Hi all,

Noticed this the morning on one of my 'Sancerre' bulbs (planted this year) - the photo shows it more than the naked eye:



It reminded me a lot of the first post in this thread - The thread "Tulip Color Breaking Virus?" in Lilies forum - especially once I noticed that the top didn't look quite as orderly as the others. It is the shorter of two stems from a double-nosed bulb (the taller one is behind it), so I checked the other stem for symptoms.

Edit: Four bulbs in this pot - two 'Corsica' and two 'Sancerre'. The side of the pot away from the camera was two 'Sancerre' (one double-nosed); closest to the camera was two 'Corsica'. I will need to confirm if the left most pair are double-nosed 'Corsica', or a 'Sancerre' and 'Corsica' in close proximity. The tallest pair are definitely the double-nosed 'Sancerre'.


Having seen this, I checked my other bulbs and found faint patterning on 'Navarra' (also planted this year; behind it is a healthy 'Tresor'):



None of these pots have been sitting out in the rain and I've been using Richgro's Beat-a-Bug (Natural Insect Spray) to try to keep insects off them, although I have seen a number of small black insects flying around (no aphids or thrips on the liliums, though - the aphids have been confined to the roses on the opposite side of the house and I have been effectively controlling them with Beat-a-Bug).

At this stage I am planning to isolate the pots (easier said than done, since space is limited), although I strongly suspect 'Sancerre' is showing virus symptoms. Unfortunately both 'Navarra' and 'Sancerre' are white, so colour-blotching may be hard to identify in the blooms!

Always keep a watch, but I don't think you have anything to worry about. They all seem to be growing out of it, and I bet (?) when the suspect leaves were developing you had a cold spell. Do you remember reading this from that thread?

And the "symptoms" in the last two pics are so little that they could have been caused by a myriad of things, even (and most likely) mechanical damage, and least likely of all by virus, in my opinion.

Thanks for the advice, Rick. I had forgotten about that entry and was reading through that thread again today - had come across that post again just before your reply to this thread, actually.

'Navarra' I wasn't sure about, since it was so small, so I won't worry about that one.

As for 'Sancerre', I had initially ruled out the weather as nothing else is showing symptoms like that (and 'Sancerre' wasn't the first one to come up), but will go back and check my photos and weather records to see if anything lines up.

I'll still try to isolate 'Sancerre' for the moment, just in case.

It's always wise to be cautious, but different cultivars react differently, and the same ones can be different even under the same weather if other circumstances are variable. On both occasions in that post, Karen North was my only lily to have visible cold damage.

Some additional info on 'Sancerre' - this is what the bulbs looked like the day I planted them (5th August). In the pot, 'Sancerre' is at the top, and 'Corsica' is at the bottom:



The double-nosed bulb emerged first. The first nose emerged on the 19th of August (interestingly this appears to have been the shorter of the two on the bulb when it was planted); the second on the 24th (it is the second that shows the blotching on the leaves).

24th August:


2nd September:


8th September:


Looking back at the photos, I can see the distorted top on the shorter 'Sancerre' was noticeable on the 8th and hinted at on the 2nd. Some faint blotching is visible on the taller 'Sancerre' on the 9th.

Regarding weather, here are the August and September minimums for the nearest weather station (in degrees C):

August - http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/...
September - http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/...

Charts from those pages for reference:


The only day I can think of that might have caused this was the 24th of August, where you can see a local minimum of around 4 degrees (it was probably cold overnight).

Thoughts?

A bit of an update - I isolated the pot about a fortnight ago and sprayed with Richgro Beat-a-Bug once a week to keep aphids and bugs off it, just in case. Today as I was spraying it, I noticed this on the single 'Sancerre' stem:



The new location for the pot was at higher risk of getting rain, but I thought I had it far enough into the carport to avoid that. The damage I found today makes me wonder if it wasn't (as that stem would have been closest to the edge of the carport) and all the rain we've had in the past week has caused this.

Is this possibly over-watering or botrytis? I'm leaning towards the latter given there's that random spot on one of the upper leaves. I haven't removed these dying leaves yet, but intend to.

Meanwhile, the double-nosed bulb with the leaf markings looked like this a few days ago:



I assume this is still consistent with cold damage?

I thought I'd post this here, since it's in reference to the same plants as my previous posts.

Only one of the two stems from the double-nosed 'Sancerre' flowered (and it wasn't 'Sancerre'). The other stem progressively lost its leaves no matter what I tried and eventually died. Two days ago I pulled it out and found three baby stem bulblets on it:



I subsequently cut off the stem above and below the bulblets and replanted it in the same pot. I thought nothing of it until this evening when I noticed colour blotching on the last 'Corsica' imposter (which I think opened yesterday). My first thought was that it was a virus and since both imposters came from the same supplier, perhaps the failed 'Sancerre' imposter was trying to outrun.

However, once I thought about it a bit, I realised all the blotching was on the sepals and there seemed to be insect damage on the top sepal, as though something had gotten into the bud (first and most likely suspect - thrips, as they have been on my roses and I have seen a few on one of the other 'Corsica' imposter blooms). There were also no signs of mottling on the leaves (that was on the 'Sancerre' imposter earlier in the season).



So now I have two questions:

1) Is this is consistent with insect damage?
2) Is it possible to transfer virus through pollen? I took some pollen from the 'Sancerre' imposter and crossed it with 'Navarra' as an experiment, but now I'm wondering if that was a bad idea.

I would chuck them if you think they are virused. I would say the pink one is certainly virused. As far as the transferring viruses via pollen, I have heard that it can happen but it is very unlikely. I wouldn't worry about it. The question to ask now is, if the lily easily gets a virus (or shows symptoms) should I be using it in breeding?

I would toss that one. It looks like virus to me.

It's the one thing about lilies, if only there were a way for them to overcome virus!

Guntis Grants has a pretty good series of pictures of virused lilies in his growing advice if you scroll down the page quite a bit: http://www.daugmaleslilijas.lv...
Also an example of a health lily that looks sort of virused.

Thanks all for the comments.

I haven't used the 'Corsica' imposter in breeding. It and the 'Sancerre' imposter are from the same supplier and in the same pot. The 'Sancerre' imposter had one stem fail and die back (producing the stem bulblets), whilst the last 'Corsica' imposter bloom has shown this blotching.

I have used some of the 'Sancerre' imposter pollen on one other lily. If the 'Corsica' imposter is virused, then to me there is a good chance the 'Sancerre' imposter is as well (and it is white, so would be much harder to tell). Hence my concern.

That doesn't look like any kind of insect damage, and especially not that of thrips.

I would also toss that one, and its babies, too, if you can find them. Maybe when they come up in the spring.

The chances of virus transfer through pollen is not worth giving a second thought.

Thanks Rick.

Given what everyone has said, I think I will just toss the entire contents of the pot (both 'Corsica' and 'Sancerre' imposters - it's not worth the worry that one or both of the 'Sancerre' imposter bulbs are affected) and bleach the pot (don't really want to ditch the pot if I can avoid it).