Hi -- that helps explain a problem I had this spring, with plants bought at midwest orchid shows -- more than one -- from growers that I trust. I had Phals and Intergenerics both have what looked like bacterial infections shortly after bringing them home. Fortunately, they didn't get into the area where most of my plants are, so they are the only ones that died. This was still an investment of quite a few dollars, and I thought they were nice plants. I've never had a die-off like this before; I try to keep a clean growing area.
While none of these were from Orchids, Ltd., they were from some very familiar names in the area, and I was surprised that the plants did so poorly. I've never had plants still flowering, with flacid leaves, with soggy leisions. It was nasty. The question is -- how do you tell which plants are carrying the bacteria? And do the growers that I am buying from have a mechanism to get their money back from their sources? Everybody looses except the Taiwanese! li'l frog -----Original Message----- >From: Orchids Limited <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Aug 4, 2008 7:05 PM >To: orchids@orchidguide.com >Subject: [OGD] Re nurseries and mass produced imports > >Ok, > >I will never buy another plant grown in Taiwan and shiiped over to >the US again. > >We just had a terrible time with our Phal. house. We had to throw out >over $40,000.00 worth of plants. It all started when I went to the >World Orchid Congress and bought some Phal. species from one of the >Taiwanese vendors. The plants looked a little strange but I >attributed it to the fact that it was January and plants might not >travel that well during winter. I brought the plants home and after a >couple of days I lost one or two. then another few days and I lost >another and so on. The leaves just dropped off and had a watery look >to them. I was quite busy at that time and within a couple of weeks >suddenly it was showing up everywhere in an area around those Phals >from Taiwan. We tried spraying with Physan but Physan is only good >for surface contact. It did work at slowing down the problem but not >controlling it entirely. We then tried Phyton 27 which seemed to help >and did arrest the problem in some plants. > >We were still having outbreaks of this disease so I sent some samples >off to the University of Minnesota and they did a lot of research on >these plants for me. It was pseudomonas! Not just the common variety >either. They said that they hadn't seen such a fast growing bacteria >that could be seen swimming rather quickly from cell to cell. The U >also said that they hadn't seen such a large number of bacteria >particles invading each cell. They suggested I throw the plants and >bleach the benches. We did some treatments and I was getting a bit >frantic about losing my collection. As it is we lost a lot of product >and my breeding program for species and hybrids in Phalaenopsis and a >few other genera was really set back. > >Finally I read about a new product that goes into the plant and kills >bacteria, fungi AND VIRUS!! I am now testing the product and it is >working. We have seen streaked virus leaves in old breeding plants >begin to loose their streaking and the new leaves are absolutely >clean! Once I have completed my testing with some scientific evidence >I will announce our results. I am always a sceptic about virus claims >but this would be terrific news. > >So, do some of you commercial folks out there remember when the USDA >sent us surveys about how what we thought about Taiwanese growers >bringing in plants in pot with potting medium? Most of the US growers >were against it. The Hawaiian growers tried to sue the USDA but did >it in Washington rather than in Hawaii so they lost the suit. We all >knew this was a trade deal and the Taiwanese pushed it through. The >USDA just thought our arguments silly and that there was no problem >with bringing in plants in containers in pot. It is well known that >Taiwanese growers use a lot of antibiotics to control bacteria but >all this does is create super strains that are hard to control. I see >customers quite often bring in infected plants that have the same >thing and sure enough they are planted in moss and they are directly >from Taiwan. Moss isn't a bad media but when the plants come potted >that way who knows what lurks down in the root system? > _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) orchids@orchidguide.com http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
