Phal Roots Dying after repotting

[RosieC]

So far my Phal repotting has not gone well.

The first one I tried, last spring, is now an almost dead Phal with only a couple of roots (actually it's starting to grow new roots in the last few weeks). The up side of this, is that the problem is what first bought be here to Orchid Board looking for a solution.

The second one I tried repotting a couple of months ago now has dying/rotting roots as well.

I repotted it, but I later decided that the medium I had used was already too decayed. I repotted again a couple of weeks later using some brand new stuff which seemed higher quality to begin with than the older stuff had ever been.

I was careful not to damage the roots, and there were only a few dead roots to remove anyway.

Today when I picked it up to water it, I noticed some sort of white growth (like mold) in the base of the pot. I removed it from the pot and found several of the roots were dead and some were even rotten. These were ALL healthy roots when I repotted

I'm sure I'm not watering too much, I'm fairly confident I've got Phal watering sussed and I've never had one rot before. If anything I've underwatered this one since it was repotted as the bark has been drying quicker than the old stuff.

It seems to be going the same way as the first one. I'm worried because I repotted a third one recently, as well as a Paph, they WERE two of my healthiest plants. You may have seen my other post after I did the third one, where I wanted to check my steps. They seem right and I've read as much as I can about it.

Anyway, I've cut off the dead roots and I've rinced the remaining ones in a solution of listerine and water and I'm going to pot it up again in completely fresh bark.

What else should I do, and what might I be doing wrong

[fieldsofgold]

Rosie, I had the same problem with my phal amabilis potted in sphagnum moss. I too came here to search for answers.

Everyone's direction was to pot! So potted the phal in a 6 inch pot with slits on the sides and in the bottom to provide maximum air. The phal had rotted roots leaving behind only 4 roots. Then after 2 weeks the ones left behind died also!! To make things worse, rot developed on its base the size of a penny. It lost 1 leaf inthe process. I tried using the sphag bag method but that caused further rot, with another leaf lost! I used Physan 20 and soaked it for 30 minutes to clear it up.

I repotted it back in fresh bark mix and kept watering, not knowing if it was taking it in. I placed it 1 feet away from my Southwest window.

I thought it was gonner but it started a new leaf around April 20th.

This scenario happened to my other 3 phals which were obtained in sphagnum, roots completely died in new potted bark mix, lost 1-2 leaves but all started new leaf/root growth around April 2nd week-3rd week.

I've learned a couple of things through this. Firstly, phals were potted in fresh bark, and lost a couple of leaves and roots. I believe phals lose their leaves to compensate for the lost roots and perhaps suck in the leaves energy/nutrients as power to grow a new leaf/roots. In addition, the phal is shocked from a constant moist environment (sphag) to bark mix which doesn't hold alot of water in the beginning.

Another thing I did was water weakly/weekly even though I sometimes lost hope in seeing them without roots or the sight of their leaf turning yellow and die off.

Lastly, I've learned the art of patience!! I thought phals would grow roots/leaf in a heartbeat. Wrong!! My phal amabilis was repotted in mid January but started leaf growth around May 3rd!!

Thankfully, we are in the midst of growing season so your phals might recover sooner than mine! I have hope that your phals will live Rosie and flower again in the future

[fieldsofgold]

In addition, I've noticed molds grow in 2 of my phals in bark which I blame on my water that's high in minerals. As I started watering with RO, the molds went away. Information was found on good 'ole Orchid Board, someone correlated water high in minerals leads to mold! Haven't researched papers to prove it but RO works for me.

have you checked your water quality?

[camille1585]

Funny, I never have issues repotting phals, and on the contrary, they seem to love it. I get an explosion of growth in the following weeks. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I really hold off with the water for about a month after repotting. I soak the bark 24h, and give a very light watering after repotting. For the following few weeks I let the plant get really really dry between waterings, waiting around an extra 4-5 days past the point where it should be watered.
I have been meaning to do an experiment where I water one phal normally after repotting, to see what happens. But I chicken out, I'm too afraid of killing it!

[RosieC]

Thanks Fieldsofgold, your experience sounds like my first one which went from 9 leaves to 2 and from having a mass of roots to having 2 roots.

Since Feb when I started watering with warm water and KLN it has grown a couple more roots and is starting a new leaf. Its taken more than 12 months to start recovering though.

I'm now worried about these two I have repotted recently. One of them has eight leaves and HAD got an average amount of roots (many of which are now gone). The other has twelve leaves, and masses and masses of roots and WAS growing fast, both roots and leaves.

I really don't want them to loose roots and then leaves, like that one did because it will take YEARS to recover enough for me to allow it to spike (although it keeps trying).

I think my water is OK, because my Phals which have not been repoted have managed with it for years, they only go downhill after repotting.

I'm hoping you are right about the growing season. My one with twelve leaves which I repotted most recently had loads of new roots tips all over it. I'm just worried because those roots tips are not so visible now.

[RosieC]

Thanks Camillie,

Interesting about the watering. I will cut that back as I've heard something like that before and I've been watering arround the same amount as before.

When I DO water I'm going to carry on trying slightly warm water with KLN mixed in. This is what seems to have finally got the one from last year to grow new roots so I hope it will help on these.

[katesgrey]

Hi there,
I have gotten so much great info on this website, its a life saver for orchid newbies for sure! Anyway, I have had some experience with unhappy phals, very similar to the problems I read about in the above posts. It sounds like you are really on the right track and should be fine, I just wanted to ad some of my own tidbits that I have collected from a bunch of different sources...

Sick orchids can benefit from reducing or halting regular fertilizer, instead try using a mix of "rooting hormone concentrate" and/or something like SuperThrive added to regular water.

Also, try keeping a struggling orchid in lower light than normal.

If your phal has lost most or ALL of its roots, you may still be able to save it so don't worry tooooo much:I have several phals from Home Depot-type places that ended up having mostly dead or rotting roots, which to my horror continued to die even after I thought I had done everything right. These poor guys ended up having one,or even no roots after removal of dead ones. What I did was: sprayed base and roots with fungicide, and watered with solution of distilled H2O and DynaGrow's "KLN rooting concentrate" for about a month. I have had mixed results depending on what I potted with...

In re-potting the sick ones , I have seen those in sphagnum sprouting new leaves like crazy but been VERY reluctant to send out roots...But later: I bought a couple seedlings potted in fir bark that just did not thrive but were not obviously sick... On closer look I found and removed a bunch of rotting icky roots. I repotted in fresh bark, then used KLN/Super Thrive and distilled water. They have done very well, quite beyond what I expected!

So for encouraging roots on a phal, I I have had way better luck with bark.

Its said to be much trickier to repot from sphagnum into bark. I've read this and have found it pretty true.


Of course, this is just my experience, I hope perhaps it ads to that never-ending file of orchid knowledge for you!I would be excited to hear from more experienced orchid lovers, as to the debate over shapgnum vs bark when repotting a phal with no or few healthy roots. Cheers!

[Ray]

Rosie,

While there have been a lot of good solution recommendations given, nobody has addressed the problem!

Root loss as you have described most often is a result of suffocation. If the medium is to densely packed, it can cut off the air flow to the roots, which is where they do most of their gas exchange.

When you water an overly-compact pot full of medium, some of the water is absorbed by the medium, but some of it is held in between the particles (or strands, in the case of sphagnum) by surface tension, and that blocks the air flow even more.

Then there is the potential impact of repotting: root cells grow "tailored" to the conditions they are in and do not change once grown. If your plant was starting to grow roots in a dense, wet medium, the roots would be "designed" for that. Moving them into a different medium means they may not be well-suited to function in that new environment, so the plant will need to grow entirely new roots to accommodate.

[camille1585]

Ray, I completely understand what you are saying, but I don't see why suffocation via compact medium is an issue here. If the new mix is more suffocating than the old one, doesn't that defeat the purpose of repotting?

[Samheartsorchids]

Somthing similar is happening to me.... i re-potted about 3 weeks ago and now my little phals roots are "drying" up.....they feel hard and rough......i have no clue what ive done....