2 plants tested virus positive. What to do in my grow area now?

[Jmoney]

agdia is about 6 bucks a test, coming in a pack of 25

[katsucats]

My experience is that Agdia tests cost about $165-175 for 25 shipping to CA. If you tell them in the notes residential shipping and to use USPS, it costs a few bucks cheaper, but they don't always follow instructions. The Rega tests cost $254 for 50 including shipping, which took about a week from Taiwan, faster than I would've thought. It's more money, but you get twice as many.

Honestly, the Rega test is more professionally packaged with each strip coming in their own pouches, each solution in a plastic tube with a screw top, and plastic agitators for each test (50). In comparison, Agdia tests put all the strips in a single plastic tube, which is subject to spoiling if you leave it open too long in a humid area. The solutions come in soft square plastic pouches that need to be cut open with scissors, which could spill if one falls over. They charge extra for their agitator, but any hard object like a penny works. Even though Agdia suggests refrigeration, my experience is that leaving it out in room temperature for a while doesn't ruin them.

The advantage to Agdia in my opinion is that the white paper in the strips that draw up the solution is more opaque, so you don't see the lines when it's negative. With the Rega, if you look closely at it you could see the lines regardless of positivity. The Agdia require larger sample sizes, which causes more damage to the plants arguably, but the plus side is that if it shows a red line, it's almost certainly true positive. You are unlikely to get it to false positive with too much sample. With the Rega I guess if you use too much sample there's a chance for false positives from what I'm hearing.

[DirtyCoconuts]

Just to help facilitate discussion i will throw another perspective out there.

I would just move them a little and keep on truckin. i have no doubt that there are virused plants all over that we dont know about and, unless you are cloning or selling plants, just enjoy them until they either show decline or if you dont have enough room to follow good hygene, then toss them.

i dont test my plants, i have way too many. i also grow outside almost exclusively and things in nature tend to work themselves out. hardy things live, weak things die

ES said once that the liklihood is that in the next several generations of plant technology the ability to remove virus or harvest virus free cells will be the norm and i tend to agree (sorry if i misparaphrased you ES)


anyhoo- do what makes you comfortable but know that you also can do nothing

[Jmoney]

I agree that virus testing is not for everyone. probably an overkill for most growers. I cannot speak for anyone else paranoid against viruses (which I certainly am), although personally I like collecting old cattleya cultivars, neofinetia, etc and I really really want my small space to be virus free. Maybe a losing battle.

[Roberta]

Note also that at best, plants can be tested to be free of the two viruses that the strips test for. That says absolutely nothing about the dozen or more viruses that can infect orchids. Those two seem to be the most prevalent, and commercially important, but to get the others the tests have to be done in a lab. No instant gratification, and a lot more time and expense. So I suspect that truly "virus free" is as unobtainable in orchids as it is in humans. An unhealthy plant can spread diseases other than virus and should likely be pitched if it doesn't help you by committing suicide.