How Long Do You Quarantine? - Orchid Board

lycaonpictus · #1 03-20-2011, 11:21 AM

Got a bunch of new orchids at the local show yesterday, and am quarantining them in various parts of the house, far away from the main collection.

I usually do 2 weeks, but was wondering what everybody else does.

billc · #2 03-20-2011, 01:35 PM

While I can understand the reasoning for quarantine, I don't have the room to keep a plant happy except in my 2 growing areas. What I do is take the plant out of its pot and give it a thorough bath in Neem and repot it. Then I keep it off to the side and look for critters. After a week or two I'll put it in among the others.
Mounted plants I spray real well with Neem and hope for the best. Other than mealy bugs and once scale on a Tolumnia, I really haven't had any issues. I think the mealys actually jump off the existing plants onto the new ones.

Bill

Zoi2 · #3 03-20-2011, 06:25 PM

I usually keep the new ones separated for about a month and that is after they have been cleaned up and repotted.
Joann

lycaonpictus · #4 03-20-2011, 06:46 PM

I started quarantining after a couple plants from a grower in Florida infected everything with scale, and I lost almost my entire collection (this was some time ago). I never want to go through that again!

I also tend to re-pot and clean up. A number of these current plants are still blooming, though, so clean-up will likely wait until later.

Thanks for the answers so far! I'm very curious to hear some others.

Brotherly Monkey · #5 03-20-2011, 08:40 PM

lol, indeed. For me it was a nasty case of spider mites. Since then, everything gets quarantined, no exceptions

PS lycaonpictus, what part of Pittsburgh are you in?

lycaonpictus · #6 03-20-2011, 11:06 PM

Brotherly Monkey -- I'm in one of the satellite boroughs of Pittsburgh. But nobody has ever heard of it, so "Pittsburgh" is just easier.

Brotherly Monkey · #7 03-20-2011, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lycaonpictus

Brotherly Monkey -- I'm in one of the satellite boroughs of Pittsburgh. But nobody has ever heard of it, so "Pittsburgh" is just easier.

Ha, I'm in the same circumstances, currently, but in regards to state collage. But I lived in Squirrel hill and Bloomfield for a bit

Brotherly Monkey · #8 03-20-2011, 11:17 PM

But to answer the original question, I go at least 2 weeks on a quarantine, if I know and trust the nursery. if not, 4 weeks or longer, depending on space and weather

silken · #9 03-21-2011, 12:26 AM

I quarantined a catt I bought at the society's sale table for a good month and then moved it in with others. It had just been cleaned and re-potted before I bought it. A month wasn't long enough to find the scale that eventually killed it and several other plants that were infested as well

I likely would have noticed before things were beyond recovery, but I had major surgery soon after putting the plant in with others and I couldn't get into my greenhouse. I had hubby doing the watering and he wasn't looking for trouble, just watering!

I currently have another one with scale that was given to me. No mention of the scale and it looked lovely, but thankfully I quarantined. I have been treating with Merit weekly for about 8 weeks and am finally seeing no sign, but not taking any chances. It's a Miltassia and those have so many little dried bracts around the base, its hard to remove it all.

Lagoon45 · #10 03-21-2011, 09:22 AM

The bare min is atlease 1 month, NO way will it before that - been there, done that and learned the hard way

Everything is repotted and spray down for anything that has tried to taxi onto my orchids for the first month. After that another month until I make sure no insects are found.
Mealies are very sneaky

Regards,
Gloria