Why not just cull any strains that are supposedly testing positive for this and stop growing the seeds? There are literally thousands of strains out there. Saving one is not worth spreading this if it's as bad and spreading as fast as some claim.
And according to this article that was posted in a previous thread testing is not reliable.
"An issue with large mother plants is that separate parts of a large plant can test positive and negative, as the viroid is not evenly distributed throughout the plant."
"That means infected plants can test negative in one test and then test positive several months later."
Joseph Ramahi, chief science officer for Cultivaris Hemp, explains best practices for cannabis cultivators to combat hop latent viroid.
mjbizdaily.com
So let's see. There is this virus people are panicking about that may or may not show up in testing. Yet people are in a mad dash to get testing done despite it not being reliable. People are also in a mad dash to get tissue cultures to save some strain that's carrying this alleged virus that's inflicting massive financial loss across the industry to save some polyhybrid. It doesn't make any sense. The prudent thing to do would be to destroy all stock of plants that supposedly carry the virus to keep it from spreading further. But how do you do that when plants can test negative one day and positive the next?
My plan is to not worry about it. If it does exist oh well. Not my problem. I have enough seed stock of dozens of strains that came from other places in the world to keep me growing disease free weed for the rest of my life and I'm sharing all of that for free with my friends that grow so we'll always be a small pocket of disease free weed growers.
One thing I don't understand is the lack of efforts to stop the spread of this virus. If it's so bad then the prudent thing to do would be to stop growing strains that are found to be carrying it. But that's not the path being taken. Instead people are focused on testing for something even though the testing is not reliable. That makes no sense. Why take a chance? Just grow something else that hasn't been afflicted by the disease. But like most things cannabis the solution is always more complicated than it needs to be. And testing is a lucrative business so testing is the path people are apparently taking.
They have spent years and tens of millions trying to eradicate Panama Disease which affects the common Cavendish banana without success. What makes anyone think that testing for this is going to stop it's spread? Especially when a guy with a PhD has stated that a plant can test negative and then positive later?
So everyone run out and pay for a test that can come back as negative but another test taken later can show positive. I'll spend my money on beer.
"An issue with large mother plants is that separate parts of a large plant can test positive and negative, as the viroid is not evenly distributed throughout the plant."
"That means infected plants can test negative in one test and then test positive several months later."