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A Belated Virus Update

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Despite the frustration of fighting virus, it’s still pretty beautiful in the garden in the mornings. 🙂

This is my last Peaches ‘N Cream, and it is showing some pretty obvious virus symptoms and yet testing negative repeatedly. I’m trying to muster up the grit to remove it, just to be safe.

I haven’t felt much like writing a blog post for the past few weeks. Our focus has been on continued efforts to contain virus in our dahlia garden. I’ve honestly lost track of how many we have lost, but it’s over half of the 380 tubers we started with. Thanks to late-season sales I’ve replaced the majority of what we lost, but in most cases with other varieties because the ones we lost like Apple Blossom, Coseytown Dexter, Foxy Lady, Hootenanny, Jowey Linda, and more were no longer available. The rainbow rows are no longer perfect, but we are counting our blessings that we have any blooms at all.

I’m starting to wonder if we will lose the whole crop this year. We’re doing everything we can to avoid it, but we aren’t winning, yet.

We have been using Agdia ImmunoStrip virus tests to identify sick plants. Initially we have had plants testing positive for Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus and more recently Tobacco Streak Virus. I’ve also been using the ImmunoComb kits which test for TSWV and 3 other types of virus, but not had any positives with those.

Darcy, looking sick
Darcy, testing positive for Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus

Testing is expensive, but seems unavoidable if we want to try to save any plants and have confidence we have gotten rid of the problem. So far, that’s not the case. We removed 23 plants on Wednesday and 7 more yesterday; three of the four I’ve tested this morning are positive and it’s only 6 a.m.! We’d run out of test kits on Wednesday so couldn’t confirm what virus(es) we were dealing with, but on Friday they all tested positive for TSV. (We have friends in town for a wine tasting weekend, but I stayed home and tested for virus instead. Good times!) Today I have two TSV and one TSWV. Here are some photos of varieties with positive tests:

Positive for TSV
Positive forTSV
Positive for TSV
Positive for TSV
Positive for TSV
Positive for TSV

In addition to testing and removal of stricken plants, we are on a regular spraying regimen for thrips. Even with the regular schedule of spinosad spraying we continue to see them in the garden. It’s easy to understand how diseases like TSWV and TSV are so difficult to control when thrips are everywhere! We have sprayed one day and seen them return the very next. :-/

Where is the virus coming from?

We don’t know for sure. We suspect the TSWV came from a tomato plant. The TSV may have come in on an infected tuber. We’ve found that some of our replacement tubers are sprouting with virus signs and then testing positive. That’s very frustrating and an obvious example of why it would be far better to have a quarantine garden for new varieties, and to buy from growers who test. (There aren’t many.)

Varieties we’ve lost

This is an incomplete list, but these are some of the varieties we have lost so far:

  1. AC Ben (All of them)
  2. AC Rosebud (Only one)
  3. AC Rooster (Only one)
  4. Alpen Cherub
  5. Alpen Diamond
  6. American Dawn
  7. Apple Blossom (Only one)
  8. Azteca
  9. Baarn Bounty (Only one)
  10. Bashful (Only one)
  11. Belle of Barmera
  12. Black Satin
  13. Bodacious
  14. Bride to Be
  15. Bridezilla
  16. Bumble Rumble
  17. Cafe au Lait
  18. CDP Lavender Girl (Only one)
  19. Cornel (Only one)
  20. Coseytown Bounty (Only one)
  21. Coseytown Dexter (Only one)
  22. Coseytown Penny (Only one)
  23. Crichton Honey
  24. Darcy (All)
  25. Daydreamer (Only one)
  26. Debora Renae (Only one)
  27. Deputy Bob (Only one, and its replacement)
  28. Diva (Several)
  29. Fidalgo Climax (All)
  30. First Kiss
  31. Foxy Lady (Several)
  32. GG’s Orange Slice (Only one)
  33. Giggles (Several)
  34. Gloriosa (Only one)
  35. Good Day (Several)
  36. Harvey Koop (All of them)
  37. Hercules
  38. Hilltop Johnathan
  39. Hilltop Onyx (Only one)
  40. Hollyhill Bill M (All of them)
  41. Hollyhill Black Beauty (All of them)
  42. Hollyhill Margarita (Only one)
  43. Hot Tamale x2 (All of them)
  44. Hootenanny
  45. Hy Suntan (Only one)
  46. Ice Tea (Only one)
  47. I Do
  48. In Memory Of (Only one)
  49. Jenna
  50. Jowey Linda (All of them)
  51. Kasasagi (Only one)
  52. Koppertone (Only one)
  53. Maarn
  54. Mai Tai
  55. Mikayla Miranda (Only one)
  56. Mingus Toni
  57. My Hero
  58. Mystique (All of them)
  59. Nicholas
  60. Nick Sr.
  61. N-Force (Only one)
  62. Ova-Jo (Only one)
  63. Painted Lady
  64. Patricia Ann’s Sunset
  65. Peaches ‘N Cream
  66. Pooh
  67. Platinum Blonde
  68. Rob Ann Creamsicle
  69. Robinhood
  70. Rock Run Ashley
  71. Rebecca Lynn (Only one)
  72. Santander (Only one)
  73. Selina
  74. Shadow Cat (Only one)
  75. Silver Years (Only one)
  76. Solo
  77. Steve Meggos X2 (Only ones)
  78. Teddy
  79. Thomas Edison
  80. Tropica
  81. Tutti Fruitti
  82. Unicorn Dreams
  83. Valley Porcupine (Only one)
  84. Verrone’s Obsidian (Only one)
  85. Verrone’s Will
  86. Vixen (Only one)
  87. Wayne L (Only one)
  88. Wildcat
  89. Wine-Eyed Jill (All of them)
  90. Wyn’s New Pastel
Greenhouse

Dahlia Virus is no Joke

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We have had a tough week at Wishful Thinking Farm. We have had to dig up and dispose of over 40 dahlias out of the ~290 that are sprouted in the garden, because they were showing signs of virus. 😭😭😭

We had started most of these in our new greenhouse, to get a head start on our growing season. Unfortunately, we had packed the greenhouse pretty tightly, and in addition to the dahlias we brought in some tomato starts. One of them didn’t look great to begin with and eventually they all showed signs of tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV).

Dahlias can catch viruses, which are typically spread by thrips and mites. If you don’t remove an infected plant and control the bugs, the bugs can feed on it and then go feed on a healthy plant and give it the virus. Sometimes the plant can fight it off, sometimes it can’t. Some of our dahlias appeared to have TSWV.

Here are some photos of the plants we removed. We have test strips coming to confirm the diagnosis, but to avoid further spread we removed these plants as soon as we realized what we were looking at.

We have lost over 30 unique varieties to suspected virus so far, because we only had one or two tubers of the variety, and they showed signs of infection. The prudent thing to do, even if it’s only 1 or 2 leaves on an otherwise healthy plant, is to completely dispose of an infected plant to avoid further spread. Fortunately, we’ve found some late season tuber sales and have made some purchases to fill in some gaps. Many varieties are gone, but at least we won’t have big holes in the dahlia bed.

What did we learn?

  • Order more than one tuber of new varieties you really want.
  • Keep a quarantine area for new plants. Plants can come *with* virus and once you have something like TSWV it’s tough to get it stopped.
  • Don’t overstuff your greenhouse and don’t introduce other plants when sprouting tubers. Just sprout the tubers.
  • Use blue and yellow sticky cards to catch and monitor thrips, and use spray when you find them.
  • Remove sickly looking plants right away. Otherwise you risk spreading virus to healthy plants and making them sick too.

Here’s a lecture on dahlia viruses in case you want to watch it too. 😕

Varieties we have lost so far:

  1. AC Ben
  2. Apple Blossom (Only one)
  3. Azteca
  4. Black Satin
  5. CDP Lavender Girl (Only one)
  6. Cornel (Only one)
  7. Coseytown Bounty (Only one)
  8. Coseytown Dexter (Only one)
  9. Coseytown Penny (Only one)
  10. Daydreamer (Only one)
  11. Deputy Bob (Only one)
  12. Diva X3 (All I had)
  13. GG’s Orange Slice (Only one)
  14. Giggles x2
  15. Gloriosa (Only one)
  16. Harvey Koop (Only one)
  17. Hollyhill Margarita (Only one)
  18. Hot Tamale x2 (Only ones)
  19. Hy Suntan (Only one)
  20. Ice Tea (Only one)
  21. Jowey Linda x2 (Only ones)
  22. Kasasagi (Only one)
  23. Koppertone (Only one)
  24. Mikayla Miranda (Only one)
  25. Mystique x2 (Only ones)
  26. N-Force (Only one)
  27. Ova-Jo (Only one)
  28. Pooh
  29. Rebecca Lynn (Only one)
  30. Santander (Only one)
  31. Shadow Cat (Only one)
  32. Silver Years (Only one)
  33. Steve Meggos X2 (Only ones)
  34. Teddy
  35. Tutti Fruitti
  36. Valley Porcupine (Only one)
  37. Verrone’s Obsidian (Only one)
  38. Vixen (Only one)
  39. Wayne L (Only one)
  40. Wine-Eyed Jill
  41. Wyn’s New Pastel
Garden Layout, Planting

Our Rainbow Rows are Planted!

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The dahlia garden is six double rows, with each row having 33 plants.

Here is a link to the full Rainbow Rows layout as a PDF file.

Technically I guess we are “mostly” planted. We lost a few tubers to rot and pulled a few that looked suspicious, so I have ordered some replacements. But, the vast majority of our ~380 tubers are now in. This is a HUGE increase in the size of our dahlia garden from prior years – we grew 65 last year. We also are growing gladiolus, zinnias, snapdragons, sunflowers, and more.

We can’t wait for the cutting garden to be in bloom. It’s going to be so fun to share!

Layout was challenging. It’s not perfect but it’s going to look great.
Team uniforms!
Still smiling as we neared the finish line. 🙂
Next up – pounding stakes and adding trellis netting. Then covering the walkway rows with bark chips.
Uncategorized

Let the Planting Begin!

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It’s finally warm and dry enough to plant dahlias!

We’ve had a long, slow, cold, wet spring here in the gorge. After building a greenhouse to get a head start on the bloom season, it’s been frustrating to see our ground temps hover just below where they needed to be for happy tubers. We’ve finally made it, though! So this weekend we prepped the landscape fabric and laid out our rainbow rows. I’ll post the final diagram once it’s finished. 🙂

Rick had the garden all tilled and ready. We added several yards of compost to improve the soil.
We are using landscape fabric to control weeds and keep the water in, with double rows spaced 18″ apart and the plants in the rows 16″ on center. We laid straw under the rows to help with insulation and soil compaction.
I didn’t realize how much work it’s going to be until we started laying them out. We worked on it pretty much all day and got about 70 of the 380 in the ground.
This cute little dude was the shift supervisor. I love jumping spiders!
Making progress! We hope to have them all planted this week.
This one is a new variety that I am so excited about!
Another happy baby.
We added a bunch of collarette styles this year and I’m so excited about it!
Café au Lait is always slow to get going for me, and I am so excited to have one sprouted already, on May 15!
Another collarette I can’t wait to see.
I had so much fun ordering from small farms this year. Great service and great tubers!
Uncategorized, Weather

Waiting for Warmth to Plant

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The National Weather Service doesn’t track weather history in Hood River, which makes it difficult to complain about the weather with any precision. Thankfully we have our own weather station now, so we can know and track what’s happening here at Wishful Thinking Farms.

You can see our data on Ambient Weather here:
https://ambientweather.net/dashboard/3d7f71362e5d7ff289cd334ef2178105

and on Weather Underground here: https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/or/hood-river/KORHOODR97

There’s a beautiful mountain out there behind those clouds.

What is obvious is that it has been cold and wet, and our plans to plant earlier have been delayed as a result. We’ve still managed a bit of a jump start since about 2/3 of our tubers are already sprouted in the greenhouse, but we won’t be planting them in the garden for at least another week; likely two.

Dahlias like soil that’s 60℉ or warmer, and not too wet. We’ve been slowly warming and finally hit 60 earlier this week, only to slide back to 55 this morning following days of cold weather and lots of rain. The forecast calls for continued cool temps this week.

May 6, 2022 in the afternoon
May 7, 2022 in the morning
Greenhouse, Uncategorized

Our Greenhouse

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We started building a greenhouse this year to give our dahlias a head start on the season. It’s not quite done, but we are using it and it’s amazing!

We purchased plans from Ceres Greenhouse Solutions for a 12×24 greenhouse with a ground to air heat transfer (GAHT) system. We wanted to give the dahlias a longer growing season by starting them in the greenhouse. Of the ~300 that will go in the garden, 20 will stay out there in fabric pots and return to the greenhouse before last frost, with the goal of extending the bloom season just a bit longer. (Libby has a hard time letting go!)

Our dahlias are having a nice spa visit as they wake up
GAHT piping collecting warm air from the ceiling
The GAHT system keeps the greenhouse cooler in the day and warmer at night.
We still need to attach gutters, trim around windows, paint, and plant lawn on the south side.