Can I save these roots?

[Nic100]

Hi fellow orchid lovers!
I bought this fella at the end of July, and earlier in August I noticed the psuedobulbs starting to wrinkle. I took it out of the pot to look at the roots and found the centre of the roots still in a tiny nursery container packed tight with sphag moss. I removed it as carefully as I could along with any of the roots that seems mushy and repotted it in bark. Having not seen any improvement I have taken another look today. The remaining roots are as you see them. The original spike of flowers were over a couple of weeks ago but the second spike has continued to open buds -presumably using stored resources! Having checked over old threads I'm not sure if these roots have any life left in them. There doesn't seem to be any green anywhere (other than moss!!)...
Any advice would be gratefully appreciated!
(In terms of how I cared for it - for the first couple of weeks it sat in my dining room where it got light and warmth most of the day, but no direct sun. Once I saw the bulbs start to go I moved it to the sunny window sill in my kitchen which is the warmest, brightest room in the house. I have grown phals over the winter there so thought it might be a better spot.)
Thanks in advance!
Nicky

[orchidbingo]

Some of the roots in your first picture (bottom center of pic) look fairly firm and glistening white so they might be healthy roots.

bingo

[Nic100]

Hurray! Should I just repot?

[kiki-do]

Seeing that I've had a plant that was behaving about the same recently, I am not sure I'm the one to advise you. Jury is still out on whether mine will make it or not.
But, it looks like the roots are okay, just overly wet. If they are not black or mushy to the touch, they should be okay. You were wise to get them out of moss and into bark. I would spray the roots with listerine (reg not minty) and then spray them with KLN or some type of compatible root hormone and put back in bark and let it be for a while. Low light when it's been newly repotted. Don't water it too often, either.

[Nic100]

Thanks Kiki,
Very encouraging that there may be hope... I wasn't feeling particularly optimistic!
Nicky

[RosieC]

Like Kiki I'm in a similar situation and I'm still not sure if mine will pull through...

... having said that, mine has started putting out a few new root tips out of the side of roots I had thought were no good.

I would advise just potting it back up.

[Blueszz]

Hmmm I wonder which nursery grows these plants in the EU. I had the same and I know from Camille she had one too. We both lost them due to root rot. We didn't buy them at the same time, but seems to me that they were sold with bad roots in the first place. My had a tag from Wooning orchids. I had several other plants from them, this is the one I lost, I might still loose another one from this nursery.

I would say, repot and hope for new growths. As it goes as with mine, you might loose quite some roots. The PB from mine suffered too much to put out new growths, that is why I lost mine. I wondered why the medium didn´t dry out as from the other plants and when I had a look, it was too late. You might be able to save the plant.

Nicole

[RosieC]

Mine came potted really badly, and it's likely it came from the EU somewhere.

At the center there was a little mesh pot packed tight with smelly moss. This had been shoved in to a larger pot, at the bottom of which was that 'Oasis Foam' stuff (you know the stuff used to hold cut flowers which also holds moisture really well) which the roots were growing through. The top of the outer pot was packed with bark. The roots were spread through all three mediums... now that's bad potting!

I often don't repot straight away, but a brief inspection showed that there was this inner pot (not even very straight) so took it all out and was glad I had.

I now don't think the roots were in good condition back then, but at the time I had never had this sort of orchid and thought it might just be what they were like.

That was back in early June, last week I repotted it again and while most of the roots are little changed I did see half a dozen or so tiny new root tips with green ends. I put it in a clear pot this time, and some of the new root tips can be seen to have grown since last week.

[nutgirl]

I've had a couple of these but managed to kill them both.

It was before I learned (from OB!) that roots must be inspected upon purchase. So I had left them in their pots, watered them regularly and rotted all the roots.

The next one I pried out the tightly packed bark and sphag, cut away anything rotten and left it bare root for a couple of days in a damp clay pot (for humidity). I watered it daily. then I repotted in clear plastic (so I could monitor things) in bark but used less bark in the lower half of the pot so that the roots would drain quickly but stay humid (hope this makes sense).

Finally, success. New root growth and rebloom. I've since changed them to semihydroponic which they really like. I can water them to my hearts content and not have to worry.

Maureen

[Nic100]

Rosie and Maureen - glad to hear of some recovery stories! I've definitely learned a lesson here and will inspect roots on purchase from now on!
Fingers crossed I haven't left it too late this time!
Thanks for the advice, everyone!
Nicky