Seattle Orchid virus issues?

[katsucats]

Originally Posted by MJG

katsucats, I am sorry to hear this. As to "inspiring confidence "
the response you had from Marlow is very similar to what Hausermann told me about viruses in their stock.

Yep, I'm fine with viruses being in their stock. It's the fact that they usually don't give out refunds. I don't know why vendors repeat this line when they do refund at the end of the day, but it doesn't inspire confidence. Here's the email he sent me:

Thank you for letting me know about this. While we make ever effort to prevent virus in our plants, we can not guarantee against them as we order from some many vendors from across the world and just don’t have the capacity to test ever plant. With that said our policy in general is not to give refunds, but to replace the plant, however I do not have any left, so I would like to offer you a refund for this particular plant.

Jim Marlow might be a good guy. Personally, with regards to size, I feel that his plants are just average in value. Which would have been fine with general cleanliness and an enthusiastic virus policy. I think service is often invisible but we do pay for it at the end of the day. Maybe I'm just one of those problem customers that expects too much. Maybe I've been spoiled by SVO and Orchid Dynasty.

I do understand that virus is unavoidable in commercial operations. But also every time a virused plant enters the house, there's a small chance that it infects the collection, and especially the other plants it shipped with, and it may take a while for that cross-infection to show up. So this has to count against value, right? Not just the cost of the tests, but the stress that it induces. Personally, having experienced so many vendors that expect the plant to be shipped back, when a vendor takes 2 business days to respond, that's 2 more days this thing sits in my room.

Roberta,

Thanks for the tip. In fact, I followed your suggestion from the Oncidium sotoanum thread and now have a replacement for that that Andy is sending me. I should've asked him for an anosmum as well, but I guess that will have to wait.

[JScott]

Somebody is going to jump on me for saying this, but I do not see a problem with asymptomatic virused plants. Yes, we must do what we can to avoid the spread of virus. We must sterilize tools. Wear gloves while repotting and change them after every plant. Keep sucking insects under control, but many orchids will test positive for virus and never show any sign of infection.

I recently went to the doctor for a sexual health checkup. She did not test for herpes, and I asked why. She explained that about 67% of the population would test positive for herpes, however 80% of those people will never show any symptoms. She said that a positive test in a person who has never shown any symptoms can lead to depression, feelings of worthlessness or of being "dirty", so it is not considered appropriate to test for herpes unless the patient has shown symptoms.

If you're a guy, and you have HPV, you have nothing to worry about (other than transmitting it to a woman where it may cause cervical cancer, so everybody needs to be vaccinated).

The point is that the virosphere is enormous. Far larger than the biosphere. There may be trillions of undiscovered viruses. Every person on this earth carries some kind of virus, and most of them will never even know it.

Probably every single one of us has plants in our collection that have viruses, but have never shown symptoms. If you tested those asymptomatic plants and they tested positive, would you throw them away? I would not. I don't think it's that big of a deal. You should take extra care with plants you know to be virused, because you may transmit the virus to a plant that does show symptoms. But I have heard of people who test every new plant that enters their collection for viruses. That seems excessive to me.

Viruses are just part of life. Viruses are everywhere. You and I and everybody else has viruses. Plants that are sick from viral infection should be destroyed because they are sick and there is no cure, so they are probably going to die anyway, but for happy healthy plants, I don't care if they have a virus. Viruses are an unavoidable part of life, including orchid culture. The harm caused by viruses is relatively small, and I feel like it's one more thing I don't want to worry about. I have much more pressing concerns.

[katsucats]

HPV, unless it's the cancer causing kind, is a minor inconvenience, and difficult to spread. It certainly isn't going to spread if you accidentally spit on another person while talking or something, and it's innocuous to everyone. I liken ORSV and CymMV more to HIV with Covid-19 infectiousness. Imagine a virus that might be relatively unnoticeable if you keep your white blood cells high, but has the potential to flare up and cause decline at any point, is infectious to everyone where your saliva droplets happen to fly in their direction, and might cause grandma to die within weeks regardless of your lack of symptoms. Sounds pretty scary, right? Which is why I personally test every single plant and throw out the ones that test positive, no matter how healthy they currently look.

[estación seca]

Orchid Board isn't a medical discussion, but HPV frequently causes serious cancers in men and in women. The few dangerous strains are prevalent worldwide.

Probably 99% of the world orchid market is decorative flowers people expect to throw away. Virus infection doesn't matter to producers in this market unless it affects speed to market. They most definitely do pay attention to some viruses.

The vast majority of viruses don't cause problems for plants grown by hobbyists. Even known pathogens don't always cause problems in infected plants. Existing tests are not completely accurate, will miss infections, and will give false positive results. There are lots of other viruses for which we don't test. What that means is that we can't exclude viruses from our collections; we can take steps to limit their spread.

Seedlings and mericlones from careful growers who test parent stock are almost never infected. It makes sense to pay attention to which seedling and mericlone producers test for viruses, while recognizing testing of older plants grown in mixed greenhouses, or of divisions, yields results of limited value.

It would likewise impossible for vendors to ensure 100% absence of virus in their plants. They might provide money-back guarantees, but they can't prevent all virus infection.

Larger, established vendors generally advertise their testing practices. For example, Carter & Holmes occasionally sells divisions. They will say when the plant tested negative for virus.

Smaller vendors may or may not test their plants. I would expect hobbyist sellers on online marketplaces rarely test plants.

Expectations of testing of all plants for sale will drastically increase the price of already-expensive plants, leading to even fewer hobbyists growers, limiting the financial size of the market, and driving sellers out of business.

Most hobbyists have taken the approach of practicing good technique and not worrying about viruses unless a problem arises. I don't think it would be a good idea to expect every plant sold to be certified virus free. This would not only increase prices dramatically, for minimal benefit to hobbyist growers, it would lead to the loss of many good clones of plants that are known to be entirely virused.

[katsucats]

I don't understand when people mention the false negatives or positives of these tests. These tests, when used correctly, are more than 99% accurate, and a repeated test can put to rest all doubt. No one would suggest that HIV or cancer screenings are useless or not recommended because of false positives because they are accurate enough of the times, and the potential of ignoring a positive is much greater than remaining ignorant of the status.

It is unfortunate that it's the industry status quo to just accept these viruses as fact. If everybody tested, then the testing cost would greatly reduce due to economy of scale. The vendors would be careful about where they source the flasks and seedlings to eliminate the problem at the source. Not every plant needs to be tested, only a statistical sample at a 98% confidence interval. They could even pass some of this cost to the consumer by offering a virus insurance test at the point of sale.

Don't tell me this isn't possible, since Taiwan had eradicated OFV entirely in 2005 by destroying every plant that tested positive, and orchid costs haven't skyrocketed (link). Neither has the international plant trade due to phyto-sanitary certificates.

A study last year (link) showed increasing homogeneity of orchid virus genetics, demonstrating just how widespread the problem is -- enough to make the researchers worried about reintroduction into the wild population.

Since I have tested every one of my plants, I see the folly in people trying to detect viruses visually. Most of the plants that have tested positive have had subtle symptoms that could have easily been mistaken for anything else. And I doubt that any of us have such a tight operation that leaves never touch, water never spill, and there are never insect infestations. And it goes without saying for the vast majority of orchid buyers who are completely unaware of this problem! About 10% of my purchases test positive, and I only buy from "reputable" vendors, never sellers without a storefront, reputation, or the sick rack. That's 10X-100X the rate the AOS purports. It's a huge elephant in the room that no one wants to contend with. Like imagine if 10% of any other product is defective. Imagine if 10% of Windows has a virus that slows your computer down by 5%, compounded annually. Wouldn't that be a concern even if you never normally notice it?

Well, this is a decision each of us makes, but I will gladly pay an extra $10 per plant (to account for 2 tests) to make sure it's clean at introduction. By the time most people notice a problem arising, it's already too late. As far as I'm concerned, good clones are not virused, period. And with enough hybridizing, those phenotypic expressions will reemerge. The gene pool is still there. But they may not be if the original collections, species, are virused, and especially if viruses are reintroduced into the native population.

P.S. We're not talking about the so-called symptomless viruses. We're talking about the 31 or so economically important viruses that costs the crop industry hundreds of billions, and their genetic cousins, including ORSV, CymMV, tobacco mosaic virus, bean yellow mosaic virus, orchid fleck virus, Spiranthes mosaic virus, tomato spotted wilt virus, etc. These are certainly not harmless in general, even if certain strains acclimate to them.

[MJG]

I would be willing to pay a vendor $5 per plant to test each orchid in my order before they ship. Then don't send me any plant that tests positive. It's what I pay to test each orchid when it arrives at my house.

The only downside I see for the vendor is a little bit more processing time. But it would completely eliminate any disagreements about refunds and returns.

The downside for me is that it would cost me more. For me, the reduced stress level is worth $5 per plant. It might even save money with those vendors who refuse refunds or require returns after the fact.

Next time I place an order, I might inquire about this. I'm one who tests everything and has zero tolerance for a plant with CyMV or ORSV. There are other viruses, but these are the most prevalent and most devastating to orchids.

---------- Post added at 07:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:02 PM ----------

I was writing this at the same time katsucats was writing her post. I agree with her.

[estación seca]

The cost would not be $5 a test. It would be the entire cost of changing the entire supply chain. It would be very large and the money generated by sales to hobbyists would not cover it.

The growers eliminated OSV because it directly affected the flowering plant trade.

Many virus diseases are still troublesome in food crops and they have not been eliminated because the measure available would cost too much.

Yes, false positives occur with all tests. We've never even eliminated one virus from the Earth. They co-evolved with living things. We came close with smallpox, but there are still samples in freezers nations will not destroy.

Expecting virus-free hobbyist orchids is not reasonable on a large scale.

[katsucats]

Marlow's refunded me the cost of the plant after a week.

Andy's did have the Oncidium sotoanum that I was after, haven't tested it yet but it doesn't look crazy like the other one I got from Main Street. I did make a few additional queries, so it turns out Andy doesn't have everything, but they do have a lot of unlisted species.

Thanks to Roberta for pointing that out.

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by katsucats

Andy's did have the Oncidium sotoanum that I was after, haven't tested it yet but it doesn't look crazy like the other one I got from Main Street. I did make a few additional queries, so it turns out Andy doesn't have everything, but they do have a lot of unlisted species.

Thanks to Roberta for pointing that out.

When Andy has his open house (Sept 18-20) consider a visit since you're in southern California. Lots of potential for damage to one's bank account but an amazing place.