These were gifted to me by a dear friend of mine after trying to finish a small joint between the two of us, after having put it down I said wow I’d love to have a cut from wherever you you got this stuff from and luckily he replied in the back is an old mother plant that is ready for a few cuttings to be taken off. So after a few minutes of forgetting what I stopped in for he showed me the mother plant and it’s been working for him for years creating clones and I noticed the tell tale sign of HLV but didn’t mention it to him so he cut 3 branches off for me and stuck em in a wet paper towel for me to take home and try my hand in rooting them. The cuts took forever take root and seemed to be only growing leaves and branches and not exploring it’s root zone, it would flop over from the fan and still just grow towards the light and would not grow root mass until it was time to take them outside. I was keeping them in the shaded area with sunlight off and on through the canopy of my silver maple tree. After some time they began to expand their root zone and actually hold themselves from falling this way or that so now up to date they look amazing and stout short kushey Kush kush plants I will let all of my OGs comment on the HLV signs y’all can see … after talking to him about the virus he said oh I forget to tell you that it might have the virus and to keep away from other plants. So me already pretty sure they have it didn’t want to spread the HLV to my other plants kept it quarantined and now outside away from other stuff I’m growing. He’s been growing it and others are to this day growing clones from this old girl and the virus doesn’t seem to have effect on smell, taste or THC, the signs of the virus are quite noticeable to the ones that know and been down that road. …
Possibly all my plants already have HLV, and similarly seem to all be producing just fine. Every time someone says something like this…
I just see plants. What exactly are these signs that are so obvious they’re screaming at us?
Oh sorry I get ahead of myself sometimes, to those who aren’t familiar with the signs of the hop ladent virus…
Here goes -
- Fan leaflets overlap each other
- Horizontal branching
- Soft easy to snap off lower branches
- Crinkling fan leaves
- Color variegation
- Swirling top growth
- Flat stems/stalk
- Abnormal amount of branching
- Around week 5/6 of flower plant takes a turn for the worst and basically dies
- Low oils and trichome development
I’m sure there is more but for now this is what I have for y’all
Gotta be honest, the only one I see on these pictures is variegation. That’s also a potential sign of several other diseases, or potentially of nothing at all, just genetics. Dunno about this plant in particular, but I don’t usually think of variegation as a sign of HLVD, anyway. Obviously #3 isn’t something we can see in pictures, and 9-10 aren’t happening yet, but otherwise everything looks normal to me. I’m gonna continue to assume that I, at least, can’t detect HLVD without testing.
The last one certainly does look like abnormal amounts of branching. 
And that second one does have pretty intensely crinkled leaves, though I’m not sure I’d pick that out of a lineup as being anything unusual. Crinkled leaves can be genetics too, so not sure it’s really something to go on. Still, this is better than just hunches, thanks for the pictures. 
As far as lowers growing horizontally, that’s also normal to me, but maybe more because I’m an indoor grower and I deliberately train them that way. The leaves look a lot more variegated from close up on that last one too.
This is what I notice as a sign of HLVd. Not really any of the others…
Also when they break easy it’s kinda like snapping a green bean. Clean off
A lot of people are growing plants that have the HLV and can’t tell they sometimes grow out of the visual symptoms but the end results are far from what the cultivar is capable of.and with out a actual test it’s anyones guess . You might even be growing plants with HLV and think we’ll it’s not growing horribly looks healthy enough. Before I research about HLV I was growing plants and was like wtf is going on am I just not good at growing indoors and then I purchased seeds from a reputable distributor and then I realized that it was the plant and not anything I was doing wrong and I grew that particular strain for years and was very good smoke but it had hlv
Anyways I choose to keep growing this old strain that has HLV because it hasn’t affected the smell, taste or THC unlike other ones with it would be basically like a CBD strain
Greetings @Strainger,
Just curious whether you have had your plant test for HLV?
Also, whether you’ve managed to avoid infecting any other plants you have going?
-Grouchy
I have 2 plants from seed that have this trait, one more than the other. Was going to keep one as a mom as I am fond of the smoke but I am also skittish now that I read this. I assumed it was normal as the plants grew out just fine and the smoke is killer. Puck BC2 from C&C. I see if I can find any other grow reports and see if it’s normal for that strain.
I know there are some strains known for zig zag stems like apollo 11… so it might not be a 100% sure tell sign.
Get it tested if positive
Me personally, I would throw it away
You do not want that in your garden you will contaminate everything