Whats wrong with this Magnum hop plant?

[crhatfield]

leaves are kind of dry and stiff feeling, is producing some hops (first year) and I have 7 other cultivars near it and none of the others are having this problem. Leaves are just weird looking and plant is very "naked" looking compared to the others around it. Thanks for your time.

- Cecil

 

[david_42]

Interesting, I've never see leaves like that on a hop plant. I'm guessing it has some kind of root infection. Or maybe it's a mutant (aka sport). The latter could be a good thing or not.

 

[crhatfield]

Here is a closeup of a leaf.



and this shows hop plants on each side.


To the right is a Teamaker [which btw, has a base bine as thick as my index finger and HUGE cones ] and left is Nugget. Both are very healthy and producing what I assume is a fair amount of hops for a first year growth.

 

[theredben]

That looks absolutely like a virus infected plant. I would remove it ASAP to prevent the virus from spreading to neighboring hops (not sure it can, but better safe than sorry)

Unlike animals, plants have no immune system to speak of, and cannot recover from virus infections.

 

[crhatfield]

Oh man, that's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the heads up.

RIP Magnum, oh how our beer will miss you my friend