As a matter of fact I can find green tags. so I'll put red tags in the
suspects, green tags in the clean ones... Kind of like Clue! Col. Mustard
in the greenhouse with secateurs...

I bought a bunch of freezer bags to send 20-30 samples to Critter Creek
Labs. I'm keeping them isolated from teh rest on the bench until I get a
report from CC Lab

Thanks Steve!

K

"Steve" wrote in message
...

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.)