Actually, HVX is still present even in dead tissue, but then has to transmit to an actively growing plant. If you are cutting into dead leaves, even in the middle of winter for example, you still get HVX on your tools. There just aren't any actively growing plants around to transmit it to... As for municipal compost, it typically gets a lot hotter than your backyard compost pile, so that will help to kill some of the virus. And as mentioned, the amount of dead hostas within all of that yard waste has to be extremely low, leading to an even lower possibility for transmission.

Babka, So far my opinion is backed up with science. I don't expect anyone to bow down to me. I do expect they will respect my opinions and if they disagree they will present facts rather than their unsubstantiated and easily disproved beliefs. I don't even expect them to believe me. I do however expect that if they offer a different opinion they should study the facts. Here are the facts. 1. HVX only exists in live tissue. 2. Glyphosates will kill hostas and all tissue to the root as far as any person alive can tell. 3. Digging up a live infected hosta in proximity to uninfected hostas is dangerous and can easily spread the disease. 4. Digging up a living infected hosta can easily leave remnants of the roots that can infect any other hosta planted in the same area for a very long time. 5. No study has found HVX to have the ability to go dormant. In fact, just the opposite has been found to be true. 6. There is no downside to killing a hosta infected with HVX. These are the facts that I have verified and keep repeating. Chris' response to these facts- "I don't think spraying with Roundup is necessary or any more effective than simply digging out the plant without spraying." Cher's response is that I can't prove glyphosate kills hostas and she doesn't think it does because her mother can't kill poison ivy with it. Paul accuses me of not being respectful because I disagree and quotes a study on Tomato Mosaic Virus proposing it is relevent to HVX virus when it is not. ...and you say that I expect everyone to bow down to me and suggest there is some other way of interpreting the facts...but you somehow never explain this way of interpreting facts differently. When others come back and say they don't "believe" that it makes any difference wether you kill the tissue before digging up a plant after hearing what I have to say several times, and offering no explanation as to why they don't "bleive" it makes any difference then you will have to excuse me if I repeat my reasoning to them. I would point out that I have never treated anyone with anything but respect. I have simply stated the facts and defended my position. If people think it disrespectful to defend a position with scientific facts then that is their problem. If you say this is because I must be young; this would be just one more point where you are wrong. Jon

Carol, I feel badly for you. I wish there was a safe way for you to keep it. As far as digging it up I would first tape up the stems like I saw in one of Ken's posts (I think it was Ken, if not my apologies to the person who showed this very smart way of preventing breakage during a move), dig wide around the base and dig deep. Have a sheet of plastic laid out on the ground in front of it. Have a second person at the ready to help lift the hosta onto the plastic and wrap it up after you check the hole for roots that may have been severed and left behind. Wrap it up tightly before moving it to be disposed of. Wash all tools in bleach or amonia after you are completely finished. Thanks for sharing your trip by the pond with me. Now I don't feel so alone after my little dances in the gardens! :o) If it makes you feel any better, I also fell over my winter sowing containers this spring and landed not so gracefully on my behind. Had a nice audience too. All of my kids and hubby were standing there gawking at me wondering what in the world did I do that for?! The fall wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't flung myself to keep from crushing my sprouting seedlings! lol! Must not crush the babies! Tracy

I hope Paul can clarify what he meant on number 3... I didn't get that either. Before I respond to the other point, let me say that I agree with Ken's primary response to HVX in hostas and testing - it doesn't make much sense to test an inexpensive hosta with a strip that costs almost $6. If it looks virused, it probably is... toss it. But the latest info - that the virus can persist in the soil for 18 months and we don't know how much longer - that opens up a new possible reason for wanting to test. I think if I have to remove a plant, I'll probably replace it with something non-hosta and avoid the issue altogether - but I can see someone wanting to know for sure if they are dealing with HVX out of concern for the soil in that section of their garden. Many folks are dealing with limited space. I think the false positive question is important, because I think people are pretty OK with disposing of diseased plants, but the idea that the strips might tell them to throw away healthy plants might motivate people to not test - after all, if you can't trust the test, why bother? So as the false positives... like Ken, I'm more skeptical than most... but the science of the strips suggests false positive are almost impossible IF the testing strip is correctly used. Two facts support that. First, the results of the strips match extremely well with Elisa testing. (from wikipedia..."Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), also known as an enzyme immunoassay (EIA), is a biochemical technique used mainly in immunology to detect the presence of an antibody or an antigen in a sample.") The strips were designed to be the field equivalent of the typical Elisa test done in a laboratory - though in a lab, they are likely to do a whole panel of antibodies, not just a specific one. They use antibodies in a similar way to the Elisa testing. Short of an electron microscope, this is the standard set for testing for virus. In fact, it is the standard screening tool for human diseases like HIV and West Nile. In both kinds of testing, false NEGATIVES will occur (plant testing healthy even though it has the virus.) This is most likely due to the plant not having built up enough "viral load" to show up in testing. I don't know how long a period this can be... my impression is that the virus spreads throughout the plant fairly rapidly... but I believe Dr. Lockhart has had the experience of testing a plant negative and then having it test positive later... so not many false negatives, but there will apparently be some. Second, the antibodies on the test strip are quite specific to HVX. Agdia markets a line of strips, each designed to test for one specific virus. Once the chemicals mix with the plant juices and mark the virus, that is, for all practical purposes, the only thing that can make those antibodies react to give a positive reading. The "positive" band on the strip is designed to react ONLY with HVX. The rep says they've tried - and they can't get false positives unless they do something mechanically wrong. Certainly, nothing is perfect... and the science of HVX is changing as we acquire knowledge... and I wouldn't assume that a negative test guarantees my plant doesn't have HVX... but I think if I got a positive test, I would approach it as a sure thing and destroy the plant. This sales rep was a pretty interesting kid. He seemed to be more interested in the science than the sales. He didn't hand out any literature... I had to take it myself. He talked about his visits to the ports of entry where the European import plants are checked... and his work with the inspectors to get them away from just checking samples from each shipment to checking shipments by cultivar - the inspectors didn't realize that the way hostas are harvested and processes, the infection is more likely to be spread among the plants in one cultivar than being spread in the shipping container among the plants. Easy enough error to make - our usual model for virus spread is person-to-person... Anyway, all he wanted to talk about was the virus and what we know so far and the science of the strips - I had to ask him about the pricing...