What is wrong with me?!

[limuhead]

What Phrags have you got in production and what have you planned for them?

I am potting up a few flasks that I compotted a few months ago(5 or 6), 3 different crosses I think) later today. I will post later what they are. I would like to bloom out the phrags and use them for breeding stock, sell what I don't breed with. Some of which I will sell before they bloom, in low spike maybe. I have access to a lab and space at my house to eventually build my own small lab and flask production area. This is part of my retirement supplement plan. I don't trust the government with my social security any more that I trust some crooked investor with what little I have in my retirement. At least if I kill my plants I am to blame; not some paper-pushing criminal...

 

[NYEric]

Good luck with the venture and remember your fellow addicts!

 

[Pete]

easy fred... Easssssyyyyy

 

[Trithor]

Yay, another fellow carpenter going to splash loot on a lab! I thought I was the only unwell puppy. Perhaps it is sawdust that distorts thought processes?
When I do the math, it is still cheaper to buy flasks from Taiwan than it is to produce them myself in my own lab. (perhaps I should buy flasks, pack the shelves and pretend they are mine?) It looks more like a labour of love than a financial viable venture. The watershed at which it starts to generate a positive return, is quite high up the volume scale.

 

[Clark]

Thank the maker I wore a dust mask back in the day.

 

[limuhead]

True, cheaper to buy flasks from Taiwan, but my flasks won't be virused like 70% of those coming out of SE Asia. That and I am making my own crosses with plants I have been collecting for about 20+ years. Can't get those in Taiwan...

 

[chrismende]

70% virused? Can you start a different thread about that?

 

[NYEric]

search virus, taiwan in the search threads!

 

[Trithor]

Do you guys stand on street corners and ring a bell, while wearing a sign proclaiming the End to be near?:rollhappy:

 

[limuhead]

Do you guys stand on street corners and ring a bell, while wearing a sign proclaiming the End to be near?:rollhappy:

Only the end of orchid collections for people who buy clones from Taiwan, Thailand, or anyone who sells that crap...:evil:

 

[Trithor]

What evidence is there that paphs coming from Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand are viral infected?

 

[NYEric]

I think the most problems are with Phals.

 

[Trithor]

That is a relief, nearly every plant I have has come from those three countries. I was getting ready to napalm my greenhouse on my return to town:viking:

 

[Chicago Chad]

I have only heard about the viruses with phal species. nothing on paphs. any facts around on that claim Limuhead?

 

[limuhead]

Basically anything that is a mericlone. They don't sterilize their tools from what I understand, no time when you are cloning that many plants. Seed crosses are different and according to the guy that does all my lab work on the crosses I do dry seed doesn't necessarily mean virus free either...

 

[Linus_Cello]

Basically anything that is a mericlone. They don't sterilize their tools from what I understand, no time when you are cloning that many plants. Seed crosses are different and according to the guy that does all my lab work on the crosses I do dry seed doesn't necessarily mean virus free either...

I don't think the "sterilized tools" is the issue, but rather (1) starting off with virused plants to mericlone; and/or (2) growing plants in such crowded conditions so that viruses can be easily transmitted between plants (the situation to be worried with seed crossed plants).

Supposedly, orchid susceptible viruses are also in tobacco, so if the virus in cigarrettes aersolizes and lands on a plant that has an open wound, it could infect orchids.

 

[Trithor]

So I should stop smoking Sumatran cigars in my greenhouse and switch to Cuban?

 

[limuhead]

So I should stop smoking Sumatran cigars in my greenhouse and switch to Cuban?

Only if you are growing certain species of Encyclias :drool:

 

[limuhead]

I have only heard about the viruses with phal species. nothing on paphs. any facts around on that claim Limuhead?

"There are no current statistics on the prevalence of viruses. But studies during the last 20 years show a startling rate of both CMV and ORSV. Viruses infected 50 percent of the orchids tested in Singapore's botanical gardens in a 1994 study, 25 percent of those grown in Hawaii in 1993, and 65 percent of the cut orchids from Thailand, the world's largest exporter, in 2005".


Sorry, my stats were a bit off. This is from an article of Scientific American. I am not sure where I got the Taiwan stat, pretty sure it was from talking to an AOS judge at a show on the Big Island but clones, specifically Phals, Dendrobiums, and some Vandas as well are regularly and knowingly shipped and sold virused. I know a few growers here on Oahu who will not allow any clones that have not been tested into their greenhouses. I don't have any clones except the Miltoniopsis that I know for a fact that were tested before cloning that came from a friend of mine here in Hawaii. The only Phal I have is a species, and it's growing on my tree.

 

[limuhead]

I am adamantly against clones of any type. I personally think that clones have ruined the orchid trade and maybe even forced orchid hybridizers out of business. Sure they have made it easy to sell mass produced orchids, made some people lots of money and made cheap orchids available to the masses, but it has also driven down the prices of species and things that can't be cloned. Clones have made it so any bonehead can be an orchid wholesaler and drive the prices into the dirt; trust me, there are plenty of them in Hawaii. I can get blooming phals for 5 bucks, blooming dendrobiums for less than that, and wouldn't take them for free, or if you paid me because of the risk of infecting my seedlings from $200 flasks...