# Virus?



## Yoyo_Jo (May 8, 2012)

This catt has some pretty suspicious looking dark circles; I'm concerned it's a virus? I know I need to test it for sure, just wondered what you think...


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (May 8, 2012)

And this Psychopsis has some rings that look bad too... :sob:


----------



## Paphman910 (May 8, 2012)

keep it isolated! I would personally throw it out and get new plants!

Paphman910


----------



## Stone (May 8, 2012)

Burn them!!


----------



## cattmad (May 8, 2012)

I have to agree, save money on the virus test and dispose of ASAP


----------



## Lanmark (May 8, 2012)

Eeek!


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (May 8, 2012)

There are a few others with similar symptoms. But what do I do with the other +/- 150 plants that don't show any symptoms??? Throw them out too?


----------



## Paphman910 (May 9, 2012)

Yoyo_Jo said:


> There are a few others with similar symptoms. But what do I do with the other +/- 150 plants that don't show any symptoms??? Throw them out too?




Just leave it! 

Paphman910


----------



## Gcroz (May 9, 2012)

Yep, I'd get rid of those. As for your other plants, keep a careful eye on them and if the same symptoms pop up, throw them away too!


----------



## Paphman910 (May 9, 2012)

Gcroz said:


> Yep, I'd get rid of those. As for your other plants, keep a careful eye on them and if the same symptoms pop up, throw them away too!



I agree!

Paphman910


----------



## Hera (May 9, 2012)

Wasn't there a thread a while ago about virus spreading through mites? Maybe you should consider a miticide to be proactive about spread.


----------



## Lanmark (May 9, 2012)

Hera said:


> Wasn't there a thread a while ago about virus spreading through mites? Maybe you should consider a miticide to be proactive about spread.


Good advice!


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (May 9, 2012)

I don't/can't use pesticides, miticides, whatever; my orchids are in a spare bedroom in my house. And actually, a more likely vector is thrips. They have been plaguing mainly my phrags, but they do get around and they are known to spread stuff as well.

I'm thinking I need to destroy five or six plants at this point. Dang. :sob:

Thanks for all the input; much appreciated.


----------



## Shiva (May 9, 2012)

Yoyo_Jo said:


> I'm thinking I need to destroy five or six plants at this point. Dang. :sob:



Maybe you could send a couple of them to NYEric to place on his stove. :evil:


----------



## Justin (May 9, 2012)

looks like textbook virus to me. i would incinerate that plant and dispose of its pot etc.

see critter creek liaboratory for pricing on virus testing for the rest of your collection--they can probably advise on how many plants you should test.


----------



## Rick (May 9, 2012)

Some of what I've been hearing lately is that virus is everywhere in Catts and alot of Phals.

Many plants show no external symptoms whatsoever. Just like warts, herpes and cancor sores on humans, we don't incinerate humans for such ubiquitous viral infections. So if the plant is important, doesn't produce crippled flowers, or you plan on keeping it to yourself, you shouldn't feel compelled to discard the plant.

There is a huge sink of virus in the comercial orchid world, and the big breeders aren't going to eliminate there collections, so burning your plants isn't going to rid the planet of the problem (just makes more space for you to buy new plants).


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (May 9, 2012)

Thanks Rick. Yes, I was thinking along your lines actually - the Psychopsis that I posted photos of has a brand new growth with no signs of the black necrotic rings and there's absolutely no sign of virus in the flowers themselves. The affected leaves look yucky though. I hate to pitch it as it's been faithfully blooming non-stop for me since I bought it in 2008. 

I may still pitch the cattleya though. It's covered with black rings and I don't really have any special attachment to it.


----------



## Stone (May 9, 2012)

Rick said:


> Some of what I've been hearing lately is that virus is everywhere in Catts and alot of Phals.
> 
> Many plants show no external symptoms whatsoever. Just like warts, herpes and cancor sores on humans, we don't incinerate humans for such ubiquitous viral infections. So if the plant is important, doesn't produce crippled flowers, or you plan on keeping it to yourself, you shouldn't feel compelled to discard the plant.
> 
> There is a huge sink of virus in the comercial orchid world, and the big breeders aren't going to eliminate there collections, so burning your plants isn't going to rid the planet of the problem (just makes more space for you to buy new plants).



Disagree. Unless it is an exeptional clone most things are replacable. A while back I put many orchids in a glasshouse together with some suspected virused plants and within 2 years many previosly clean plants had become severly infected. I believe mealy bugs and scale were the vectors. If you don't destroy virus plants, you can bet that sooner or later it will find the others. I've seen it happen many times. Now if any plant (especially catts) show two years of those symptoms, they get thrown in the fire. I always flame sterilze between cuts, use new pots and wash hands before touching plants. My collection is pretty clean now.


----------



## Leo Schordje (May 9, 2012)

One can not be 100% certain from just the appearance whether the damage is caused by virus or by a severe thrip and or mite infection. Testing is the only way to know for certain. If you can eliminate the pests, perhaps, if you are lucky, you will find no new necrotic brown spots and patterns. (though indeed it looks like virus to me too) 

If you can not spray your plants in the house, maybe there is a way to clean them up by taking them outdoors to spray them. While the plants are outside, all the trays and shelves in the plant room need to be cleaned to eliminate the pests hiding there. Then when you bring in the freshly sprayed plants, the room won't have a resident population of pests to re-infect the collection. 

If you can not get the thrips and or mites under control, you will never be able to keep a 'clean' orchid collection. They will spread virus, and secondary bacterial and fungal infections around to all your plants. No matter what spray you use, you will have to follow up and repeat spray at the interval the manufacturer recommends and continue the follow up spraying schedule for at least 2 or 3 intervals after you last see any living thrips, or signs of new damage. It will be work to clean up your collection. It won't suffice to spray just the 'bad' plants, the critters will hide out on the ones you don't spray and re-infect the newly cleaned up plants shortly after they are brought back in the house. 

Hope this helps.


----------



## Paph_LdyMacBeth (May 9, 2012)

Hissssss
Keep that Psychopsis on your side of Canada please! 

On a serious note, sorry about your plants.


----------



## Candace (May 10, 2012)

Jo, I had a few suspect plants similar to yours pictured that I was "sure" were virused. Sent off samples to Critter Creek and they were clean. If they are worth the $5 each test, then yes send a sample. If not worth a $5 test, chuck them.


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (May 10, 2012)

Paph_LdyMacBeth said:


> Hissssss
> Keep that Psychopsis on your side of Canada please!



:rollhappy:

I'm working around to talking myself into tossing the Psychopsis out with the cattleya. And numerous others. The whole thing is a bit depressing.


----------



## Roth (May 10, 2012)

It is absolutely NOT a virus for sure.

I am certain some are cercospora ( the first few photos), and the last is either phillosticta or a kind of guignardia, maybe colletotrichium, but all are absolutely fungal diseases.

Try to get triadimefon ( was sold before under the name Bayleton), tank mix with azoxystrobin ( heritage, ortiva are two tradenames). You should expect some of the leaves to become yellow and fall if they were too affected, but you can cure all those plants easily this way.

As it is a fungal disease, you must treat, because this kind of leaf fungus spread very easily...

As for the viruses in cattleya and phalaenopsis, there are even new types of virus that surfaced recently in the pot plant industry, very damaging ones ( Fleck Virus is not one of them, as it usually makes so much damage to the plants that they die pretty quickly, and the infection diffusion stops by itself that way, I have not heard any Fleck Virused plant for years now...). It is the fact of only two or three meganurseries in Asia, and indeed they can prove to kill other plants, such as species orchids, where they will be asymptomatic in pot plant hybrids, that's indeed the problem.


----------



## eggshells (May 10, 2012)

Systemic fungicide is banned in Canada hence we cannot get them freely here.


----------



## Roth (May 10, 2012)

eggshells said:


> Systemic fungicide is banned in Canada hence we cannot get them freely here.



Without a systemic, it is indeed a very serious problem, only systemic fungicides can get rid of most fungal disease...


----------



## eggshells (May 10, 2012)

Roth said:


> Without a systemic, it is indeed a very serious problem, only systemic fungicides can get rid of most fungal disease...



Agreed, powdered form and cinammon isn't just good enough. They are okay to seal cuts but for an infected plant like this. Not so much. 

Sorry Jo.


----------



## NYEric (May 10, 2012)

There are safe sprays to get rid of thrips, and violet oil mixed with soap, alcohol will work on mealies. Mites?? IDK!  Good luck. For sealing cuts Captan powder. (Is that still legal?)


----------



## Roth (May 10, 2012)

NYEric said:


> There are safe sprays to get rid of thrips, and violet oil mixed with soap, alcohol will work on mealies. Mites?? IDK!  Good luck. For sealing cuts Captan powder. (Is that still legal?)



There is no safe spray to really get rid of thrips in a timely manner, to avoid virus spread. Only strong systemic insecticides can kill all stages of thrips. Many species have a life as larvae in the potting mix, and another bunch of species like thrips palmii, in the crown of the plant, very deep, and at the junction of the roots and the plant base. You can kill the successive generations with several applications, but that's it...


----------



## NYEric (May 10, 2012)

Good point. I find the best way to kill thrips is to smash them with my 2 hands while they're flying!


----------



## Paphman910 (May 10, 2012)

eggshells said:


> Systemic fungicide is banned in Canada hence we cannot get them freely here.



It is unfortunate we can't get a good systemic fungicide and pesticide! Really sucks because hobbyist are not the major polluters .... its the commercial farmers! 

Paphman910


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (May 10, 2012)

I only see thrips pretty much in my phrags, and only one or two in a few plants. I don't think any of my plants have mites and I see very few plants with mealy bugs; and even the ones that do only have one or two visible. Thrips don't take too well to being jabbed with an alcohol dipped toothpick. oke:


----------



## Erythrone (May 10, 2012)

Paphman910 said:


> It is unfortunate we can't get a good systemic fungicide and pesticide! Really sucks because hobbyist are not the major polluters .... its the commercial farmers!
> 
> Paphman910




But when peope use "strong" pesticides in their home or on their garden, on their lawn they are directly in contact with dangerous products... and I knew many people that don't use them safely.


----------



## cnycharles (May 10, 2012)

It is true nowadays that a person can get stronger pesticides in lowes and home depot than the commercial nurseries can.... and the packages have fewer warnings for the home user. I think the justification the state uses is that there are fewer volume users that buy things at lowes and home depot, so they aren't worried as much by a home user getting exposed once or twice, but repeated exposures by commercial sprayers. Seems odd to me, as one systemic I bought in a tiny bottle at agway a few years ago I looked up the toxicity on a msds chart to see how much it would take to kill me (or my dog at the time), and on a chart of about 40 pesticides this bottle available for home users was number two on the chart 

Roth mentions Heritage; it's pretty safe and actually only has a msds of four hours, which means in a home environment or sprayed out on your lawn you shouldn't touch until it's dry. also for thrip or fungus gnats, a few of the yellow and or blue sticky cards around your plants for a few months will get rid of a lot. a few shots of rubbing alcohol occasionally into leaf crevices will also help with that. once I moved to my new apartment and I had fungus gnats, I got a bunch of yellow sticky cards from work and put them all around the boxes of my plants, and the population has dropped drastically. the mealybugs were also many of a certain variety where the males fly around, and I was told that blue sticky cards will catch them, so those populations will diminish because no fertilization. don't think it works for standard long-tailed mealybugs though but that population has dropped as well using the sticky cards. 

the thrip in this area are orange with a black dot or two on them.. are these the ones that you are seeing? they are tiny (western flower thrip)

The sucrashield ray has (or had until it runs out) will work for all stages of thrips. A new product called ovation or overture works for western flower thrip, but as I think it is somewhat systemic they probably won't allow it in canada.


----------



## KyushuCalanthe (May 10, 2012)

Hey Joanne, sorry to hear of your troubled plants. Personally, I'd get rid of the really badly effected plants immediately. I used to keep plants that had problems to try to nurse them back to health, but it just isn't worth it, especially if your entire collection is in jeopardy.

In Japan there are all sorts of virus problems. In Calanthe collections in particular, virus is the big fear. Before micropropagation of these (starting 3 decades ago), plants were collected from the wild directly. Many had virus and over time this spread from collection to collection such that by the mid to late 70's it seemed the entire hobby of growing them was going to disappear as whole collections became infested. As stated, the only way to handle a virused plant is to burn it (and the compost), throw away the pot, etc. 

Today Calanthe are produced in the thousands yearly, so there is always new blood. Still, growers have to be ever vigilant for virus signs - any questions about a plant means its immediate destruction - a pretty common thing in a large collection.

I wish you the best with your plants. A bummer. Agreed about strong chemicals in a house too - no thanks!


----------



## Roth (May 10, 2012)

For Joanne plants, she needs to get a systemic fungicide, or eventually use something like captan or mancozeb sprays for some months to avoid new contamination, and destroy any infected plants... Those leaf spot fungus are really contagious indeed. Though the systemic fungicide would solve the problem within days.



KyushuCalanthe said:


> In Japan there are all sorts of virus problems. In Calanthe collections in particular, virus is the big fear. Before micropropagation of these (starting 3 decades ago), plants were collected from the wild directly. Many had virus and over time this spread from collection to collection such that by the mid to late 70's it seemed the entire hobby of growing them was going to disappear as whole collections became infested.
> Today Calanthe are produced in the thousands yearly, so there is always new blood. Still, growers have to be ever vigilant for virus signs - any questions about a plant means its immediate destruction - a pretty common thing in a large collection.



The problem is very different in fact... The Japanese put high prize on many plants, then they divide them to sell divisions at very high price, like the cymbidium, neofinetia before, calanthe. They use the 'all traditional' crap bullshit way, with the scissors made of a 'traditional metal' specifically for the bonsai, and they believed ( still do...) in magic, the metal of the scissors will avoid any diseases, etc... so they never disinfect those scissors ( that are made in metals that cannot be heated without tampering it)...

They contaminated heaps of plants that way, and indeed when testing some cymbidium goeringii, we find viruses. By making propagation and new generations, they avoid seeing the symptoms for a while, until they use their magic scissors..., or for tissue culture until the viral load is high enough (about the time the seedlings are mature). Same in Korea so far.

Calanthe and lycaste are infamous too for catching a wide range of viruses that do not damage our tropical orchids, these are real virus magnets. They can catch even common garden viruses. The Japanese got a lot of problems too with ORSV and calanthe, mostly because two large nurseries who made the first calanthe hybrids ( like Kozu, etc...) used to grow odontoglossum for cut flower... and calanthe is very sensitive to ORSV.

What most Japanese believe too to be a virus in the 60's in calanthe, and wiped out most of their plants was not a virus but a mycoplasm. 

As a basis, the wild calanthe nearly never have any virus, but they became all contaminated because of poor culture practice, and poor insect control...


----------



## KyushuCalanthe (May 10, 2012)

I stand corrected on all counts.


----------



## SlipperFan (May 10, 2012)

oke:


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (May 10, 2012)

Hey! oke: Don't even go there. This is a nice thread. 

And thanks again everyone for chiming in; this is a great discussion, imho.


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (Oct 24, 2012)

*Update!*

I finally got around to using the Agdia ImmunoStrips to test some of my orchids for virus. I tested four orchids and they all showed negative for Cymbidum Mosaic Virus and Odontoglossum Ringspot Virus. I chucked all four plants anyways as the plants looked like crap, and I tossed another six or so that looked suspect at the same time.

Epc. Siam Jade


----------



## Yoyo_Jo (Oct 24, 2012)

Blc. Cosmo-Zelle








Cattleya maxima


----------



## The Mutant (Oct 24, 2012)

It's good to know it wasn't virus then, bad that it's probably that fungi *Roth* mentioned since you can't use what's needed to get it under control.


----------



## Shiva (Oct 24, 2012)

Have you tried sulfur? I know it's not systemic, but if you treat every occurence of the disease, you may eventually stop the contamination. I often uses it on my phrags and paphs when there is a sign of fungus infection, and so far, it has worked. I use it in dry powder.


----------



## SlipperFan (Oct 24, 2012)

Shiva said:


> Have you tried sulfur? I know it's not systemic, but if you treat every occurence of the disease, you may eventually stop the contamination. I often uses it on my phrags and paphs when there is a sign of fungus infection, and so far, it has worked. I use it in dry powder.



Does sulfur have any toxicity on the plants themselves? Copper is supposed to be good for controlling fungii, also, but I think too much is toxic.


----------



## Shiva (Oct 25, 2012)

SlipperFan said:


> Does sulfur have any toxicity on the plants themselves? Copper is supposed to be good for controlling fungii, also, but I think too much is toxic.



I've been using it for years. Never had any problem so far. I spread a little bit of the dry powder on the affected areas with a finger. I also use it in bacterial infection to prevent any fungus from taking hold on the sick plant. I use a 3% hydrogen peroxyde solution to kill the bacteria itself. It works most of the time when the plant has enough unaffected foliage to be saved..


----------



## Ozpaph (Oct 25, 2012)

The Mutant said:


> It's good to know it wasn't virus then, bad that it's probably that fungi *Roth* mentioned since you can't use what's needed to get it under control.



You mean it wasn't CMV or ORV. It could be some other virus but the patterning does look a bit more fungal to me.


----------



## SlipperFan (Oct 25, 2012)

Shiva said:


> I've been using it for years. Never had any problem so far. I spread a little bit of the dry powder on the affected areas with a finger. I also use it in bacterial infection to prevent any fungus from taking hold on the sick plant. I use a 3% hydrogen peroxyde solution to kill the bacteria itself. It works most of the time when the plant has enough unaffected foliage to be saved..



Thanks, Michel!


----------

