Virus Testing

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by katsucats

I've seen some of your YouTube videos. It seems you're a huge Catasetum fan as I am. Here's a little interesting story for what it's worth.

I bought a Clowesia dodsoniana once on eBay, from... (I forgot his name) we'll call him Bill, from NY. I asked him where the plant was sourced, he said wild collected, then we started a little conversation about his collection that he was planning to sell divisions of, and where to source some Catasetum species.

Then, I relayed to him an experience I had with a well known Catasetum vendor where every Catasetum that I got from them except one (out of like 5) were virused. Hint: It's not SVO. To be fair, the vendor promptly refunded me after testing his own parent stock and confirmed the viruses, but that doesn't inspire much confidence for the rest of his plants. So Bill tells me, surely enough, he had also bought numerous plants from said vendor, and that he'd test some of those plants later on.

Two days later, I get a message on eBay, and Bill tells me his plans have changed, since he couldn't in good conscience sell virused divisions. So yep, the plants he had tested from said vendor were also virused.

I'm not going to go as far to say that there are some systemic issues going on, but statistically speaking, there probably is. In any case, buyer beware.

I plan to test my plants from the vendor you bought from that had the virused Catasetums when they start growing again. I really fear for my Cyrtopodiums, which I’ve purchased from that same vendor more frequently than the Catasetums.