Furniture

Apple Mosaic Virus

Concerned about leaves issues? These days a common viral problem, which gets cured with time, if it is serious like in picture here, we explain what is it.

 

Apple mosaic virus is one of the oldest known & most widespread apple viruses. The trees infected with apple mosaic virus develop pale to bright cream spots on spring leaves as they expand. These spots may become necrotic after exposure to environment (sun and heat). Most commercial cultivars are affected, but vary in severity of symptoms. ‘Delicious’ varieties are more prone to it e.g. Golden/Red are more affected, and further spreads due to pruning tools/scion wood and few insects also are responsible like aphids, leaf-hoppers, white-flies are common carriers of this disease.

Effect on crop – crop can still be produced by infected trees in severe cases, yield reductions vary from 10 to 50 percent also spurs gets is severely affected.

Symptoms – viruses can be difficult to detect as they look similar to several nutrient deficiencies or sometime can be taken as fungal. Few visible symptoms are like

>Yellow stripes or small yellow spots on foliage.
>Curled leaves sometimes with brown edges.
>Stunted growth of shoots (new).

Control: Plant virus-free varieties/ use virus-free grafting scion wood. Diseased trees should be marked, not need to be removed, but should not be used as a source for scion material. Feed nutrients at regular intervals. Keep orchards insects free. (Neem Oils is a good source)

Treatment- there are no cures for viral diseases such as mosaic once a plant is infected.

Note – We are trying to treat it organically, plots under trials, if all goes well. Next year the product will be out, if results are encouraging on plants.