Mosaic virus and Cannabis, Chem D etc...

PuReKnOwLeDgE said:

Case solved? So I would say the cut does not carry it, but that doesn't mean someone didn't infect it and pass the cut now infected. I say if you think any strains have it, buy these strips.

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Well I have heard that some 'lines' of the original Chem D have it and others don't and that the claimed infection happened after it was passed along from the original source. When I say 'line' I mean the exact same cut but different pathways the cut took through the community. Does the Chem D cut you have exhibit the symptoms of infection that others post about?

Never knew about the strips for tests like that...thx.

There is a very knowledgeable grower/breeder called Cabby that claimed his garden was wiped out by TMV and he attributed it to, if I'm remembering correctly, handling/smoking cigs around his plants. I vaguely remember the thread with pics elsewhere, was a few years back, and that's the best he could figure out what happened. Whatever it was wiped things out and not what I've seen in pics/reports others have posted more recently.

No my cut does not display any symptoms, and I get what your saying about the lines, pretty much what I was getting at but you explain it much better lol. The strips are the shit! I got them just to put my mind at ease with my grape bogglegum which has some nasty/awesome birthmarks.

Mountain said:

When I say 'line' I mean the exact same cut but different pathways the cut took through the community. Does the Chem D cut you have exhibit the symptoms of infection that others post about?

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the 'east coast' cut shows the trait if i recall correctly. this is the one that had been in the rotation in SanDiegos Finest...


while the 'west coast' sourced trait does not. the 'west coast' cut was thru joebrands garden right?

Greyskull said:

the 'east coast' cut shows the trait if i recall correctly.

while the 'west coast' trait does not. the 'west coast' cut was thru joebrand right?

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Once again we're on opposite sides...lol! Honestly don't know about west or east coast cuts regarding this thing but seems a lot of people in Cali have a cut that exhibits the suspect traits. Rezdog has emphatically said his is clean and if anyone else could say from the other side of the country it would be CC or Moneymike. I remember in the old San Diego's Finest Cuts thread you guys, actually you're an island dweller now, going back and forth about this one. Did you carry the infected cut with you??? Ha ha! I had a Chem D cut that came from the San Fran area I'd say was legit based on who I got it through and expressed the weirdness. Actually the Chem 4 I had seemed to express the same thing. Pretty minor though from what I remember. I never saw any transference to other plants in the room nor did any of the peeps I gave the cuts to see any transference.

EDIT - thx for the pic. I'm lost when it comes to the east/west coast origination but I'd guess, from what you said about Joe B, that I had the west coast cut? Whatever I had was not clean but not as severe as in that pic. I've got no pics of the plants I had and anyone I know I gave the cuts to has ditched them.

hilarious....
the D didnt survive the voyage, amongst a few others. it was a sad day to say the least.

im hoping/curious what they (those who were there and know) jump in and contribute/set straight.

dont make fun of me because i live on a rock inthe middle of the pacific bud its tough hahaha


edit: i use west coast and east coast in terms of orignal sourcing... east coast being from chemdogs garden, west coast being joebrands...

*if i am wrong or misinformed i mean no disrespect to anyone and apologize in advance if anything im typing is fuckin fairytale!*

The pics do look like TMV, but test it and find out! You should see my ugly ass bogglegum cut that does that shit way worse. My cut of chemd came from the Midwest. If an infected cut exist Cali would be the place to find it I am sure! So much shit going back and fourth out there it would only take on person to infect it, the cuts spread fast.


check out this boggle, all genetics:

I'll throw my two cents in. This virus is real, and it is out there. It is decimating people up in Nor Cal as we speak. I am one of them.

I am no master gardener and no expert, but I have been in this game for over 10 years, and pulled consistant indoor yields using the same methods, and have never experienced this.


I made a mistake and donated 40 large teens to a collective that I did not think I needed. I run multiple rooms and areas and I was expanding and made an unfortunate miscalculation.

One week later when I realized my mistake, I figured I would rectify it while adding some fresh genetics to try in a room. I purchased 40 Purple Candy Teens off someone. They were not very healthy looking due to overcrowding, I am (was) fairly confident in my growing skills and did not see anything I could not rectify very quickly. It seemed a good deal so I added them to my veg room, along with my own strains of Dream Queen (Green Crack) Blackberry Kush, Jack Herer, GDP, NL 5, an unknown kush that people love and yields well so I have kept, and my pride and joy Superfrost.

The purchased purple kandys had the same symptoms I now have all over, except to a far lesser degree. (A leaf and growth tip here and there). That is how I know the means it was introduced in my garden, I saw the problem on them, but did not correctly identify it. (I believed it was a cal-mag issue, as so many people incorrectly assume and wreak further havoc on their plants)

Over the period of two weeks those initial symptoms got worse and worse, all new growth from the infected plants had blistered, twisted growth, with brown tips. Nothing I tried corrected the issue. Flush, light nutes, heavy nutes, cal-mag, epsom, you name it, I tried it. 5 plants each out of 40 were given seperate treatments. So 8 different regimens/tactics/cures. All reacted in the same manner, which was to get progressively worse.




In disgust and slight worry, I began to research online and ran across the tobacco mosaic virus, and its many other variations. I immediately removed all of the purple kandy plants outside, and placed them in a safe area. I was still unsure at the time what I had, but knew it was something I had never dealt with before, and did not want it spreading.

I thought I was scot free, with a good lesson learnt. I run a perpetual grow, with 180 plants vegging. All veg plants are sequestered together at different stages of growth. They then are moved to the muliple flowering rooms, where I pull a harvest every 7 days, and on the rotation goes.

I began to notice the same symptoms in my own plants that the purple candy had displayed. I saw one affected growth shoot. (necrotic pistils, twisted leaves) I cut it off, and sterilized the scissors. Next day there were 2. And several on the plants surrounding it. I checked closer. I found deformed/dead growth tips in all areas of this flowering room. With the plants that were put into 12-12 one week ago. And it is spreading.

I ordered the test strips for TMV from Agdia. I had a faint pink line on the positive mark on 4 samples. I tested the final 5th in clean tap water, to ensure the test was correct and I did not have a contaminated/faulty test kit. The 5th in tap water showed no positive line. Pretty definitive for me, but I will be sending a sample to Agdia to confirm and test for others to be 110%.

My veg room looks healthy,



I have extremely low temperatures at the moment and just built a new structure to accomadate the vegging plants, but neglected to insulate the floor, which I am doing tommorow. The plants do not look thrilled due to lower soil temperatures (55 F) but no signs of TMV in them at least. I will be raising the beds with 4X8's and pumping warm air from the lights underneath to create undersoil insulation. Anyway


The logical thing to do would be dump EVERYTHING. Bleach, disenfect, and start over. However this is not an option. If I dump everything, I lose 4 months of cycle. That puts me into the ground, I simply cannot afford it with power and space bills. So I have to beat this with the plants I have, or I lose everything I have worked for, simple as that. I also WILL NOT lose my superfrost genetics (not jadesuperfrost). This is a 40 day flowering strain, buds have dark purple hues and so covered in resin you can hardly see plant matter. I went through absolute HELL to get this genetic from the breeder and only 2 other people have it. If I lose that I will be beyond pissed.

So I am coming up with plans of attack. For a start I will have to isolate the root systems of plants. It will lose me valuable space which equals plant amounts which equals production, but better some than all of it right?

I do not think I will be able to keep plants from touching eachother. If I do that I can only sustain half the plants and would be a massive waste of electricity and space. If I am being foolish here I would appreciate advice from anyone, because I am at damage limitation phase here. For now I will cull any plants that show signs of the virus and hope they do not infect the others.

Secondly I sprayed the plants with 325 mg aspirin to 1 gallon water. I am trying to boost the plants immune system and induce SA. I do not know if it will have an positive effect but it has not hurt.

I ordered Jaz rose spray

http://www.jazsprays.com/JAZ-Rose-Spray--16-oz-Concentrate_p_8.html

Jaz rose spray contains salicylic acid which is used to induce Systemic Acquired Resistance. I will report back on how that goes.

I have also boosted CO2 levels in flowering. There is alot of misinformation out there but it seems to make logical sense that a healthy, quickly growing plant will fight off a disease better than a slower growing one. So CO2 levels are going up to 1000 ppm from 600.

I have been reading SO much the last few days, so I apologize for not being able to cite sources, but products which I am considering which people mentioned having a positive effect are

Eagle 20
Physan 20
Barricade
Scorpion Juice
Wet & Forget (Vaccinate)

I will be testing these products on control groups showing signs of the virus and hopefully will see improvement from at least one.

Things I have learnt first hand from the spread of this are

1. It can be spread through direct contact (plants touching)
2. When you see signs of it, burn that fucking plant immediately before it spreads.
3. Never buy clones from someone you don't know extremely well and have faith in their knowledge/growing experience and honesty.

ANY advice the experts or people who have experienced this problem can offer me I would love to hear. I believe this can be beaten, not gotten rid of, but controlled, which is all I need. The reason I believe this is that the purple kandy plants outside ARE still alive and green. Yes they look like shit. But they are in conditions where it gets 38F at night. And they have been drinking only rainwater. But they are still growing, albeit slowly.

If they can survive, surely my babied plants can produce?

Then I can slowly introduce healthy unaffected genetics into my garden over time without suffering a 4 month loss of production. I am not someone who gives up easy, but I realize what I am up against so I am under no illusions. I am holding on to the hope that


A. I have a mild version of the virus
B. I keep my plants healthy, they might be able to fight it and still yield well.
C. That I have not suffered a mass infection but a localized one.

I might not get any of those, but those are my only 3 rays of hope atm lol. Like I said people, ANY advice is appreciated

As for something to initiate/induce a SAR response there was a product on the market a few years back but no longer available retail. I had bought a few packs when I knew the company was folding due to financial issues but can't remember WTF it was and eventually gave that stuff away. Pretty sure a company bought up the rights and kind of still available direct through them.

Pretty definitive for me, but I will be sending a sample to Agdia to confirm

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So Agdia accepts canna samples?

The way I see it if it is a piece of a leaf how will they know? I searched for labs in california without success. You can choose what viruses they test for, but I did not see anywhere where they ask what type of plant you are sending

FRANKIE1579 said:

The way I see it if it is a piece of a leaf how will they know? I searched for labs in california without success. You can choose what viruses they test for, but I did not see anywhere where they ask what type of plant you are sending

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Uhhh...good luck. Just speculating here...if you do ship canna leaf material across state lines and the lab identifies the sample you're possibly looking at FBI issues...just speculating though. So now you've posted in a public forum that Agdia will be receiving a canna leaf sample?

I figured it out...harpin protein! The product I bought was called Messenger and made by Eden Bioscience. Seems another product available (?) called Harp-N-Tek. Looks like peeps at Cornell discovered the harpin protein thing.

I do agree with what you said about state lines. However that seems a large issue for a 1X1 inch of cannabis leaf? I could be wrong and that is one of the least of my worries, but legal problems wouldn't help this shitty situation much at all so I will definately keep that in mind. Up here in Cali I get contacted by some random every day asking to ship which I refuse as we stay in accordance with state law, however I need to find the root cause of this problem one way or another. Simple as that

Ps. Thank you for the messenger/harpin protein info I will definately look into that.

TMV infects plants from ruptured cell walls. Disinfecting any cutting/trimming untensils before use should solve the spread of this. Two plants touching it will not spread, it has to be introduced to a ruptured cell wall. It enters mechanically so to say from what I read, bugs would be an issue that tear at the surface, bugs can spread it.

"Thus, control of tobacco mosaic virus is primarily focused on reducing and eliminating sources of the virus and limiting the spread by insects. Tobacco mosaic virus is the most persistent plant virus known. It has been known to survive up to 50 years in dried plant parts. Therefore, sanitation is the single most important practice in controlling tobacco mosaic virus."

Shits crazy

Viruses differ from fungi and bacteria in that they do not produce spores or other structures capable of penetrating plant parts. Since viruses have no active methods of entering plant cells, they must rely upon mechanically caused wounds, vegetative propagation of plants, grafting, seed, pollen, and being carried on the mouth parts of chewing insects. Tobacco mosaic virus is most commonly introduced into plants through small wounds caused by handling and by insects chewing on plant parts.

The most common sources of virus inoculum for tobacco mosaic virus are the debris of infected plants that remains in the soil and certain infected tobacco products that contaminate workers hands. Cigars, cigarettes, and pipe tobaccos can be infected with tobacco mosaic virus. Handling these smoking materials contaminates the hands, and subsequent handling of plants results in a transmission of the virus. Therefore, do not smoke while handling or transplanting plants.

Once the virus enters the host, it begins to multiply by inducing host cells to form more virus (figure 3). Viruses do not cause disease by consuming or killing cells but rather by taking over the metabolic cell processes, resulting in abnormal cell functioning. Abnormal metabolic functions of infected cells are expressed as mosaic and other symptoms as previously described. Infected plants serve as reservoirs for the virus and the virus can be transmitted easily (either mechanically or by insects) to healthy plants.

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This is something that I feel needs to be clarified. I have heard direct contact, I have heard wounds, I have heard everything. I did not cut or mangle or scrape any of the plants that are infected. I have seperate mothers. I do touch my plants alot,(who doesn't lol) but the ones that are infected (at least showing bad signs of infection) are the only plants that were in direct contact (touching) the purple candy plants. It seems it is definately transmitted through the root system, as far as plant matter touching I am hearing no and I am hearing yes. I will know far more in the next few weeks when the following cycles which did not have direct contact with the purple candy plants go into flower. (Flower seems to be when they like starting to show symptoms if kept healthy in veg.

Just an idea. I am considering having a preflowering room. I have a space already set up I could use for this. If a plant gets stressed due to changing light schedule 18-6 to 12/12, what about if they spent a week in a flowering room at 15-9. So schedule would be 18-6 to 15-9 to 12-12. Seems that would recreate natural conditions more accurately and provide a way of "easing" the plant into flower, avoiding bad stress sypmtoms?

Ps. After some research just ordered messenger containing harpin protein. Thank you mountain. If that helps at all you have a nice surprise coming your way in future I pay my debts

In the last ten years I have seen more plantations infected by the TMV than healthy ones. I think the TMV is one of the most frequently occurring virus diseases. but as I mentioned above, that it is not a reason to panic

Hi floweryfield, can I ask you how they managed. Were they decimated, or were yields reduced, was it controlled with a flare up here and there? Any details of what to expect I would appreciate so much

like mentioned above it`s not a reason to panic. in the most casese (i mean well selected genetics) the hemp plant can deal with a TMV infection. Sometimes a leave of the plant will show the typical signs of a TMV infection, but in general the plant will grow normally and also the yield should not be minimized.

you will get problems with a TMV infection in the following cases:
# pest infestation
# fungal diseases
# poorly selected genetics
# f1-hybrids

i know growers who monitor the strength of the pest infestation with the help of the TMV. that means that the signs of a TMV-infection rise during an acute infestation. It`s comparable to the human beings. A flue is normally no problem, but it could be a problem if you suffer from HIV.
conclusion: TMV gets a problem for your plants if you stress them.

I opened a topic (https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=4242775#post4242775) where I want to talk about the TMV, but you have to wait a little bit, because TMV will be the last chapter.

those pics frankie posted look like when the sourdubb turns dudd
its eerily spot on
that sucks....

just my opinion
hope some others chime in with their $0.02

Hi floweryfield, thank you so much for the info. I just hope I don't have some horrible variation of it in that case. Being that I work with multiple strains, if some can't handle it I will have to let them go, but as long as some are able to combat this I will be fine and will adjust.

I agree with TMV being a problem in stress. So far the main precursors I have seen are A. Drought (this seems the quickest way to get them to show signs), and B. Flowering. (This is only in my original plants, the Purple Kandy that I received infected NOTHING helped. So I can take measures to remedy both of those situations, hopefully it will be enough. I will post progress and results often here just to give people an idea of what to expect. I also ordered a second batch of test strips from agdia for confirmation. Thanks to mountain for talking sense I'm stressed the f*** out but the whole state lines thing isn't worth it.

If the second strips come up positive I will have to go order a batch of several hundred and test my entire stock and see what has it/dosen't. That's if there are plants left lol...here's hoping

Just to add, I hit them with Bayer Tree & Shrub for root aphids/fungus gnats as well as a foliar application of avid for everything else. I also cranked up the CO2 to 10000 ppm for 60 minutes just as a final fuck you to anything that might be lurking. Say what you want about gnarly chemicals but they handle f*ckin business and they are no danger to anyone if used correctly and at a stage in the plants life when it will have dissipated entirely well before harvest. (Chemical's halflife)

I am through playing around and I've hit them with everything just to ensure there are no other vectors of this virus besides myself and the plants.

So far what I have learnt from watching the badly infected purple kandy is

A. Cal-mag application does diddly-squat.
B. Flushing did not help, if anything made it look worse as growth slowed and virus ran riot.
C. It can be transferred to other plants, that is the 1st time I have seen leaves like that (they look similar to deficiency until close inspection) and I see them for the first time on the foreign purple kandy, now they have appeared on mine after 10 years without this in my garden
D. Aspirin foliar application, (325 mg per gallon) if it does work, takes time. As yet no visible slow down of virus spread on infected plants.