Ontoglossum Ringspot Virus - what do you think?
 

Hello,

I have some bad news. When I woke up yesterday and had my morning fellowship with my orchids, I noticed that this recently-bloomed Doritaenopsis Deborah Wilson had some problems. The blooms which had just opened late last week had already wilted. Also, some color breaks were seen in the same pattern noticed in some Cattleyas seen on the web with ORSV. When the flowers opened, one of them was malformed with an additional petal forming over the column and some deformation of the upper sepal. The upper leaves were covered with small ring-shaped pits.

Earlier in this plant's life I had suspected that it may be infected. It's uppermost leaf - at the time - was deformed. It was small and thick and crinkly. Soon after, what I thought was a basal keiki, started to grow from that point at the top of the plant. It developed a full set of roots, new leaves, and it spiked and eventually bloomed.

I have not had this plant tested, but to me, it seems like an unambiguous case of Ontoglossum Ringspot virus. If you agree, I will destroy the plant. I am attaching photos of the plant below.

http://www.orchidboard.com/community...rus_leaves.jpg

Here are the flowers:

http://www.orchidboard.com/community...us_flowers.jpg

So we have:

1. Deformed leaf
2. Short-lived. deformed flowers with color streaks
3. ring-shaped spots on leaves.

What else could it be?

Thanks for your input.

John

I think it's a virus, like you said.

With that many signs of problems, it's clear that the damage was done on the genetic level.

Viruses just do so much damage when they encode their own RNA or DNA to disrupt the host organism's DNA in order to replicate itself.

What a shame.