophyll. Now the plants on the right are one of my own seedlings varieties, so I can't say the same for them, although there is definitely a deficiency of some vital elements. When I asked Wayne Holland about them, he put it like this, in one of his instructive emails:

"Looks like mineral deficiency to me and that means defective/malformed or perhaps virus  roots. They are to delicate to take much chemical meddling, but try a very dilute complete fertilizer with micro-nutrients. Sometimes a very dilute magnesium (Epson Salts) can work also. Do keep them separate. Very dilute means 10% of normal.

Wayne

They used to say if anything was ailing in a plant, back in the days when I exhibited chrysanthemums "Give `em a dose of Epsom salts" (Magnesium Sulphate) and it always seemed to do the trick.  Pleased to say the cuttings  grew away healthily, and showed no sign of any more discolouration, after such a dose. I'm still waiting to see what happens to the one on the left. Funny thing is all the plants sent by that nursery were hard to establish, one had to be cut down in order to save the plant collapsing all together, and yet another had the top removed to be re-rooted, so it was just as well I wanted them for breeding.

Now I'm not about to disclose the nursery concerned, but we are the amateurs, and they are the professionals, so how come we are more correct with our growing methods. I have never sent a plant back in my life, but then once I've been bitten I tend to change my supplier. I can imagine it isn't easy to run a dahlia nursery, but surely the main concern should be, sending out good plants that want to grow when you pot them up, I can't blame my potting compost because every other variety I grow, is grown in the same type, and they're all growing well. I'm sure there has been some kind of reaction between the rooting medium that this nursery used, and my multi-purpose compost, or is it some other factor?

While I'm on the subject of sending out good plants, ever had plants that remain dwarf for ages, then just when you're about to give up, they spring into life producing multiple shoots, which start to bud up prematurely? This is a regular occurrence with one of my suppliers, they grow out of it, and I must say I have never ever had bad stock from them. Whether it is something to do with the distance between where they're rooted up North, or where they eventually take residence down here in the South, is anyone's guess, or do the firm involved use a dwarfing agent? In my endeavour to get some of my varieties know World wide I have gone to the trouble of finding out what documentation you have to have. All of the Common Market countries have no restrictions at the moment on plant material, but you try getting stuff to the rest of the World, and it's like getting a Camel through an eye of an needle, what a wonderful phrase, and old as Methuselah.

You need what is called a Phytosanitary Certificate, the rules are different for each country you send to, and also the cost, but you do need this Export Permit to send dahlia stock abroad. Likewise anything coming into our country is also restricted. Other countries are so aware what damage can be done by a parcel in the post, yet internally we are found lacking, and allow viruses to be spread throughout the British Isles by unscrupulous growers? Let me rephrase that, by growers who are unaware they have plants infected with virus in the first place, because ignorance is probably all it is. In an ideal World there should be horticultural officers the width and breadth of Britain, visiting dahlia nurseries, and inspecting the stock that's grown there. Of course like food inspectors they wouldn't catch all the culprits, but the thought of loosing a licence to grow for a while, would be enough for them to take the trouble to find out just how easily dahlia viruses are spread. Enjoy your plants Ken.

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