Sick Cattleya + possible fungicide overdose.

[BrassavolaStars]

Hello All,

I have had this cattleya hybrid since early June. I bought it from a breeder in Hawaii. When it arrived, I assumed it was just dehydrated because it was delayed in the mail.

it has been almost five months and while it has sprouted new roots, the shriveling has not improved at all and if anything may have gotten slightly worse.

I find this very concerning as I am worried it could be fusarium or something else like it.

I have attached pictures of the plant below.

Addtionally, in my haste, I mixed up a batch of cleary's to spray the plants around it that may have gotten backsplash with my hose watering and accidentally used too much cleary's in my mixture.

I thought my sprayer was 32 oz when it was actually closer to 20oz.

I may have just sprayed my plants with a 2tsp per gallon mixture which is double the recommended amount.

Is that overdose going to be a problem? Does my cattleya look like it actually has a disease?

[rbarata]

Looking at the wrinkled pbulbs I would say the problem is dehydration: not enough watering or roots are dying.
By the look of the medium, I would bet on the second.

[Ray]

Yes, it's certainly dehydrating, and that could be fusarium, but it simply might be that the plant isn't getting what it needs.

Tell us about your culture.

[BrassavolaStars]

For the summer, the plant was outside. The summer temps where I live are about 95f in the day, 79f at night. I watered it 2-3 times per week. It was in the shade. It is growing in a coarse bark mix. The humidity was around 60% outside.

At the beginning of the month, I brought it into the Greenhouse which is 90f-ish on sunny days in the morning and 65f at night with 90% humidity. On cloudy days, it is 74f in the day time and 62f at night. I water it with a spray hose in the greenhouse probably every 3 or 4 days. Just to be clear, the mistaken cleary's double dose won't be an issue, right?

[Ray]

Does it have a decent root system? Is the medium bone dry before watering again?

I have no idea of the effects of a Cleary's OD.

[SouthPark]

It's possible that it has a disease ..... eg. fungal activity. If you applied a systematic fungicide already, then the other thing to try is to take a good look at the media ..... the media pieces, especially after watering.

If the pot still feels light after adequate watering (and after the water has drained through the holes at the bottom of the pot), then you might want to repot with new bark. And ----- soak the new bark in water to get water into the bark prior to potting. Soak for a decent amount of time. Dry bark sort of repels water. Fine fungal growth on bark surfaces can also repel water.

One stem of your plant might indicate a disease. On the other hand, the dehydration could really be dehydration.

One promising sign is that at least we can see a root that is still white and looks ok.

[BrassavolaStars]

The medium is dry, but not bone dry when I water it. When I received the plant, some of the roots were not alive. A fair portion of the roots were also dehydrated, but still very much living. There are also about half of a dozen newish white-green roots on the newest growth

I guess I'll just have to wait and see if the other plants react negatively to the cleary's. The ones I sprayed were a brassavola and a few den. nobiles

[katrina]

That appears to be a division...is that correct? If so, I'm sure the roots were damaged during the process and what you're seeing could be very normal for a division. The older roots that I can see in the pics appear to be dead, hollow, and I doubt they are doing anything more than helping to anchor the plant in that pot.

IME, when the roots are badly damaged during a division...the plant will use the reserves in the older growths to make the new growths. The roots aren't functioning so it takes what it needs from those older growths. It basically eats the old in order to make the new. And yes, they can get quite ugly for awhile.

You have some new roots so the main goal now is to make sure those don't die off.

[aliceinwl]

I have a couple Cattleya types I bought this spring that were potted in moss with dead root systems. I repotted them, they grew new roots and pushed up some new growths but the old growths never recovered and have continued to decline or die. The new growths, however, look great. Those that I’ve bought as bare root divisions often follow a similar pattern. If the roots and growths it’s producing in your care look good, I’d be inclined to not worry about the old stuff.