I just read you post and the replies that have come in up to now. I'll
offer my opinion of what you should do because I know what I would do if
I was in your situation. (Actually, I am in you situation but on a
smaller scale.)
If you don't mind too much spending the $100 or so, then go on and test
the the plants you wonder about the most. After those results come in,
you can decide if you are done or not. What if you tested 20 plants but
only 3 or 4 of those most suspicious plants turned out to be virused? I
would toss the bad ones and relax. Few of the untested plants are likely
to be virused.
On the other hand, if 12 or 15 of those worst looking ones have a virus,
I would continue testing another batch to see how they turn out. Keep
track of those already tested. If I could find green tags, that would be
a good color tag to use in the ones that tested clear of virus. Maybe
the red tags for any virused plants that you don't dump right away for
whatever reason.
That's what I think you should do and I should quit putting it off and
do the same thing. I hate the thought of finding out that I should throw
away some of my favorite plants that I have been growing for decades, in
some cases. Ignorance is bliss, I guess, but knowledge is power.

Steve








K Barrett wrote:
Sorry, but I just gotta talk. I probably won't even post this, sometimes in
writing a solution becomes clear or I get my thoughts in order (yeah, right,
remember my thoughts resemble Wendy's tags, except she has a better chance
of straightening hers out.)

You know how you get mentors in this hobby. People whose opinion you really
value becasue they are right more often than not in your experience? Or
they've been growing orchids for a million years?

Well I'm stuck between two of them with opposing opinions.

Mentor #1 says a plant I have has virus, Mentor #2 says no way.

My brain says the only way to be sure is to have the plant tested. My brain
also says if the vague streaking in the leaves that Mentor #1 says is virus
really *is* virus then I'd better have every plant with that streaking
tested. Only one way to be sure.

My brain also says there are so many oddball spots and streaks in the leaves
of all my orchids (which I have been pertaining to poor culture, thrips,
cytotoxic effects from Orthene, and just plain old fungus/batcterial
spotting) that if I check one, I may as well check them all....

Ack! We'd be talking about thousands of dollars. The Cattleyas alone would
cost me $800. The whole collection about $2500. If not more.

So of course the other side of my brain is now second guessing the scientist
in me. Maybe I'll only test the ones that bloomed weird last time. Yeah,
that's the ticket. And the one's that get weird spots no matter what.
That'd be about $100, maybe $125. That's do-able.

But the other brain is screaming at me! No! Thats' just spot checking!
You'd never really be *sure*. You'll never rest until you KNOW!

So I don't know what to do.

I'll probably just check the 20-30 plants that are weirder than the others
and see if I can decide from there.

Maybe keep really good records of what the symptoms are so I may be able to
go back and diagnose from that. Spots OK, streaks bad. Like that.

[sigh]

I hate this.

K Barrett
(now you know why I usually comment on how clean other people's leaves are,
*G*.)(Now you also know why I usually tell people not to fertilize a dry
pot, not to use insecticide on a dry pot, and not to overhead water or mist
plicate leaves.)