I am not sure that I know of a biological test that is 100% accurate. There are just too many variables in any biological test to achieve that mark. I see many comments about false positives. What about the false NEGATIVES!! I'm sure that the virus testing process has improved over the years but with any biological test there is threshold for the minimum amount of antigen (in this case virus) that can be detected. I have no knowledge concerning the virus testing strips, but if strips show positive and a subsequent ELISA test is negative, what do you do? Flip a coin? I seriously doubt any collection of any size is virus free regardless of the plants being tested or not. It wasn't many years ago that there were only a handful of viruses known to infect orchids. Now, how many are there? What about viruses present in a plant that tests negative simply because we don't know they exist? Like Ray, if I have a plant that is exhibiting signs of virus, it goes on the compost pile. I maintain close to 1,000 plants and imagine I have my fair share that are virused. However, personally, I am not about to go to the expense of testing each one. Virused or not, most will certainly outlive me!!
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