Botrytis is a systemic mold infection in Cannabis. This mold is often called “Bud Rot” or “grey mold”. It can remain cryptic or dormant for long periods of time before it sporulates. youPCR can be used to detect this systemic infection before it spreads to other plants. Field portable colorimetric youPCR assays for Botrytis cinerea are shown below. Plants testing positive can be removed from grows. DNA based techniques are very sensitive and can detect the infection long before it is visible.
Six 10-fold dilutions were performed on a PCR product from the Botrytis cinerea ITS region. This PCR product dilutes down to 1:500,000. Negative controls do not provide a color change while obviously infected samples turn yellow.
Here are a few captions from a paper on the topic titled “Analysis of Cryptic, Systemic Botrytis Infections in Symptomless Hosts“. Highlighted regions demonstrate the Botrytis is systemic and can be passed in seeds. There are also many publications demonstrating co-infection with Powdery mildew.
http://gcrec.ifas.ufl.edu/static/docs/pdf/strawberry-pathology/ComparisonofEpidemics.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5368173/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4861902/pdf/fpls-07-00625.pdf
Botrytis conidia or spores
Secondary symptoms like leaf blowing are often signs of Botrytis on cannabis
Botrytis often expresses itself inside out on cannabis flowers. This is further evidence of its vascularization
Botrytis spores. Its too late for this one.
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