Phals with musty odor

[worship]

Hello, great to find this board!
We have a problem with a number of phals.
There seems to be a musty odor coming from them. We changed the chips out, and they still seem to smell.
Could it be the roots, or some other problem?
We've had many orchids over the years, especially phals and we've never encountered this.
Anyone ever have this issue, how did you rectify the situation?

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

???

This is odd...

Phals don't smell bad.

Where is it coming from? The flowers? The leaves? The roots? Potting media? Can you sniff it out?

How are the roots?

What kind of water are you using?

How are you watering?

What kind of fertilizer are you using?

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Do you have any stinkers like certain Bulbophyllum sp.

One such example would be Bulbophyllum echinolabium?

[RosieC]

That does sound strange. I think I would do as King suggests and try and sniff out exactly where on the plant the smell is coming from.

[worship]

We think it is the roots.
However, when we took out the plant the smell seemed to come strongly from the orchid chips, but they are brand new. Strange.
A friend was taking care of these so we suspect over-watering.
They were in a room with less light so maybe they weren't able to dry out properly after watering.
We are not using fertilizer.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Did something die in your growing area?

Is there standing water that you haven't noticed before that has stale water?

Did you leave dead roots on the Phals?

Do you know what living healthy roots look like?

I'm running out of ideas.

Mine don't stink. They've never smelled bad. No part of my Phals have ever had a musty smell of any kind.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Moss! That's why.

The moss went bad. If the thing smells like a bog, then it's the moss.

The roots look like they've seen better days. They need to be groomed.

Is there still a mass of moss in there?

Why aren't you guys using fertilizer?

[worship]

Okay. I think you're right.
So we're going to clean up the roots and get rid of all the moss.
Can we give the roots a gentle rinse?

[RosieC]

I agree with King, you were talking about 'chips' so I was thinking bark, but I see Moss in the picture and that will be the problem.

You should remove all that moss, soak in water to get it all off. Poke it all out from between the roots and get rid of it.

If you want to repot with moss (which some people like, although I don't personally) then make sure it's really fresh and good quality Sphagnum moss.

If repotting in bark also make sure it's good quality orchid bark.

When repotting other types of plants you generally leave the old media and just put it in a bigger pot and add more media arround the edge, with orchids you need to remove the old medium first, getting it all out from between the roots. You will often then repot in to the same size pot as it was in before. The reason for repoting orchids is not (always) to increase the pot size, but rather to replace the degraded medium.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Yeah.