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Viruses of Dahlias?

There are thousands of viruses that infect plants. However, only about a dozen viruses have been reported to infect dahlias and only a few of the known viruses are commonly found in dahlias. It is useful to know the virus identity because viruses differ in type of vector responsible for spread, type of damage they cause, inoculum sources and control procedures. Table 1 lists some common viruses of dahlias. Of the plant samples tested at Washington State University during 1999 and 2000, Dahlia mosaic virus (DMV) was found in over half of the samples. This was suprising because our ability to detect DMV is based on a new test and we expect at this time not to be able to detect all strains of DMV. Symptoms caused by DMV have ranged from severe mosaics to no symptoms. There appear to be some as yet unidentified viruses also present.