The Orchid Health Blueprint: An Introduction

You look at your orchid collection with longing and pride, knowing that the beauty before you can only be attributed to your tender loving care. You have spent hundreds maybe even thousands of dollars on this collection. You trim, water, feed and repot, but do you test?

Welcome to the Orchid Health Blueprint. This article is the first in a series that will help you protect your orchid collection from viruses that threaten the beauty and value of your orchids.

Mention the word virus and the smell of fear overpowers the fragrance of a beautiful orchid collection. And viruses should be feared. Many of well-known, valuable orchid collections have been infiltrated by a virus or two. Once they have made their way into a collection, the value and vigor can and will decrease equaling loss in investment, money and time.

Viral pathogens are sneaky, living in a collection for a very long time, years even, without you knowing they are there. All the while weakening the orchid and making it susceptible to secondary bacterial or fungal infections. Viral pathogens are deceptive, disguising themselves as some other, non-viral disease such as bacterial or fungal pathogens, but they can also look like physiological disorders from light intensity, fertilizer burn or water imbalance. Viral pathogens are ugly, causing all kinds of different, not so aesthetically pleasing foliar symptoms and color break in the blooms. Working together with fellow society members and taking advantage of all of today’s technologies, controlling virus in your collection isn’t as daunting as you think. The first step is knowledge.

I think this is a good place to stop for just a minute and clear the air regarding virus infection in your collection. Again, viral pathogens are sneaky. They come in, make a nice home in the plant cell, hang out and take over the host’s metabolism, in this case, the slowly growing orchid groups. In other hosts where reduction in plant growth and flower production is easily spotted during a growing season, growers can implement virus eradication or certification programs. In the slower growing orchid groups, where success is measured not by the quantity of the blooms but by the quality of the blooms, viral infections are not easily measured.

Each orchid clone is unique and reacts differently to viral infections. Some look normal and some exhibit distortion and necrosis. It’s the normal looking clones or “carriers” that cause the real problem and are the reason that testing is very important.

Stay tuned for the next Orchid Health Blueprint installment: a deep-dive into the most common orchid viruses.

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We’d love to talk with you about how we help you grow a healthy and profitable orchid collection by empowering you to find and remove plants impacted by pathogens before they spread and cause irreversible damage.