Second, I just got my deliver RNA Pro. It's possible that someone decided to profit on this problem by selling white powder in a plastic jar because they know 10,000 of us will spend $120 before we realize it's not viable. It's possible that the person that made it and bought the domain for Sunn Hemp Mosaic Virus, found a solution and is selling it. Time will tell. I'm not holding my breath.
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Hi everyone. This is a tough thread for me to read. I just got out of hundreds of hours of plant pathology training, and I wish I could help more. But without plant samples, my best guess is that it is likely that different pathogens or issues are involved for different people showing pictures here. Even if it were the same pathogen, due to the rapid reproduction cycle of many viruses and life cycles of other pathogens, combined with often simple genomes with high mutation frequency, even within a single species of pathogen there can be widely varying degrees of virulence and pathogenicity. In addition, host plants can similarly be resistant or not, while others may be tolerant or not regardless of resistance.
So unfortunately my recommendation is that everyone may need to proceed with whatever evidence they have in front of their own face or through trial and error.
Beyond that, RNA Pro's website is soooooo hilarious!! Did you see what they said?? Complete gibberish is the bottom line, I will take it apart for you:
"The Hemp Mosaic Virus (HMV) is an intracellular parasite that infects plants by attaching itself to its RNA." Not necessarily true, as the literature does not characterize well "hemp mosaic virus," but rather
Sunn-hemp mosaic virus, regarding the plant
Crotalaria juncea. Hemp mosaic virus is mentioned in some very old work, and McPartland discusses it in his 2000 book Hemp Diseases and Pests. However, he puts it directly, no one even knows what kind of virus it is, or even if the different people that isolated a virus from hemp were working with the same virus. For instance, he mentions a putative "Hemp mottle virus" as well, which could very well be the hemp mosaic virus. So little work has been done, no one really knows.
" The Hemp Mosaic Virus is part of the genus Tobamovirus, the most common of which is Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV)."
Again, wrong, this is about the
Sunn-hemp mosaic virus.
"These viral RNA polymerases lack the proof-reading ability of DNA which makes vaccines extremely difficult to develop."
Gibberish. There is no such thing as a vaccine for plants because they don't have an antibody based immune system.
"Mutations occur
rapidly and this virus can reduce crop yields by 25% or more. In some cases entire crops can be lost."
Nonsense. While some viruses can completely kill plants and reduce yields far more than that, innumerable others cause no noticeable damage, or may only have a hidden effect like increasing susceptibility to other pathogens.
"RNA Pro is a product that has been shown to effectively treat infected plants and allow gardeners to capture their crop’s full potential."
Difficult to assess without further info, as there are antiviral chemicals that can be applied, such as ningnanmycin, and acetone extract of cottonseed oil sludge, so it is possible that RNA pro is such a compound.
"While it is true there is no vaccine to cure the Hemp Mosaic Virus, there is a particularly effective treatment."
Ridiculous based on what I already covered above.
"RNA Pro works by increasing the plant’s production of the protein coating that is meant to protect it from such viruses."
Uh-huh, this is a really strange use of these ideas. The phrase 'protein coat' is typically used to refer to the viral protein coat. If this is some weird reference to the plant cuticle, which is not a protein, but may be able to protect or limit entry of some viruses, it would not help to strengthen it in already existing infections. Really, there is no way to make sense of the statement, it is just mash of cluelessness.
"By using
RNA Pro the virus can not bind the plant’s RNA and thus the symptoms don’t proliferate."
Viral RNA is not typically discussed in terms of binding to plant RNA, although I suppose in some cases, plant messenger RNA could hypothetically bind to a viral single stranded sequence it shared homology with, but this would be exceptionally rare/unlikely/not part of the major mode of action of viral infection.
If you'd like to know how they work, I suggest Roger Hull's 2014 textbook, Plant Virology. It can be found online, and is comprehensive.
