GreenlyLeaf Curl Virus: how to recognise and treat it
Disease
Symptoms
- Young leaves are small, curl upward and look crumpled, with yellowing between the veins and along the margins.
- Plants are stunted and stay upright and bushy because the internodes are short; plants infected young are severely stunted.
- Flowers often drop without setting, so very little fruit forms — losses can be total when plants are infected early.
Organic treatment
- Pull out and destroy infected plants as soon as you see them, while only a few are affected; they cannot recover.
- Use yellow sticky traps to watch whitefly numbers; they help monitoring more than control.
- Spray insecticidal soap, horticultural oil or neem oil on whiteflies, covering the leaf undersides; it kills only the insects it hits, so repeat.
Chemical treatment
- There is no cure for the virus; chemical work is only against the whitefly that spreads it.
- Avoid broad-spectrum insecticides such as pyrethroids — even the strongest products only partly control whiteflies and they kill the whiteflies' natural enemies.
Reference information, not a guarantee. Read and follow the label of any product: dose, safety and the days to wait before harvest.
Prevention
- Grow virus-resistant varieties and plant only virus- and whitefly-free transplants.
- Cover young plants with fine-mesh row covers, or lay reflective mulch while plants are small to repel whiteflies.
- Keep down weeds such as nightshade around the garden and clear old crops and volunteers after harvest.
Plants it affects
Sources
Figures checked against these sources.