Hello, I am new to this forum and have been a hobbyist for about 5 years. Window growing with lights and humidifiers (big window ^.^) and now in the process of building a green house. Obviously no expert. Began with traditional phals...now I mostly have catts and have very good success with them. With the green house coming, I decided to virus test my collection of about 80 plants and 15 were virused; ironically, ten were the "failure to thrive" group I've been hanging onto and had little reason to continue after that. But I LOVED those plants just the same. The other five have CymMV and are doing fine quarantined. Nick, if your collection is fairly valuable and/or sentimental...WHY RISK bringing in these plants? My recommendation would be to take them ONLY IF you have a separate place to nurture them before you give them away to your family and friends. Denise

KB2 Here are a couple of pictures of virused leaves. You be the judge as far as yours are concerned.. as you know best what yours look like. Yours do appear to be more like spots than the actual moasic pattern, and it does appear that you do infact have mealy bugs,but never having had mealy bugs (so far) I'm not sure what their sucking would do to the leaves...I do wish you luck.. I will say that the Oskar in the first picture showed the moasic pattern right off the bat..most often the leaves come out clear and healthy looking and then when the weather gets hot or they are stressed for some other reason then the sympoms appear (at least for me, living in the cooler coastal northeast.... Donna of

Mosaic virus is rarely, if ever, fatal,in its self. It can weaken plants,so that they are attacked by other pathogens.The plants also can become such poor perfomers that they will be discarded. Some varieties have much more resistance than others,and will grow and bloom quite well,while the insects transfer the disease from it to other plants.The other plants may not do so well. GW owns posted poctures, so I have them elswhere. They also won't allow url links to the site or mention of competitors. If you input Mosaic virus , TMV or Hippeastrum Mosaic virus to a search engine,there is much tu be learned. Del

Nik - Glad to see your other thread got some traction and hopefully results! If you haven't cut off the distorted growth on your cacti, I would do so. The pests really like to hide in the crevices and even inside growth masses (often they have internal folds). Stush - Thanks for your input. Many mites are host-specific as you say. Eriophyid (Aloe mites) are probably the scariest thing I've ever dealt with. There don't really seem to be many success stories or solid advice out there, other than destroy/discard the plant immediately. Plantspace - Yay, thanks! It does appear very grim online and these plants were so hard to get. I couldn't give up on them so I did a crazy amount of research instead. Here is my Ultrasonic Cleaner. It's capacity is 600mL, which is a decent size for small plants. You can get bigger ones, but they cost more than $40. If you are curious, there was a really good study by the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture: Ultrasonic Treaments to Control Surface Pests of Fruit. The reason I went for ultrasonic miticide application are as follows: Ultrasound destroys mite tissues and kill them (10 minutes+ bath). Ultrasound knocks the mites off the plant and many of the eggs too. Full immersion of the plant in miticide ensures full coverage. Ultrasonic agitation enables the miticide to penetrate deeper into crevices where mites like to hide. Ultrasound cleans debris from the plant, making further close inspection easy. My ultrasonic miticide application method: Bare-root the affected plant. Put the plant upside-down in a small glass jar or beaker. This saves the amount of miticide necessary and keeps the main bath clean for other things (jewelery, etc.) Mix the miticide of choice in a separate container. Warm water is better along with a little surfactant or insecticidal soap. This improves cavitation significantly. Place the small jar with plant in the ultrasonic cleaner. Fill the small jar with miticide up to the bath fill line. Try to not have any bubbles in the leaves. Use a metal chopstick or similar to move the plant around. Fill the main bath portion with warm water. Make sure you don't fill too high or else the jar and plant will float up. Run the ultrasonic cleaner for 10 minutes for maximum effectiveness. Once done, set the plant to air-dry and then repot. Leave out of bright light for a week and then reinspect. The biggest risk that I was worried about was phytotoxic damage from the ultrasound to the plant. It was a non-issue. Based on scientific studies, the ultrasound does not penetrate deeply into the plant tissues so they are not damaged. In practicality, some of the finer root hairs are probably destroyed in the process, but overall I saw very little difference. The leaves all looked and grew fine after the ultrasonic treatments so I don't think there is much to worry about. The miticides I used were Avid, Bayer 3-in-1, and Schultz Insect Spray (Insecticidal Soap plus Pyrethrin). This was extremely effective. For future mite treatments, I would also consider Floramite and Sevin for rotational purposes. I have more import buys currently on their way. =) My biggest frustration with these plants is that I paid for phytosanitary inspection and certificate, yet the plants never came with the certificate and were not clean. So I am doubtful it was done properly. For any new additions, I always inspect carefully with a loupe (sometimes microscope) and quarantine if I am suspicious of anything. A watchful eye has been the most important asset of mine.