Phal with Root Rot No Idea What to Do

[Amanda L]

Situations like this is why I re-pot everything I buy as soon as I can. I hope that you are able to save your plant. You have already gotten some good advice here. You will need to take into consideration your watering habits and your growing area to really decide what kind of medium is best for you. I find that sphag moss is equal to death for my orchids. I use 3/4 fir bark and 1/4 charcoal in clear plastic pots. I also highly recommend that you get a rooting hormone such as KLN or SuperThrive. For fungus I use Listerine and for rot I use cinnamon. If you use cinnamon, don't get any on the healthy roots, because the roots will not be able to draw up water. The cinnamon acts kind of like a waterproofing on the roots, you definitely don't want this. I personally haven't tried to sphag-bag an orchid, I just pot it up and leave it alone.

Use this experience as a lesson to re-pot everything you get, unless it's from a reputable grower. You can pretty much guarantee that if you buy an orchid at a big box store or grocery store, it will need to be re-potted when you get it home.

Good Luck with your orchid, I hope that it recovers well and blooms beautifully for you!!

[Gettinfit07]

Okay more pictures - I did what CookieMonster recommended and slide the velum off. The amount of rot is gross - I also think I have crown rot. Can someone confirm? The orchid still stinks to high heaven - I'm assuming that's because of the rot. Should I soak it all in hydrogen peroxide? I can't find the fungicide, will that work just as well? I could also do the brown Listerine.

Also, if the rot doesn't clear with treatment should I cut the stringy stuff? I believe this one has at least 1 healthy root if I have to cut the rest of it off. Should I sphag-n-bag or re-pot and pray?

[Amanda L]

Crown rot is rot that occurs where the leaves meet at the top of the plant. The crown looks okay, from what I can tell, nice and green. Without a picture of the top of the plant, where the leaves meet, it's hard to say, though. What is on the roots? I can't really tell from the pictures. You can try dipping the roots in hydrogen peroxide (straight), I have had to use this for a case of crown rot, might work for your roots. Hopefully, someone can identify the black stuff that is on the roots. Try dipping in the peroxide and see what that does do them. Even if you are left with one good root, you can recover this plant.

[Gettinfit07]

Okay, I just did the hydrogen peroxide. The black masses definitely fizzed for a bit and then stopped. They didn’t fall off or dissolve as I expected… I washed the roots off a bit afterwards and tried to pick off the black masses. I got most of it off but there’s still some left. I’m also concerned because most of the worst rot is at the base of the roots, closest to the leaves of the plant. I also noticed that some black spots have appeared between the root bulb and the first set of leaves. Could this be fungus or a disease?
I sprinkled cinnamon on the still black areas and wrapped the plants in a paper towel to keep overnight. I plan on going and getting potting supplies tomorrow. If the base of the roots is still black should I cut off all of the roots & base and use the KLN/SuperThrive and paper towel/moss method to help the roots re-grow?
I really appreciate everyone’s help; it means a lot to me. My poor husband went so out of his way to get these for me, and I feel terrible for not realizing that it was packed in moss sooner.

Note: guess I didn't know what crown rot is... the crown of the plant it thankfully fine.

[RosieC]

My guess would be that you should treat the black areas on the base with peroxide as well. This should stop any rot that has spread to there.

I've never had to do this myself though so I'm just going on what I have read. I know people put peroxide in the crown to stop rot there... so why not use it to stop rot at the base as well.

Personally if you have any good root left I would pot it up with as small an amount of bark as you can get away with. If you can't get a small pot, or you think the pot will overbalance with the big plant, then use packing peanuts in the base (not the ones made of corn starch) to pad out the pot then just have the medium at the top.

This is what I have done with one of mine which lost most of it's roots. I took an upturned yogurt pot and cut large slits in the sides. I placed this in the bottom of the clear plastic plant pot. I then put packing peanuts to fill the gap arround the yogurt pot, then potted the Phal in a layer of bark at the top (just deep enough for the roots).

I tried with just the yogurt pot initially but the bark arround it still did not dry quickly enough. You need to ensure that there is not a mass of bark with no roots in it which then never dries out, or you are back to the original problem that caused the rot.

[RosieC]

I forgot to say, once it is potted back up, my tip is to water with luke warm or even very slightly warmer water.

Mine which lost most of it's roots did not grow any more for months (and I only just kept it alive through that time). When I started watering with slightly warm water it started growing new roots at last.

I'm also using KLN on it just now (which promotes root growth) but I started using that just after I first got signs of root growth and I think the warm water is doing just as much as the KLN.

[Gettinfit07]

Hi All,

I repotted my twins yesterday in small yogurt size pots with holes cut out like RosieC recommended. I've used a combination of moss and bark to plant it in (moss is at the bottom of the pot and around the sides and the bark is wrapped up in the roots. I also made sure to soak everything in diluted KLN. Both phals seems to be doing better thus far. It looks like one of them already has some new root growth going on so I'll have to be sure to watch that over the coming weeks. Thanks again for all of your help!