![]() Tobacco products, particularly those containing air-cured tobacco, may carry TMV. The next person to open the door can pick up the TMV and spread it to any plant that they touch. If a TMV plant is handled and then you open a door with that hand, you have now put TMV on the door handle. TMV can also survive outside the plant in sap that has dried on tools and other surfaces. Infected stock plants should be discarded immediately. The virus particles are found in all parts of the plant except the few cells at the tips of the growing points. ![]() Cuttings taken from an infected plant usually are infected even if no symptoms are immediately exhibited by the cutting. Vegetative propagation perpetuates TMV and other virus diseases. Chewing insects such as grasshoppers and caterpillars occasionally spread the virus but are usually not important in spread. Sucking insects such as aphids do not spread TMV. If the sap contains TMV, it can be introduced into other plants when those come in contact with this sap. When plants are handled, the tiny leaf hairs and some of the outer cells inevitably are damaged slightly and leak sap onto tools, hands, and clothing. This is called ‘mechanical’ transmission. The most important way that TMV can be spread from plant to plant is on workers’ hands, clothing or on tools. Most other viruses die when the plant tissue dies. TMV can multiply only inside a living cell, but it can survive in a dormant state in dead tissue, retaining its ability to infect growing plants for years after the infected plant part died. However, it can infect well over 350 different species of plants. Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is named for one of the first plants in which it was found in the 1800s. Tomato leaf on right is infected with tobacco mosaic disease.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |