Chris --dutch question

[sweetee]

Chris, I've seen a few times where you've referred to the fact that someone's pic was of a dutch hosta. Is there a way to tell?
The hostas I usually buy from local nurseries have stickers on the pot saying; from (whatever name) in MI, OH, or Canada (I live in OH). Does that usually mean that's a more reliable source? Thanks

[Chris_W]

Hi Sweetee,

Unfortunately there is no way to completely know the origin of a plant, but the widespread infection of HVX in wholesale hostas started in the Netherlands and then spread to the US. Also, US wholesalers often buy inexpensive Dutch starts and then field or container grow them, and as once those starts hit US soil (dirt or potting soil) they are now considered of US origin. That has lead to a lot of fields here in the US to become contaminated, so the virus isn't just a Dutch growers problem any longer but is a global problem. So if a plant was grown in MI, OH, or Canada, there is absolutely no guarantee that it is free of HVX. The Dutch plants have been the most affected, but that doesn't mean they are the only ones as many domestic growers are badly contaminated now too.

There are a couple problems that I have with the Dutch plants. First, they have a long standing belief that if you can't see symptoms of a virus, then it isn't there and the plants are okay to sell. Specificially for HVX they think that it is impossible to have a zero tolerance policy, and implemented a 5% policy that if less than 5% of a batch is infected then that is okay to sell. This is sort of an acknowledgement that they have HVX and think it is okay to sell it...

Now, when I say that a particular plant is a Dutch plant, I'm usually looking at the plant tags. There are a few big growers out there and most have their own particular tag that I recognize. And then there are certain plants that are most often produced over there - even some of the newest things that tend to sell at the higher end hosta places. Personally I'm not willing to risk all the viruses going around in the Dutch plants, or the risk of nematodes on them too. Even this year I was taken in by a company selling plants that were advertised as TC (tissue culture) and I received bags of bare root plants from Holland. They said that these plants are now in a new size - they are #1 grade from TC. That means these plants were tissule cultured but then put out in the fields for at least a year. These are the first hostas I've purchased from the Dutch in years and guess what - they are showing signs of some kind of virus. The AGDIA test kit came back negative, but it sure does look like HVX.

[sweetee]

So, in that case, do you just keep the plant isolated, or assume it is negative for hvx?
I didn't know anything about hvx until last year. I wish I would have. Last year, I started questioning everyone about their hosta sources, and found a lot who would just say; we watch our hostas. ... so do I, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't be hvx. It just seems like it's such an epidemic.

[thy]

The 5% is the Dutch agriculture departments way of ...
We and they know, if there can be found HVX even in less than 5% , they are all infected.

Dutch and good, meen Jan van den Top or Marco Fransen - only , both are in for a 0 % tolerance, both have higher prices than the others, in wholesale too, it is expensive to check and destroy. Poland is the new bad one here, they just do not care, but are very cheap. Us are sending infected hostas to Europe too. Yes it is Global
The price of the hosta have to fit the work handling it.
So darn sad for the Frindship plant