Is this colour break?

[mattryan]

I was reading camile's post on viruses and I am hoping that I don't have colour break. But I suspect that it is. Can someone tell me if I do. Also what should you look for to determine if an orchid has it so I don't buy another one with it. I have only had this orchid about 1 month, and I really like it The markings on it were the reason I purchased it Thanks!

Cheryl

[Zoi2]

That looks more like a splash petal to me.
Color break is odd color markings that should not be there. It is usually a sign of a virus and a virus check is the only way to tell for sure.
Joann

[tucker85]

I agree. Splash petal phals are supposed to look like that. Yours is very pretty.

[sweetjblue]

Cheryl, My Personally I don't think so. From what I can see all the flowers seem to be pretty consistant in the coloring, meaning they have the same streak of pink right up the middle of the top sepal and somewhat of the same kind of striping/ blush on the rest of the sepals and petals. Kind of like a "Red Cat" clone. To me if this had a virus you would see more of a random pattern to the striping. But if you want to be sure, get some of the test kits or send out to have it tested by a pro before you go ahead and put it in the trash.
In the meantime you may want to isolate it from your other plants to be safe.

Like I said this is just my hopefully others will weigh in with their thoughts.

Judi

And I see they have while I was typing my reply!!

[glengary54]

It's not color break, here is a link to a good abstract on orchid viruses and what color break looks like.

http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Pass...18/287-288.pdf

[WhiteRabbit]

Agree with the above posts, tho I'm certainly not an expert, but looks like splash petals

[mattryan]

Thankyou for the help. I was hoping it was a splash petal of some type, unfortunately it's a noid. This really puts my mind to rest. Thanks for the link and the quick responces.

Cheryl

[james mickelso]

Again, just because a plant has virus or we suspect it has virus doesn't mean we have to throw it away. If you have orchids that are valuable or you have a ton of them, then maybe you should so as not to infect the others. Like I say, I have lots of virused orchids of different kinds and some show it with color break and others show it with a loss of vigor and mottled leaf coloration. But those that do have it and those that don't still produce beautiful flowers. I have a couple that had it very badly and through care in watering and where I put them, I have been able to get them to bloom ok. I showed a couple pics of two of them. The intermedia looks ok but the Greenwich while very badly disfigured for few years has now come to flower ok but will probably get tossed someday soon. It smells good but still has that bad flower. I'm just too soft.But if your plants still flower well and grow well, why toss them uness you have a lot or irreplaceable orchids. Your choice.