Pleione zeus weinstein suspected virus

[no longer a member]

hi i purchased this zeus of ebay months ago and i was a little worried that the picture of the plant had streaking on the flowers, the newly emerging flower bud has purple blotches and i fear this is a sign of virus.

a gerry mundey from the same seller also had these bltoches but now the flower is emerging i cant see them now.

any help to tell what this could be would be appreciated, i also have a question regarding my maculata on another post here that i need answerd please

thank you

[KBruyninckx]

Hello,

The only sure way to acertain if a plant is virused or not is to have it tested... and maybe even to have these tests run in 2 different laboratories to rule out human error.

Have a look at what Paul wrote on February 28th in the discussion http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=1186.msg34756#msg34756:

The question about viruses and pleiones has a rather confusing answer! Ian Butterfield had an oppertunity a few years ago to get some plants tested. They tested a wide variety of samples - some plants which looked perfectly normal, some where the leaves had streaks that looked possibly due to virus and some where the flowers had the same "colour breaks" that are showing in Luc's second picture. The results did not come back as expected. Some plants that looked perfectly healthy were found to have virus, some of those that looked infected were in fact clear of any virus and a few others that looked ill did indeed have some virus. (I'm afraid I can't remeber now exactly which viruses they detected). So the visual symptoms did not reliably tie in with the presence or absence of viruses.

[Danshi]

Hi,

you could plant the suspicious plants together with a low priced Pleione to see if it's contagious. Transfering some plant sap by pricking the leaves with a needle could make the result clearer.

Regards, Daniel

[KBruyninckx]

Transfering some plant sap by pricking the leaves with a needle could make the result clearer.

Not necessarily!
That testplant may look healthy for years and years until it submitted to stress (bad treatment, weather related: too warm etc) and only then could (when infected) the virus manifest itself for the first time.

A test (a proper Elisa type test) is the only way to prove if your plant has virus or not. Unless the virus infection is very clear a photograph does not give a conclusive answer.
Like I said, I would even recommend to have the samples tested twice, in 2 seperate laboratories to eliminate to some extent false positives.

Of course this IS expensive and that it the reason why no plant grower can and will test every single plant in their greenhouse...

Take our example:

- roughly 10.000 orchids in the sales area
- roughly 8.000 orchids in the private collection
and then the growing area of which I have no idea of how many young plants and divisions we have in there...

If for the sake of the argument we take 36.000 orchids in total then at 4 US$ per test we get 144.000 US$
And then to be really safe we would need to repeat these tests every couple of years!

[Danshi]

It's true that the test plant method isn't very reliable, but the laboratories (or testing kits for home use) only test for the most common orchid viruses, so you can't completely rely on it, either.
Test plants like Chenopodium should give you results quicker than other Pleiones, but I don't know for sure if they are affected by orchid viruses.

[Diane Clement]

hi i purchased this zeus of ebay months ago and i was a little worried that the picture of the plant had streaking on the flowers, the newly emerging flower bud has purple blotches and i fear this is a sign of virus.

Hi Rob, could you post a picture of the Zeuss Weinstein with an open flower please? 

[johanneshoeller]

A question:
Is a virus which is typical for Pleiones or Iris or other plants problematic for all plants or only for Pleiones or Iris,...?
Can other plants infected, too?

[Paul Cumbleton]

My own Zeus weinstein are now flowering and showing the same colour breaking on the petals. After all the discussions we have had on this I guess the safest thing to do is throw away suspect plants. I apologise if any of the bulbs people bought from me have turned out like this. If any of you have such and are unhappy, please contact me privately and i will refund you - the last thing I want is to be sending out suspect plants or making unhappy customers

Paul

[Slug Killer]

Hi Paul, I've got this on my Zeus weinstein but don't think its anything nasty just happens now and again. I've got more of a problem this year with my Pleione forrestii aborting at the last minute. Rather than carry a new thread on here I'll start another. 

[Slug Killer]

Sorry all I see the forrestii problems has been started. I'll post there.

[Danshi]

Looks like it only affects the magenta colour and not the underlying yellow. Unfortunately, the fact that the Gerry Mundey has the same symptoms speaks more for a virus.

[Maggi Young]

It's a pity it would be quite a long wait to see what the leaves look like.... perhaps a case for quarantine if doubts remain ?

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi folks,
Having examined plants carefully I have another theory about these streaks. I think they may be caused by Brevipalpus mites! Plants of mine showing the symptoms all had Brevipalpus, and the worst affected had the most mites. If this is the case, there still remains the question - are the Brevipalpus spreading a virus or are the streaks a direct response to Brevipalpus feeding? If the latter, controlling the mites should cause the symptoms to disappear next year. We will see.

This also teaches me a lesson about complacency!! I used to treat the collection against Brevipalpus on a regular basis. But as I had not been able to find any mites for a couple of years, I didn't bother treating last year. No treatment kills 100% and it is obvious that the survivors were able to quickly build up again. I did treat the collection again this year - including all bulbs I sent out for sale, so these should be OK, but this experience suggests that further treatments through the season would be an advisable precaution. I have placed on my website an article about brevipalpus and how to treat it, reprinted from an old Pleione Review magazine. Just go to the home page and select "Brevipalpus" from the menu on the left.

It will be interesting to see if treated bulbs lose the symptoms next year.

Paul