Where can I buy Virus X Test strips?

[SunPower1]

I see many different places online advertising that they have the Elisa test strips, and some advertise that their pricing is, "best".
Most important to me is that I am purchasing a product that will do what it is supposed to, and not something that's old and out of date. I want to make sure I am purchasing a kit from a reliable company. Could somebody please recommend a worthy company to buy the Elisa test strips from? I want to order them ASAP, as I have Hostas in containers that need to get in the ground, but I don't want to plant a Hosta if it has Virus X.
Thank you!

[Tigger]

Why not buy them directly from the source? You can buy multiples of 5 (but cheaper as 25).
https://orders.agdia.com/InventoryD.asp?loc=IN&collection=ISK%2016600

[SunPower1]

Thanks. That site lists 25 strips with 25 bags for $115.00, unless I'm reading it wrong.
I saw somewhere in the recent past that the company who make the strips sold them as 100 strips for $100.00, but of course I can't find that now. Do you think they've quadrupled their price within a couple of months? I have approx. 35+ Hosta varieties to test and some I might want to test twice. Most are already in the ground. It would be nice to find a price break for purchasing more than 25.

[Chris_W]

When I bought them several years ago there was another option to buy 250 of them for $935. I still have a lot of those original 250 left and they are still working fine for me. That was in 2009. Sorry but I've never heard of getting them for $1.00 per kit.

If you are just buying the strips and not the buffer bags then it is cheaper, but the only reason you would do that is if you already had the bags. When preparing a sample you can do multiple strips per bag so may not always need one bag per strip if, for example, you are doing CMV, ArMV, and HVX all at once.

The thing I would recommend is purchasing the 25 and then put multiple plant samples in each kit. You can test 3, 4, or even 5 small pieces of a leaf from different plants at one time in a single buffer bag and if it comes out negative them all of the plants you included in the kit should be negative. Testing 3 would be better because then you could include a little more leaf of each - you don't want too much leaf in the sample or the liquid will be too thick to wick up the strip - but 5 is also doable. The total amount of leaf you want is about the size of a quarter or the size of your thumb print.

The drawback to putting multiple plant samples in a kit is when a positive test comes up. When that happens you will want to test each plant over again. But unless you are seeing visible symptoms or bought from a particularly suspicious hosta source then I imagine most will come up negative.

Hope that helps, and hopefully you only get negative tests.

Chris

[SunPower1]

Thank You! That is very helpful.
If I were to do 3-5 at a time, would I still take that same sized sample - The thumbprint size?

Thanks for all your help.

[Chris_W]

You would take a little bit smaller sample of each to make the thumbprint size overall. The concern is that too much leaf material will cause the solution in the buffer bag to become too thick and then it wouldn't wick up the strip. The flip side of that is that if you take too little leaf material then you might not be able to see the positive line as well, however just letting the strip sit there longer (like an hour) tends to remedy that concern. Just keep the buffer bags upright all that time - napkin holders work pretty well for that.