Cheapest virus tests?

[MateoinLosAngeles]

Originally Posted by Roberta

Not airborne. Water, maybe since it gets absormeb by roots and may also contact breaks in either roots or leaves. Actually, the #1 vector is humans. Sucking insects would reasonably be expected to transmit viruses, to what extent I don't know if it has been well measured. I know it isn't completely straightforward. One of the members of one of my societies actually experimented with a batch of seedlings (so a bunch of identical plants), and tried to infect some of them on purpose to test what might produce transmission. Over a period of several years, they still tested negative. On the other hand, legacy collections tend to have high rates of infection even though the owners really tried to follow good hygiene practices. So does age have anything to do with it? Or what other factors? I don't know what studies have been done. This same individual who did the test on the seedlings put together a "visual" test of multiple photos, showed it to a number of very experienced and knowledgeable people (judges, people with a botanical background, etc) to see if they could tell the virused ones from the clean ones. Nobody did better than chance, some did worse. Conclusion, appearance is an unreliable indicator.

There's a good article about appearance, I think by Sue Bottom, can't remember if it was on AOS, Orchid Digest, or the St Augustine's Society website. They all get mixed up in my mind by now Lol.

But the story goes something like she walked through the green house with the guy from Waldorf Orchids and all the plants that "looked" virused tested negative, and the ones he suggested to test were positive. It was kind of a tribute to his keen eye, but also made the point that appearance wasn't, as you said, a reliable indicator. At least for the rest of us.

Did the person you mention publish his work at all?

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by MateoinLosAngeles

Did the person you mention publish his work at all?

Not as far as I know. He did society talks over several years, don't think he has done any recently. (I think that life got in the way)

[MateoinLosAngeles]

And the tests arrived from Taiwan! $250 including shipping for 50 tests. I tested both plants with symptoms (neighbors) and a sigh of relief... both negative!

So, assuming this was some sort of bacterial or fungal infection, I proceeded to spray the leaves with Physan, cut the damaged parts away, sprayed with cuts with Physan and "sealed" with cinnamon. If these were Phalaenopsis I would've done a light treatment with copper.

It'll be about watching culture now, it will probably benefit from increased air movement and pot flushing. I also repotted it, it has a good root system but not "great," so I changed the medium from LECA to bark. I think the LECA might've held on to too much residue.

[Jmoney]

I buy Adgia in 25 packs, comes out to about 7/test. I have had no issues with batch testing and have never had a false positive with this platform. I like the Rega shelf stability but you can overload Rega with too much tissue and get false positives, or so I'm told. I go through a good amount of tests so I don't have issues with Agdia expiration, although as Roberta mentions the test strips are all lumped together in a small tube that is not individually sealed.

Alcohol will not sterilize virus.

I strongly urge you to not reuse pots if you are serious about virus, unless you are confident that your material is unvirused. Clay pots WILL spread virus. I would not even chance sterilization. I do re-use clay pots with a bleach sterilization process but that is because 1. I test everything, and the plants in those pots had tested negative, and 2. neo trumpet pots run 10 bucks a pop.

[MateoinLosAngeles]

Originally Posted by Jmoney

I buy Adgia in 25 packs, comes out to about 7/test. I have had no issues with batch testing and have never had a false positive with this platform. I like the Rega shelf stability but you can overload Rega with too much tissue and get false positives, or so I'm told. I go through a good amount of tests so I don't have issues with Agdia expiration, although as Roberta mentions the test strips are all lumped together in a small tube that is not individually sealed.

Alcohol will not sterilize virus.

I strongly urge you to not reuse pots if you are serious about virus, unless you are confident that your material is unvirused. Clay pots WILL spread virus. I would not even chance sterilization. I do re-use clay pots with a bleach sterilization process but that is because 1. I test everything, and the plants in those pots had tested negative, and 2. neo trumpet pots run 10 bucks a pop.

I'm mid-serious, I don't have a strong stance at this point and I prefer not to know. This might change in the future, but as of now, I prefer to only test when something makes me suspicious: plant vigor, flower quality/issues, leaf pathology... Mostly to prevent wasting my time and money trying to treat a plant that has something untreatable. Testing every single one of my plants would require thousands of dollars of investment and a lot of time, and that would only be for viruses with available tests (orchid fleck doesn't have one). If I wanted to be thorough, I would probably want to test twice, at least to confirm positives. Then there's the question of whether you caught a plant too early in the infection before it got time to become completely systemic and therefore get a number of false negatives. I genuinely think this is a recipe for madness. After all, since we can't actually fully test for every virus an orchid might have, a negative test for the two most common viruses might help reassure some people, but it's kind of a false reassurance.

I don't do plant exchanges, or gift plants, or participate in showcase tables. So at least whatever my plants carry is contained within my collection.

I do want to try to achieve a level of sustainability when it comes to throwing away plastic pots. They soak in bleach for a long time, but it might be worth experimenting with other substances like Virkon for this purpose. I've also been implementing a regime of microbial inoculation on my plants, they get seasonal sprays and drenches with high concentrations of B. subtilis and Streptomyces spp, the latter seems to show some promising effect on the common orchid viruses, might be worth considering soaking the pots in these inoculants.

Most of my clay pots are destroyed when I repot them, as I prefer to give them a whack with a hammer and sacrifice the pot over sacrificing a healthy root system that will inevitably be attached to the pot. However, I have some clay pots that may be in contact with plants in some other way. For example, I use them to stabilize plants potted in plastic pots, especially smaller ones in plastic pots that are easy to knock over. Even if I didn't pot a plant directly in the pot, any pot that gets in contact with the growing area (I keep the storage separately) gets sanitized. I follow Sue Bottom's process described in the St Augustine Orchid Society's website: dishwasher, scrubbing, 12-24h citric acid soak, scrub some more, soak some more, leave in the oven at 400ºF for 2h while still wet (water helps even out temperature through the pot). I would expect the heat treatment to suffice, but oh well...

[estación seca]

Mosaic virus is inactivated by proper autoclaving, baking at 110C / 240 F, 10% bleach solution, and cow's milk. Reconstituted powdered milk works. A stovetop pressure cooker at the higher pressure, as used in canning, is adequate. Electric pressure cookers do not get as hot and are not adewuate.

[Jmoney]

Originally Posted by MateoinLosAngeles

I'm mid-serious, I don't have a strong stance at this point and I prefer not to know. This might change in the future, but as of now, I prefer to only test when something makes me suspicious: plant vigor, flower quality/issues, leaf pathology... Mostly to prevent wasting my time and money trying to treat a plant that has something untreatable. Testing every single one of my plants would require thousands of dollars of investment and a lot of time, and that would only be for viruses with available tests (orchid fleck doesn't have one). If I wanted to be thorough, I would probably want to test twice, at least to confirm positives. Then there's the question of whether you caught a plant too early in the infection before it got time to become completely systemic and therefore get a number of false negatives. I genuinely think this is a recipe for madness. After all, since we can't actually fully test for every virus an orchid might have, a negative test for the two most common viruses might help reassure some people, but it's kind of a false reassurance.

I don't do plant exchanges, or gift plants, or participate in showcase tables. So at least whatever my plants carry is contained within my collection.

I do want to try to achieve a level of sustainability when it comes to throwing away plastic pots. They soak in bleach for a long time, but it might be worth experimenting with other substances like Virkon for this purpose. I've also been implementing a regime of microbial inoculation on my plants, they get seasonal sprays and drenches with high concentrations of B. subtilis and Streptomyces spp, the latter seems to show some promising effect on the common orchid viruses, might be worth considering soaking the pots in these inoculants.

Most of my clay pots are destroyed when I repot them, as I prefer to give them a whack with a hammer and sacrifice the pot over sacrificing a healthy root system that will inevitably be attached to the pot. However, I have some clay pots that may be in contact with plants in some other way. For example, I use them to stabilize plants potted in plastic pots, especially smaller ones in plastic pots that are easy to knock over. Even if I didn't pot a plant directly in the pot, any pot that gets in contact with the growing area (I keep the storage separately) gets sanitized. I follow Sue Bottom's process described in the St Augustine Orchid Society's website: dishwasher, scrubbing, 12-24h citric acid soak, scrub some more, soak some more, leave in the oven at 400ºF for 2h while still wet (water helps even out temperature through the pot). I would expect the heat treatment to suffice, but oh well...

completely reasonable, I think each individual needs to determine what to do for his/her collection. And you are right in that there are dozens of viruses that may lurk without a test. One of my phals has what I think may be orchidfleck, so it got tossed. Then when I retested my small phal collection I found one with CymMV. I suspect the prior negative on that one was from root testing, now I use leaves only. But false negatives...

And I will say >95% of my positive virus tests are on plants with no symptoms.

For sphagnum in clay pots, which I use a lot, a heavy watering helps me get the plant out of the pot with very mild root breakage. Not sure if that applies with other media though. Trying to rip out a big cattleya from a 7.5" pot however is a workout...