[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

Virus is VERY common in orchids. I would guess that one out of every 10 to 20 plants you buy has virus. If you have 60 plants and are not taking the necessary steps to prevent virus spread, you probably have 60 virused plants. Having said that, the down side is that over the years, the virus will likely degrade the plants, making them less and less vigorous. I made a mistake 25 years ago. I had such a bad infection of bush snails, I was desperate and soaked all the plants in a metaldahyde bath (which didn't work). The stuff was expensive enough, and my collection large enough, that I unpotted each orchid to do the soaking, creating open wounds on all the plants. This transfered virus to all the plants, as I had in my collection a number of plants that were from a friend who sold flowers to florists and never sterilized his tools for cutting the flowers. After 20 years the plants looked awful. After a lot of money was spent on virus testing, almost all of the early plants were positive for virus and were tossed. It is this period of virus testing that gave me the number of likely virused plants in commerce mentioned above. I have gotten virused plants, those that were divisions, from just about all the big name orchid houses. Seedlings fair much better.

I keep a half dozen shears soaking continuously in a saturated solution of TSP, the real thing with phosphate. I change shears with each plant, but don't change for each cut on the same plant.