Posts Tagged: wisteria
Wisteria Vein Mosaic Virus
Wisteria Vein Mosaic Virus
Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of
Contra Costa County
Client's Question: This spring I planted 4 wisteria vines around our pergola and they've grown well but now two plants have bumpy leaves and one has brown curl at the end of a few leaves. I worked the soil well and added compost before planting. Any ideas? Thank you.
Help Desk Response: Thank you for contacting the UC Master Gardener Program Help Desk regarding your wisteria plants. Your photos are very helpful in showing the damage you mentioned. You mentioned that one plant has a few leaves with brown tips and curling, and 2 plants have “bumpy” leaves.
On those “bumpy” leaves, I see some yellow patches, and my research leads me to believe it is Wisteria Vein Mosaic virus. This virus affects a wide variety of horticultural and vegetable crops — roses, beans, tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers and peppers — This Mosaic is a viral disease found throughout the United States.
The virus is transmitted mechanically and by grafting. Cuttings or divisions from infected plants will carry the virus. It can be introduced into landscapes on new plants that were infected during their production. Other wisteria can become infected if it comes into contact with infected sap from a plant with the virus. For example, using the same tool for infected and non-infected plant without disinfecting in between use. Mosaic virus over winters on perennial plants and is spread by insects that feed on them. Aphids, leafhoppers, whiteflies and cucumber beetles are common garden pests that can transmit this disease. Soil, seed, starter pots and containers can be infected and pass the virus to the plant.
Once a plant becomes infected with the virus, it usually remains infected throughout its life.
Aside from discoloring foliage and distorted leaves, the virus does not seriously harm wisteria or significantly reduce the vigor of infected plants. There is no cure or treatment, and generally none is needed if the plant's cultural needs are met and it is otherwise healthy.
Here are a few precautions to take:
- Do NOT save seed from infected crops.
- The virus can be spread through human activity, tools and equipment. Frequently wash your hands and disinfect garden tools, stakes, ties, pots, greenhouse benches, etc.
- Avoid working in the garden during damp conditions (viruses are easily spread when plants are wet).
Here is a reference link from UC on the virus. Take a look at the photo attached to the article, it looks very similar to your photos. http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/GARDEN/PLANTS/DISEASES/wisteriavirus.html
If you are interested, here is an article describing first report of Wisteria vein mosaic virus in Wisteria sinensis in the United States of America. https://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/pub/php/brief/2008/wisteria/
Plant virus symptoms look similar to many nutrient deficiencies. The following conditions will also cause the brown tips and curling leaves that you see:
- Too much fertilizer/salt in the soil.
- Soil too wet and/or poor drainage.
- Other nutritional deficiencies.
You mentioned that you planted 4 plants and only one has brown tips. Take a look to see if that plant receives more sun than the others which might explain the brown tips.
Here is a reference on how to manage pests in wisteria. I recommend reading the articles under Environmental Disorders (on the right side of the screen), and there is also information on good cultural practices. http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/GARDEN/PLANTS/wisteria.html
It is difficult to say whether the Mosaic virus is the cause of both the “bumpy” leaves and the brown tips and curling leaves or they are also caused by cultural practices (e.g. excess fertilization/salt, overwatering).
Since your plants are new and only planted in the spring, it is possible that the plants were already infected with the virus when you bought them. You might want to talk to the nursery and see if they would replace them.
I hope this information is helpful in managing your wisteria. I have a wisteria myself and it is such a joy to see the flowers in the spring. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further questions.
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (BY)
Note: UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available almost year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays (e.g., last 2 weeks December), we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 2380 Bisso Lane, Concord, CA 94520. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 608-6683, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/. MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Biog.
Wisteria leaves with virus markings
The INVADERS!
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Welcome to the days of Hardenbergia comptoniana
Welcome to the days of Hardenbergia comptoniana Here we are at the end of January and outside...
Crown Gall...Certainly Not Royal, Even If It Is Extremely Galling
You may have seen it and not known what it was. I noticed what looked like a gnarled lump of old wood on the trunk of my Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinesis) just above the soil level. It was so interesting. It seemed to have come from nowhere and was about the size of my fist. I hadn’t seen it start and I didn’t notice it as it grew. I watched and wondered for a few months ... maybe for too many months if my delay caused its tragic fate to be sealed.
I had heard of crown gall (Agrobacterium tumefaciens) and considered the possibility but my mature wisteria had never looked better than it did last spring and summer. Besides, crown gall is a pathogenic tumor with possible outcomes so dire, so negative; I didn’t want to believe the bad news. This wisteria grows on a little old out building at the back of my yard with my vegetable plot at its feet. I love it.
Two days ago on one of my frequent checks, I stopped in my tracks. Directly above me where a sturdy stem came out from the trunk was another gall. Perhaps I waited too long to decide what to do.
Crown gall is not only a disease often deadly to the host plant, its pathogens essentially poison the surrounding soil. Gardeners are advised not to plant anything in the area for up to two years- not good news for my vegetable garden.
Some sources advise against cutting off the gall because the bacteria can spread. I cut off the stem on the newer one and put it in some water with a little bleach. That recourse was not possible with the one on the trunk so I followed the UCD IPM advice to cut into healthy wood around a gall, then let the tissue dry. I cut the gall out of the trunk and put it in the bleach solution. The shears went into the bleach also. I was determined not to infect anything else!
So here’s a possible silver lining. In order to be poisonous, the bacterium must contain certain tumor inducing properties and genes necessary to transfer it to the plant cell. Many strains of the bacteria are not able to do this.
I’m counting on the possibility that my wisteria has one of them.
Fischer-Hanlon House
As a lot of my fellow Master Gardeners know, I work for the California Department of Parks and Recreation in Benicia. One of my parks is the Fischer-Hanlon House which is attached to the Benicia Historic Capitol Park. This House has an approximate 1/2 acre garden and contains many old and unusual plants. Some were planted by the Fischer family who lived in the house starting in 1856, others by their descendents. When State Parks was given the house by the surviving members of the Hanlon family (the grand-daughters of Mr. Fischer), the state workers removed over five 1-ton truck loads of plant material (mostly living) in order to clear the garden for public viewing. In doing so, the garden lost its over-grown Victorian look and acquired a somewhat "modern" interpretation of a Victorian garden. Some of the plants and trees have survived to this day and provide gardeners, such as myself, with additional problems relating to their ages.
The first plant is the Wisteria floribunda or Chinese Wisteria. This plant
originally had a span of 20 feet on a wooden pergola which has since buckled under the weight of this huge vine. With a trunk circumfrence of over 4 feet, it stretched an additional 10 feet to strangle a petite double-flowered salmon flowering Nerium oleander as well as shooting out another 15 feet into a Schinus molle (pepperwood tree) and up 40 feet to then comeback down again to hold the tree tight, rather like ribbons wound around a maypole. Currently, with the death of the pepperwood and its needed trimming, this wisteria holds tight to the re-enforced pergola, threatening to bring the old wooden structure down to the ground.
The problem with the wisteria: how to continue restraining this massive vine to
the crumbling scaffolding while figuring out how to raise it and slip another, strudier structure under the vine and then allow it to rehang itself again has been a prickly one. This is a problem five years in the works as NO one wants to identify the person who killed the 150 plus year old vine.
A second problem of the garden is how to keep a Ficus (fig tree) from completely
collapsing to the ground. This fig, dating back at least 60 years is actually the remaining branch of the original fig. Over the years, it has taking the guise of a hortizontal tree -- propped up by 4X4s in numerous places and continuing to have up to 2 crops of delicious figs per year! A little odd this year, but due to the weather it gave 3 successive crops of figs which are continuing to ripen. Needless to say, this tree is a popular stop on the garden tour! The daughter trees that have been developing over the last 3 years have come into their own in terms of providing figs for visitors and will continue the legancy of the Fisher House figs.
Another situation for garden are the huge oleanders (Nerium oleander) which have grown up to over 14 feet. Those would include a pink single-flowering which when in bloom smells like talcum powder which last year split in half (the falling half hit the house and merely slid down the side, gently brushing 1st and 2nd story windows) and deep pinks and whites along the fence -- overgrown, but contributing greatly to the colors and textures of the garden.
Roses abound in the garden, but none such as Rosa 'Belle Portugaise' (Belle of
Portugal). This gorgous rose has elegant, pointed buds which open wide and hang down in a combo of light salmon, pink, a peachy and creamy color. Our bush is over fifty-plus years old with a coating of rather shaggy bark on the older stem parts. This rose hadn't put out a new lateral shoot in 15 years, but tried twice this past year. Unfortunately for the bush, visitors have broken off both. I'm hoping that it will try again. Since it grows on a thin arbor attached to the house, the poor thing sometimes is pruned off the roof and other times pruned off the arbor. It really has no idea of which direction to grow!
Other plants include Opuntia cacti-- huge 14 foot specimens which bloom in
bright yellows during the late summer and early fall; the Arbutus unedo (Strawberry tree) which was touted during the '60s as the perfect parking strip tree. Too bad, the "touters" didn't see this specimen at 5 feet around and 20 feet tall with its dropping fruits which splatter upon falling and creating slippery, slimy spots on brick pathways.
Unfortunately, I have little hope for the continuation of this historic garden.
As most folks are aware, the State plans to close this park OR have a
nonprofit run it. Looking around at the various old plants (and some of the
newer replacements as well), the trained eye can see the misshaping of the
specimens by "gardeners" who have not studied the various plants' growths before
clipping, heading or even topping these plants. I hope that in the future, people will volunteer or be hired who understand plant growth and behavior after I leave. Could one of those people be YOU?
To volunteer at this historic site, please call 707-648-1911 and ask for Sandy