Okra Plant Mutations

[heavyhitterokra]

I've never seen anything like this before.  All the okra pods on this plant were normal, up to a point where a grasshopper ate the cover off an imature pod, exposing the tiny, white seeds.  After that point on, the stalk, the leaves, and every blossom, every pod, gets progressively more mutated, until no part of what you see any longer makes sense.

I'll attach the best photo I could capture under the circumstances.  The wind was blowing about 20 mph while Iwas attempting to photograph the mutated parts, so only one of the pictures actually turned out to be in focus.  I was unable to get a clear photo of the entire length of the mutation.  I was only able to capture one blossom in focus, about halfway up.  I'll go ahead and post the rest of the blurry photos until such time I can get better ones if time and circumstance allows.

Being how all the lower pods were normal and only the pods above the severe insect damage were mutated, I don't know if these mutations were genetic in nature or the result of a virus, or bacteria, introduced by the insect. 


If it is an insect born pathogen, we could all be in trouble.  Being how I only discovered it late last evening, I was unable to contact anyone at OSU for advice or assistance.  I will attempt to get the County Agent to look at it today to document the damage and to take samples for lab work.



This is my best photo of the bunch.  +I believe you can enlarge these photos if you click on them with your mouse.  Please pardon the post-harvest nature of the field.  Most of the viable seeds have already been gathered ahead of the heavy rains.  All that is left are the inferior pods that I never harvest from.

Blurry photo from above.

This is the juncture of the insect damage where all the pods above this point begin to malform.  The damage is progressive.  The first few pods after the damage are severely dwarfed, curled, and otherwise deformed, but the higher they go, the more severe the mutations become, until the resulting blossoms are downright unrecognizable.

This is a blurry shot of the stem higher up from the insect damage.  The wind was howling and I was unable to get a still photo.

notice the mature, normal appearance of the pods below the insect damage.

Another blury photo, due to the high wind conditions during the storm.

This is just one of the lower pods of this same plant about to self-broadcast its seeds.  The field has already been harvested at this point.  That is why all the remaining plants appear as skeletons of a former garden.

[hedgeapple]

I've seen individual flowers and pods deform after being chewed on by insects, but have not seen it spread to the rest of the plant like that, or that severely.

Please keep us posted.

[macmex]

You know, I think I'd just yank that plant. It might be an insect borne disease. At any rate, if it's spreading I'd remove the plant and play it safe.

[heavyhitterokra]

Better photos. 

I went back out this morning while the wind was not blowing and got better photos of the mutant plant.  Notice how the damage starts right at the junction of the insect damage.  I've never seen anything like this before and I've seen some wierd stuff!


Pods below the insect damage.

Zoom in on this one. 
It looks like something from a 1960s episode of Star Trek; kind of what I would imagine if a weed was on weed.

The juncture of the insect damage.  normal pods below, freakish mutations above.

Close-up of a mutated blossom.

Full set of mutated blossoms.

[chrysanthemum]

Sept 22, 2021 7:02:01 GMT -6 macmex said:

You know, I think I'd just yank that plant. It might be an insect borne disease. At any rate, if it's spreading I'd remove the plant and play it safe.

I second this.  You don’t want to harbor a possible disease that insects could continue to spread to your other plants.  Maybe pull it, bag it, and take it to the county extension office for advice.

[heavyhitterokra]

I had the County Extension Agent come out here from Tahlequah this morning while it was still cool (39 degrees).  He was here by 8:00 am.  We dug the plant up by the roots and bagged it to go into cold storage, so it won't be quite so stressed, plus any bugs that were on it would still be dormant at that temperature.

They'll take it to the OSU Horticulture Lab to study it. We cut down all the plants around it and burned them, so if it's an insect-borne pathogen, maybe it won't spread.  It will probably take a few weeks to get any word back on it.  I told them to just have fun with it.  I know they must get tired of just looking at pictures in a book up there.  Now, they can get some hands-on experience for their grad students.
This is the node where the pods changed from normal to mutated.

You can see other pods in the background here that have gone to seed from a branch on that same plant.  So, they have mature seeds too, if they want to grow them in the lab to see if it was genetic.

The last photo for posterity before it goes to the lab.

[Deleted]

[john]

My guess would be a virus. Perhaps spread by the grasshopper. Sort of like how mosaic virus to cucurbits is spread by cucumber beetles. It could also be a completely natural mutation triggered by something or nothing at all. The only other thing that I have seen do something like this is if it got hit with herbicide or some sort of plant hormone. Either in the soil or from spray drift. These things can be hard to figure out, hopefully the lab will be able to determine what happened, it is good that you have such an observant eye and know when something is out of the ordinary and notified someone. Some scientist is probably giddy with excitement, hoping to make a discovery. Keep us up to date as to what they find

[heavyhitterokra]

I just got an email this morning, confirming the specimen has arrived at the plant diagnostic lab. The shipping charges were only $4.00 way worth the price of admission!  It will probably cost me that much in gasoline, just to drive over to the Tahlequah Extension Office to pay them back.

[heavyhitterokra]

This is the latest update from OSU's Horticulture Lab. The funky looking blossoms on my okra plant were caused by "Aster Yellows Phytoplasma".  To see examples of that, just click on the brown text below:

www.google.com/search?q=aster+yellows+phytoplasma&sxsrf=AOaemvKlz6jgW91jhLZ2mWOxO369YdH7FA:1633661522795&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=Y8b4VK0Uzgr5jM%252Cukgf2wPeyfhutM%252C_%253BwJyCf-ut_z1XcM%252Czpmz430Fz9jOpM%252C_%253BsP4IWG97i4tdVM%252C48paG6ngKUw4fM%252C_%253ByZ01FMiEEKYlqM%252CXpx6uS9lsIu6yM%252C_%253Bnsu0HSdM_tHySM%252Cf1CgXDm0Iq_FFM%252C_%253BJ2vsOKIvtlneJM%252C48paG6ngKUw4fM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kRfZz4wM4SwvmeQbWY41pDqI4J3cQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjK6f6157nzAhUpk2oFHVPDDM0Q_h16BAgXEAE#imgrc=sP4IWG97i4tdVM

Aster Yellows Phytoplasma, is an insect borne virus, spread plant to plant, from cell damage caused by an infected insect chewing on your plants, similar to the way ticks spread disease to humans and animals.  The vector of this disease is often traced to grasshoppers.

[chrysanthemum]

Thanks for the update. I looked up those pictures and then checked more on the appearance of the insect that spreads it. Glad you got rid of the plant.