Virus in Cattleya
 

I bought this last year from Seattle Orchid and this is the first time I've actually seen the flowers. It had just got done blooming before I bought it. I'm concerned about these color breaks and assume it's a virus. Thankfully, I've always watered this plant individually (as I do all my plants) and never use shears without disinfecting them before using them on another plant. Still, this makes me more than a little PO'd.

Cattleya Crystelle Smith N. Randactyle (N.R.)

https://i.ibb.co/dkMc02b/IMG-1343.jpg
<p>
https://i.ibb.co/1zmGtjS/IMG-1344.jpg

VS - these flowers are toward the end of blooming right? You could wait to see what the next flowers look like - next time. Just keep it a bit away from the other orchids. Those leaves look a bit on the dark side, as if the sun intensity wasn't too high when it was grown (at Seattle Orchid) ----- unless it's just the photograph taken in low light conditions.

Seattle Orchids is a horrible nursery who sends virused and near dead plants and then refuses to make any attempt to make it right.

That being said, we should not just jump to the conclusion that a plant is virused because it came from Seattle Orchids. I don't see any definite signs of a virus, but the best way to know is to test it. Get a test, and if it tests positive, contact Seattle Orchids and ask them to remedy the problem. You won't get very far, but you will irritate them, so it might be worth it.

Yes, I'm going to buy a test kit to be sure. I don't want to accuse without knowing for certain.

---------- Post added at 07:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:00 PM ----------

The bloom on the left opened last week and the one on the right just opened completely a couple of days ago, so they're not old.

I grow this under high light and the leaves are tinged with red pigment which doesn't show very well in the photos. The lighting was bad where I took it.

I'll keep this separated and purchase a test kit to see what the results are.

I hope that someday they will just get sick of all the complaints and decide to change their business practices to improve their operation. While I think that is unlikely, we can also hope that maybe word will get out that they are awful, and they will go ahead and just pack it up and move on to some other business venture. We can only dream.

Having a stash of test kits is useful at any rate... I would put those up there with one's assortment of pesticides in the "first aid kit". Appearance can be very deceptive - both positive and negative. With that color break, thought, I'd be mighty suspicious... and make me want to test for sure. (I had a Catt that I had purchased in bloom though the flower was on the old side, it looked great. When the plant rebloomed, the fresh flower had a suspicious color break... tested it, and yup, it was positive. As that new flower aged, the color break became much less visible, which is why I missed it in the first place. )

Where do you get your test kits?

Agdia is the only source where they're easily available that I know of. Recently, a member of one of my societies has been putting together a group order for strips from Rega Biotechnology in Taiwan. The Rega strips have some advantages over the Agdia tests (longer shelf life, need a much smaller sample, and cheaper) but I don't know if they do "retail" small orders - the society order is something like 1200 test kits, so we get a price break and it's worthwhile for them to ship that far.

Yes, I see on their website that they are rather expensive. I could afford it, but I don't know if I want to haha

They do have price breaks for larger quantities. The advantage of course, is "instant gratification" - you can do these on the fly. However, I think Critter Creek's per-test price is about the same, maybe a bit less, but you have the delay of mailing them the samples and waiting for them to actually do the testing. So 5-10 minutes vs a week, you choose what works for you.