2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Smallpox, or plum sharka, is a rather dangerous viral disease, in addition to plums, affecting cherry plums, apricots, felt cherries, thorns and peaches. It was first discovered in 1915-1916. on the border of Bulgaria with Yugoslavia, in Macedonia. The greatest damage from this scourge is observed mainly in the southern regions of the country. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to cure plum pox. It is much easier to prevent this ailment than to subsequently try to get rid of it
A few words about the disease
When infected with smallpox in the spring, chlorotic specks of various sizes are formed on young plum leaves in the form of curved lines and rings. If you look at the leaves in the light, then such specks are visible especially well. As the disease develops, the leaves become marbled with fairly clear light and dark green areas. The first symptoms are often seen after flowering, three to four weeks later.
Already in June, the symptoms of smallpox can be seen on the fruits - they look like an ornament of dark green spots, stripes and rings. The pulp of the infected fruit becomes brownish-reddish to the very pits, is filled with gum, visibly thickens, partially dies off and loses its taste. As a rule, in the places where the specks are located on the fruits of the plums, there are corresponding indentations. Fruits with signs of smallpox are quite ugly, they often ripen three to four weeks before the due date, and after that they crumble or mummify right in the tree crowns.
Smallpox is caused by a harmful filamentous virus that develops mainly in living organisms. Its spread can occur during grafting on healthy vegetation of infected cuttings, herbivorous mites, with sap of diseased vegetation, seeds, sucking insects like aphids, as well as when pruning diseased crops along with healthy ones without intermediate disinfection of garden tools. And yet, the main carrier of this scourge is aphids. And the severity of the virus can vary depending on seasonal weather conditions.
The weeds that feed the aphids-carriers act as virus reservoirs: peas, bittersweet nightshade, creeping clover, yellow alfalfa, dioecious nettle and a number of others.
It is noteworthy that this unpleasant disease may not manifest itself in any way throughout the year. However, with a weak or latent manifestation of infection, the presence of smallpox helps to detect the so-called indicator plants. To obtain the corresponding specific symptoms, they are specially infected with the sap of diseased plants. Such indicator plants include seedlings of peach, tobacco and smelly loboda.
Among plum varieties prone to smallpox, one can distinguish such as: Bulska, Nancy, Zimmer, Mirabel Wangangheim and Bystritskaya. But reklods to this scourge are much more resistant.
How to fight
For preventive purposes, it is recommended to use only healthy and high-quality planting material and observe the necessary quarantine measures. An excellent solution would also be the selection of disease-resistant or tolerant varieties. Weed vegetation must be systematically removed along with undergrowth and wild stone fruit, which serve as a temporary shelter for parasitic sucking insects. Also, in order to avoid the spread of harmful smallpox, vegetation should be timely treated with various insecticides against sucking insects.
Plums with signs of smallpox found on them must be uprooted and subsequently burned. It is also recommended to promptly report the discovery of this terrible ailment to the quarantine inspection. And in order to prevent the spread of plum smallpox, the import of vaccination and planting material from the areas in which this disease was detected is prohibited.
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