Potato Spindle Tuber Viroid - Method To Control Disease

Method To Control Disease

Potato spindle tuber can be controlled effectively by planting PSTV-free potato tubers in fields free of diseased tubers that may have survived from the previous year’s crop. Plant whole seed tubers rather than cut pieces. Avoid contact with leaves (either by staff or equipment) during field operations. Control insects, especially aphids and chewing species. Carefully remove the infected plants from the healthier plants, bag them and burn plants that are suspected of being infected well away from production areas. Monitor the crop carefully.

Apply hygiene procedures if there has been an outbreak of PSTVd. Wash equipment (knives, cutters, sprayers, cultivators) with sanitizers before moving to another field or sowing another seed-line. Viroids are resistant to heat sterilization so sometimes freezing or chemical treatments are more effective. So equipment, surfaces and tools can be disinfected with sodium or calcium hypochlorite (bleach) and 2% sodium hydroxide. Chemicals such as Virkon and quaternary compounds such as Dermasan can be used.

Read more about this topic:  Potato Spindle Tuber Viroid

Famous quotes containing the words method, control and/or disease:

    “The method of authority will always govern the mass of mankind; and those who wield the various forms of organized force in the state will never be convinced that dangerous reasoning ought not to be suppressed in some way.”
    —Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)

    “In Vietnam, some of us lost control of our lives. I want my life back. I almost feel like I’ve been missing in action for twenty-two years.”
    —Wanda Sparks, U.S. nurse. As quoted in the New York Times Magazine, p. 72 (November 7, 1993)

    “Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.”
    —Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)