Root system Quesetion

[jen.kirsten]

Hi everyone, I am very new to orchids so I appreciate any advice from you all! I recently acquired two Phals one which looks great with strong green leaves and beautiful blooms. I did notice though that the majority of the roots were yellow and almost knotted up. There were a few green roots so I left those alone and as I was trying to untangle the yellow roots (I was being very gentle about it), they began falling away. All said and done that plant now has about 3 green roots! On the second plant, one of the blooms fell off earlier today so I inspected those roots as well and it's the same story...yellow and tangled! Before I do anything to this plant I am seeking your advice. Internet searches have said that yellow roots are considered healthy but I'm not so sure. They look terrible. Both plants leaves are green and strong. Any ideas? Also, I repotted both plants in bark medium the day I got them as both were packed in water-logged moss.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Those internet sources that are telling you that yellow roots are healthy are lying!

Yellow is not a photosynthetic pigment. It is the carotenoid pigment of the plant's cells. Being that if you've read some of the older posts, including the sticky about the general care of Phals (http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ends-here.html) here on the OB, you would've found out that many epiphytical orchids have roots that are capable of photosynthesis.

Green roots on a Phal are the healthy portions of the root and are the cells that are living. The green pigments are chlorophyll, the pigments that allow a plant to photosynthesize.

Some orchids may have active growing tips that are yellow, but yellow roots on a Phalaenopsis are NOT healthy nor living!

[jen.kirsten]

Yes, this makes perfect sense to me, I figured I would ask just on the off chance yellow roots were okay. I'm going to gently remove the yellow roots on the second plant and see how it goes. Thanks for clearing this up!

[RosieC]

I would slightly disagree with Philip, yellow roots CAN be healthy (or at least very pale almost yellow green, or a whitish yellow), but only when in the centre of the medium where they get no light. They turn green when photosynthesising and healthy roots in the light will be green.

I would agree that roots exposed to light should be green when wet, although I have also seen them stained brown from the medium. They are a silvery green when dry.

However what you describe is NOT healthy roots, the fact that they easily fell to pieces when you tried to untangle them is a sure sign of that. What you describe does not sound like healthy roots at all.

I work on the principle that roots that are soft/mushy/hollow are dead. I would add to that, ones that fall to pieces easily. Healthy roots are firm and strong.

Once you have removed the dead roots, pot up in the smallest pot you can fit the remaining roots into. If the pot has too much medium with not roots it will dry slowly and you will get more rot.

[jen.kirsten]

Yes I think I was better off re-potting both plants. The smaller plant actually looks a lot better today. I noticed last night before the re-potting that the leaves looked a bit droopy and wrinkled. I removed the yellow roots and put it into soaked bark medium that was pretty well drained. I now have both plants sitting on humidity trays looking good. I am confused why the plants have good looking leaves and blooms with the sad state of the roots. The yellow roots on the second Phal also pretty much fell off in my hands! thanks again for the insight

[RosieC]

Leaves and flowers tend not to show up the root problem for a while, but will eventually. You may still find that follows even though you've corrected the problem, if the remaining roots can't support the whole plant. With some good roots it should pull round though.

[jen.kirsten]

Correction on my earlier response, I failed to soak the bark properly. I basically wet the bark a little bit before I re-potted so it wasn't truly soaked. Sorry for any confusion.