Question of the Week – Virus

This week, the question was: What’s going on with this tie-dyed-looking wild mustard?

This wild mustard is suffering from a virus. Numerous viruses affect plants in the brassica family and may be transmitted by aphids, flea beetles, cucumber beetles, or by seed. Viruses may cause a variety of symptoms including stunting, leaf distortion, mosaic patterns, ring spots, and necrosis. Wild mustard is an important reservoir of mosaic viruses that infect brassica crops. It is often difficult to determine which virus has infected a plant as the symptoms of multiple viruses may look very similar. In addition, viruses may be difficult to distinguish from the damage of certain herbicides (especially phenoxy herbicides). For more information, take a look at this page.