Help me save this root and stem rotted Phalaenopsis - Page 4 - Orchid Board

SADE2020 · #31 09-20-2021, 02:03 PM

Great Thread to learning and contradicting each other. If your Phal is going to RIP, at least we enjoy a good chat and
the knowledge we have share.

By half of the treaty, I was about to tell you to let it go and use your Energy with your healthy plants. This thing happen, plants get sick and die unfortunately.

How is Cairo in regard to orchids growing; is it cultural to grow them? Are they accessable for buying?

Cheers and good luck!

yomnaorchids · #32 09-20-2021, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SADE2020

Great Thread to learning and contradicting each other. If your Phal is going to RIP, at least we enjoy a good chat and
the knowledge we have share.

By half of the treaty, I was about to tell you to let it go and use your Energy with your healthy plants. This thing happen, plants get sick and die unfortunately.

How is Cairo in regard to orchids growing; is it cultural to grow them? Are they accessable for buying?

Cheers and good luck!

That's the thing, orchids are really not accessible here at all and they are very expensive compared to countries like the US. So I really wanted to try with this orchid, but unfortunately, no luck so far all the roots are rotten and there are only two leaves and both look worse than the other.

SouthPark · #33 09-20-2021, 03:21 PM

Do you have 'scoria' over there in Cairo? aka ---- lava rock. In the tropics over here, I grow my phals in lava rock. One of the phals I grow is a species one ... a Phal. bellina ..... growing nicely in lava rock. And I'm thinking that it would grow just fine in regular rocks here in the tropics. But Cairo might generally have lower humidity - not sure.

In any case, the appearance of the original media just seems a bit dense ----- looking somewhat like regular plant potting mix. So a more airy media could help if you get another phal later to grow. And also - for root rot cases ----- consideration needs to be made when putting certain chemicals on the roots ----- such as hydrogen peroxide and/or certain other chemicals that might not be beneficial to the health of the roots.

Shadeflower · #34 09-21-2021, 08:28 AM

Hey yomna,
sorry to hear.

I would not feel too comfortable telling you how I keep rootless phals. It is tricky. They either make it or they don't and I haven't found the ideal way to keep them yet, I just experiemnt a bit with every one.

What southpark has written is good advice and what you should aim for - very humid but extremely airy at the same time.

Sort of the conditions you would find in a steam house.

Not the conditions you would have in a sealed fridge.

It's a very fine balance, if the air becomes too stagnant, then things rot, if there is too much ventilation then humidity drops too much.

So I would not feel comfortable just telling you do copy what I do. This is a bit of trial and error and I have tried lots of different methods.

Recently I tried a sealed jar for a seedling- that worked for a month, then it all rotted.

Like SP I mainly use pumice (very similar to lava rock)

I try to have a jar filled with something that absorbs water well and then layer it with pumice so the top layer of pumice dries out.

If the top layer of pumice stays wet, then there is not enough ventilation.

So I aim to have my recoveries sitting on the pumice but the pumice stays dry.

The orchid received its water intake from the water below evaporating. Pumice will also always carry on wicking water to the surface and evaporate which you won't see.

So I suppose I have pretty much told my method now but it is by no means perfect.

I'll add a picture of one that is doing ok with this treatment. Now the reason I use this method is because it is very easy to water. You just keep the bottom of the pot/jar wet

A lot of times people would use moss which is also great but with moss you have to keep a constant eye on how wet it stays so lots of different approaches are possible, this is just one possibility.

Thriodien · #35 09-21-2021, 08:54 AM

In the meantime i've actually run into this problem as well. 2 months ago one of my phals has arrived with signs of rot right from the vendor. This is how it looked like on arrival:

The spot on the leaf tip developed further right away so it had to go, i cut it off after 2 weeks. Looked like this right before the cut:

The leaf tip's been okay since and the spot on the stem was stagnant so i thought it was all right. Then it continued to darken just a few days ago and appeared on the bottom part as well...
I instantly knew it needed immediate attention:

So i cut the leaf as low as i could.

The operation took place 2 days ago, again, i thought we were in the clear. Today morning i've seen another brown spot on the base of the next leaf up on the stem..

So it's operation time again this afternoon. Wish me luck...

Shadeflower · #36 09-21-2021, 09:06 AM

throdien,
uff. So annoying when an orchid takes two months to do this - can't even complain to the seller after so much time can one?

I wouldn't even know where you could cut. I think this would be a prime candidate for some phyton 27!

You'd have nothing left if you start cutting that one

Thriodien · #37 09-21-2021, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

throdien,
uff. So annoying when an orchid takes two months to do this - can't even complain to the seller after so much time can one?

I wouldn't even know where you could cut. I think this would be a prime candidate for some phyton 27!

You'd have nothing left if you start cutting that one

I've contacted him right on arrival so he knows about it and we were in discussion about what to treat it with. Could definately ask for a refund i believe he would understand but i'm still focused on saving it coz it was hella expensive by my standards

Btw this was the yummy rotting:

Thriodien · #38 09-21-2021, 01:03 PM

Well it's not promising but had to be done.
This developed in just 2 days!!!!

Was aiming to keep at least a part of the leaf but in fact had to take it off coz a small sign appeared on the bottom part again.

So after another round of cutting, fungicide and disinfection i'm really hoping that this time we're done coz there's not really much left

SouthPark · #39 09-21-2021, 03:32 PM

Thriodien ------ what did that phal arrive in? Did it arrive in that same sort of wet sphagnum media tub? Sometimes - if the orchid sits in a box (in shipping) with stem and/or roots encased in a soggy watery medium ----- then that could lead to issues.

Or - if the sphagnum is fairly wet, and water somehow keeps seeping into the crown area - through maybe gaps between the leaves, then crown rot issues could arise. I don't the mechanisms behind crown rot though ----- just assuming that either some part of the plant requires oxygen but doesn't get enough of it due to stagnating water, or some bacterial activity occurring in water trapped regions.

In the tropics here, for my phals that I'm growing, I cut down on crown rot issues by ensuring the crown area remains high enough above the top of my media level. And interestingly, with my scoria medium that I use ------ I only need to spray water out toward the rim of the pot ---- so that the region near around the stem area remains dry at all times. The roots down below are able to get enough moisture/water ----- and the phals do nicely here, with little or no chance of crown rot.

In your case ----- the first thing to check out is to just focus on how the orchid arrived. As in arrived in a soggy medium?

SouthPark · #40 09-21-2021, 11:53 PM

Just uploading a couple of pics to show what I do in the tropics to avoid rot - particularly crown rot. The humidity is generally ok here - so I can just add water to the media in regions away from the stem - as can be seen in the pics here. And then, most of the time ----- the top of the media will appear dry.

The small juvenile phal is a bellina. And the other one is a flowering size hybrid mini phal.