How long have you had them? Did you just recently put those two in the ground?Some hostas can harbor the virus w/o showing symptoms for a few years. I would want to keep them isolated for a couple years to be sure. Are you good at taking a gamble with your plants? Or get some test strips to ease your mind.

-Babka

I ordered the test strips and have them ready to go. I've been looking and googling and saw that if the titers for hvx were low enough they could test negative even with the virus.

This whole bed is new (2 yrs old) and the two not in pots have been in the ground since then.

I'll probably go ahead and test them. I'd hate to put hostas in their spot if they do have it.

I've heard batch testing suggested a lot if you want to test more than the 3 listed.

Since those three are easy to find and cheap, I'm going to batch test them and toss them all if it comes up positive. Then at least I would know if I couldn't put another one in it's place.

do i have this straight ????

you see nothing that indicates such.. but you are willing to spend 5 bucks on a strip to test a hosta you bought at bigboxstore for what.. 3 bucks????

i wouldnt waste the money ... but thats me..

do whatever makes you happy ...

ken

It's not about the $3 dollar hosta it's about the ones that would be moved in their spaces. It may be trivial to you but I have limited space and money.

Stefanie, It was reported that the testing by Dr. Lockheart showed a 4% chance of infection from surviving bits of infected tissue when HVX infected hosta were dug up. I think that tj is right that your non-suspicious hosta have a risk far less than that

If you want to go and plant hosta near them, go ahead. If they develop symptoms you can kill the hosta by painted the leaves stop and bottom with 18% glyphosate (poison ivy strength Round Up) during the growing season without taking a chance of damaging the roots of healthy hostas. You can

I feel test strips are valuable to growers, but of little use to home gardeners. HVX symptoms should be readily apparent and if borderline or questionable there is no danger of HVX spreading unless you take the advice of some, panic, and dig it out which runs the risk of spreading any HVX to neighboring plants and also leaving microscopic bits of live tissue which provides a risk when planting new hostas.

Strips only test for HVX and if a hosta shows symptoms close or even completely different and tests negative for HVX it can have some other virus. Other viruses are spread by insects and can be far more devastating in a hosta garden. HVX is benign if the infected plant is not cut or scraped and another plant infected with the sap of the infected plant, either immediately or on unsanitized tools.

Jon

Not expensive or rare, just didn't want to lose another hosta space. I've had to throw one away that had hvx that came from a big box store and am a little paranoid. but if risk is that low or test wouldnt be conclusive, no point wasting it.