The Saga is Complete

As you may remember, I started raising some orchids from seed. I did this because the parent plant had a virus, and while viruses are incurable in orchids, the theory goes that orchids created from the seeds of said orchid will be virus-free. At least if you allow the seed pods to completely dry, rather than using so-called "green pod" seeds.

Anyway, the orchids I've been raising from seed have matured. It is now time to test them to see if they are virus free. And the answer is... YES!

Agdia makes an easy-to-use home virus test kit. You typically take about 150 mg of plant tissue, place it in a special bag containing a buffer solution, crush the tissue, and insert a test stick. Then, after 30 minutes, you examine the test stick, and read the results. Here is a photo of one of the test strips:

The bag contains the crushed tissue and fluid. The bags have an abrasive plastic mesh, which is what you use to crush the tissue. The test strip is inserted around 1/4" into the fluid. Notice that there is one red line visible on the strip. That is the control line, and it must be present for the test to be valid. There are no other red lines visible on the strip, so this plant is clean - no virus detected.

Sadly, another plant of mine, a "Sharry Baby" Oncidium, did test positive. Here is what that looks like:

Notice that in this case, there are two red lines visible. The line closest to the bottom indicates that this plant is infected with the Cymbidium Mosaic virus (CymMV). I don't feel like going on another five year mission to create clean babies from this plant, so I'll simply have to destroy it, buy a new one, and hope that it is virus-free.

But the bottom line is that the process of raising orchids from mature seed pods to eliminate viruses definitely does work. At least it did for me. Quite an adventure!