OG Expressions
Member
Im going to be honest it could be a virus but unlikely. Its not unheard of for people to recieve infected cannabis seeds but its certainly not common
-
As of today ICMag has his own Discord server. In this Discord server you can chat, talk with eachother, listen to music, share stories and pictures...and much more. Join now and let's grow together! Join ICMag Discord here! More details in this thread here: here.
VIRUS in Tangie seeds-beware!
- Thread starter meizzwang
- Start date
One thing is for sure, unless the genetics are super rare like manipuri for example, if a seedling shows variegation while most other plants under identical conditions don't, I'm going to select against it. Sure, it could be the holy grail and still produce amazing buds when dialed in as mentioned earlier, but without selective pressure, sensitivity to sub-optimal conditions on a genetic level won't go away. It also guarantees that should any potential viruses be present, they won't be in my garden. I know others will understandingly continue to grow strains that show such symptoms because the end results justify it, but we also need to have a few of us shift the genetics in a direction where such sensitivities are deleted from the gene pool.
Anyways, thank you everyone who has contributed to this thread! Many of you have been very helpful, and it's a pleasure reading all of your thoughts! It's really a privilege to not have to re-invent the wheel regarding this matter, and the more input, the better educated we all become. Feel free to continue adding your experience and opinions to this intriguing subject!
Anyways, thank you everyone who has contributed to this thread! Many of you have been very helpful, and it's a pleasure reading all of your thoughts! It's really a privilege to not have to re-invent the wheel regarding this matter, and the more input, the better educated we all become. Feel free to continue adding your experience and opinions to this intriguing subject!
self
Member
Im doing a pheno hunt on some Ultrasour right now. Two plants have some varigation, one of those plants is also throwing big colas, and looks to yield about as good as the other best contenders. There are tons of ornamental plant varietals that have been bred to be varigated. In some cases those plants may be less vigorous, but its certainly not a given.
In any case, its most likely your plants are experiencing nutrient deficiencies. Any one who has grown multiple strains in the same soil mix should understand that different strains consume nutes at different rates, and its entirely possible and likely that your tangie was hungrier than your OG. Actually, im growing some tangie crosses right now, and they do seem to be hungrier than some of the OGs I grow. Thats not surprising, thats just how things work.
Unless you are a botanist who understands plant viruses, or have consulted one, Id keep your plants alive and be patient, maybe feed them some cal mag and fish fert.
not trying to be harsh, just realistic.
good luck.
In any case, its most likely your plants are experiencing nutrient deficiencies. Any one who has grown multiple strains in the same soil mix should understand that different strains consume nutes at different rates, and its entirely possible and likely that your tangie was hungrier than your OG. Actually, im growing some tangie crosses right now, and they do seem to be hungrier than some of the OGs I grow. Thats not surprising, thats just how things work.
Unless you are a botanist who understands plant viruses, or have consulted one, Id keep your plants alive and be patient, maybe feed them some cal mag and fish fert.
not trying to be harsh, just realistic.
good luck.
I feel like the guy many centuries back who was trying to convince people the world was round, LOL
Thanks for the feedback, and that wasn't harsh, it's meaningful and helpful info! I have some F-3 blueberry sativas that were sprouted in the same soil mix, no nutrients added yet. The seeds were produced by me, so no chance of someone smoking cigarettes spreading TMV to the seeds (if that's even possible). One of 9 showed identical variegation symptoms to Tangie, so this suggests the variegation may be nutrient related as others think. Fact remains, we all don't know for sure.
Regardless, virus symptoms and variegation symptoms are indistinguishable without lab tests, so if you don't have access to labs much like a lot of us, you can ensure your crops are virus free by selecting against variegated plants. It's more cost effective than doing a lab test too, unless you're paying several hundred dollars per pack of seeds. You can also take a chance and grow them out, have the symptoms completely go away, breed with them, and get zero problems in the next generation, or it may be virus in which case you have a lot of contamination issues to clean up. If you grow outdoors, it's potentially a much more difficult problem to contain.
Last edited:
The difference between Mosaic and Variegation is usually necrotic tissue.
99% of the time it's genetic and not a virus.
This is not mosaic below.
99% of the time it's genetic and not a virus.
This is not mosaic below.
CheddarProf
Member
Mycobiotics LLC in NorCal Santa Rosa will test your living plant tissue for viruses.
I know a guy who tested positive for Tomato mosaic virus on his plant. Not hemp mosaic, or tobacco, but tomato.
They charge $300 though. And if you test positive you still can't cure it.
A positive test result mean trashing all the genetics, seeds, tools, etc.
I know a guy who tested positive for Tomato mosaic virus on his plant. Not hemp mosaic, or tobacco, but tomato.
They charge $300 though. And if you test positive you still can't cure it.
A positive test result mean trashing all the genetics, seeds, tools, etc.
that's easily one of the most valuable responses I've read so far, thank you Cheddarprof!
Quick update: out of 6 seeds total (3 tangie and 3 deadhead OG), 2 didn't show symptoms and were kept. The other 4, which were grown in the exact same pot, were culled. If these 2 lone survivors end up having the characteristics I'm looking for, they'll be bred with. If not, they'll be tossed:
CheddarProf
Member
You are welcome!
One other image I have to share. This is from a different client who also tested positive for the Tobamovirus in NorCal, however that test report didn't specify which specific mosaic virus of the tobamovirus family.
I have heard the patterns described as 'a paint splatter of light-green colored paint over solid green' - not much rhyme or reason to the patters, some times kind of pretty.
What I recall from Clarkes hemp pest and diseases book is that cannabis does not contract tmv or tomv but alfalfa mosaic virus can infect it. Perhaps I remember wrong (my book was destroyed) but if there is a tobamomosaic virus that infects cannabis (very likely) then it could test positive for tmv or tomv. I would test cucumbers for green mottle virus and the tmv test kits would light up for green mottle, send to the lab, no tmv but green mottle did show up. It would be nice to actually see lab results, but in my opinion I agree with the above post about tobamomosaic virus being present, it is very difficult to get rid of, incredibly contagious even in grow areas, all debris (even dust) needs to be taken up, 5% bleach wipe down after a 2% soap solution washes it down and dries it, pots tossed, drippers, trays etc should be tossed or very aggressively sterilized with bleach. Even if I am wrong about tmv and tomv infecting cannabis, these are not fun viruses to deal with (try dealing with 50 acres where 25 acres is infected, it is a lot of work).
Yeah that looks more like what I have seen. The plants I saw eventually developed necrotic spots. It is different to variegation but I think like you say testing is the only way.
Meizzwang may I ask how old your plants were when the symptoms started? What did you germinate them in? Were they transplanted right before the symptoms? If so,into what?
sure thing! With regards to the 2 tangie seedlings that were culled, symptoms were visible about 2 days after germination on the first set of juvenile leaves, so somewhere between 6-8 days after poppin them. They were not transplanted and all seedlings were kept in the same pot the whole time. They're in some organic potting mix, straight from the bag. Water is about 42ppm right now.
Here's another interesting piece of info: variegation was only seen on the adaxial side of the leaf(top of the leaves), no symptoms showed on the bottom of the leaves.
What's the name of your potting mix?
OG Expressions
Member
Hey so i read the post last page where you said you would select against plants that ahow Variegation i just wamted to say, pretty much all blueberry and related limes naturally show this so blueberry not suited to you.
Chems, OGs, Sour all their seeds and hybrids produce a certain percentage of seedlings that dont start right the firat leaves hook over. After popping enough you can tell which outgrow which will self cull, anyway those lines you probably wouldnt like either if you would juat toss a plant because it looks a touch different...
Theres several elites with Variegation... so tossing plants over that might not be the best plan just sayin... if you were lookimg at 10 of those hooked leaf retard seedlimgs i mentioned and tosses all away, you would be sorry because minimum half would become normal plants, maybe all. Its more rare for those to die than go, but if you dont gibe things a chance you wont know.
Dont throw away plants over Variegation you already noticed you could carelessly toss tge grail. Not sayin to breed with them if you dont want to but dont cull super fast over anything unless its bad for sure. You were sure at first the plant had a virus and now you tossed over this you are making choices a little fast IMO
I have to agree. Culling may be premature.
I have 3 strains that show a tiny smidge of variegation. And As you saw that male was full blown. So usually genetic in my experience.
Proper breeding techniques require growing out hundreds of plants
from a given cross or inbred line and keeping the best, tossing the rest. If you have a small pool of plants to select from, then you're right: tossing a variegated plant or even a runt will increase the probability of throwing away a potential "holy grail", but if you have hundreds of seedlings to grow out and select from, you have a much higher chance of finding a non-mutated plant that is also the holy grail. You'll end up with the best of both worlds: the next generation is selected against variegation/runts and you'll have only the holy grail/normal growing plants to carry on the genes. Previous breeders clearly didn't select against variegation, and the more you don't select, the worse it will be (ie. think of not selecting against hermi traits and how that affects future generations of plants).
Just because a plant was bred improperly in the past doesn't mean we should continue these practices. However, I understand the laws in many states and countries have really caused this issue since not everyone can legally start a field of 200 plants tomorrow and properly breed their plants. The laws have also artificially made cannabis seeds the most expensive seeds in the world, and real breeders don't want you to have a lot of their non-feminized seeds as they know you can potentially make something better with their genetics. In some cases, we have elites with high frequencies of hermi problems, runts, and variegation because we can't grow large numbers and select against that. Fortunately, the times are changingin many states and many countries, and our proper breeding practices should "come out of the closet" and catch up with the 21st century!
As we continue to bottleneck the cannabis gene pool, and we don't take care of genetic issues now, I expect to see more and more people in the future worrying about variegation in their plants and confusing variegation for virus, and virus for variegation. Maybe most don't see an issue today and most aren't looking into the future, but take a look at the cultivated banana, which is currently a global crisis due to a severe lack of genetic diversity in plantations: fungal diseases as well as banana bunchy top virus are wiping out massive numbers of fields worldwide. If everything continues as is in the cannabis world, and you don't have breeders infusing new genetics or selecting against potentially deleterious phenotypic expressions, we should expect to have similar disasters.
Last edited:
So are you against variegation because you don't want future growers to mistake it for mosaic?
There a vast amounts of blueberry genetics globally. Crosses of crosses .
I think that would be a losing battle.
The same could be said of many traits. i.e. Purple stems and confusion with Mag deficiency.
But I do agree about diversity in genetics. That applies to all species. With respect to surviving a natural selection "event"
There a vast amounts of blueberry genetics globally. Crosses of crosses .
I think that would be a losing battle.
The same could be said of many traits. i.e. Purple stems and confusion with Mag deficiency.
But I do agree about diversity in genetics. That applies to all species. With respect to surviving a natural selection "event"
Ibechillin
Masochist Educator
Bananas were a great example to use.
Selective breeding on Commercially farmed crops for faster growing higher yields only, and relying on pesticides/fungicides to fight off disease and pests for many generations has led to rapid genetic decline and accelerated evolution in diseases and pests as well.
Survival breeds strength, lack thereof not so much.
Heres an article on soil depletion:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/
There's no intention to stop people from growing out certain strains that are variegated prone. The hope is that the current strains we have are constantly being selected against variegation. For example, blueberry genetics can be "cleaned up" by roguing out individuals that show variegation in "normal," balanced, nutrient rich soil mix (ie. other seedlings show no symptoms in the exact same conditions). After a few generations, the variegation will be less and less likely to show up. When you have a batch of seedlings all in the same mix, and out of 50, 5 show variegation, my recommendation is to kill off those 5 and keep the rest.
Mg deficiency doesn't generally mimic virus symptoms, it's less relevant to preventing virus from entering a garden. Purple stems clearly aren't viral.
The main challenge in cannabis today is that breeders are selecting for the tastiest, juiciest, most potent buds. The plants are getting way too inbred and "bad" phenotypes are showing up since the plant has evolved to outcross, not inbreed. Breeders are forgetting to select for the strongest, most resilient plants, and this same mistake has happened in countless domesticated crops.
Last edited:
I was just asking about your soil because it looks like a hot soil issue to me. Young plants can sometimes show variegation and/or mutations if your soil mix is too hot. Just a thought, not saying that's what it is.
