Cymbidiella pardalina problems

[GregorK]

Hello

I bought this plant few months ago.
It had a few black spots on the leaves but i didn't make a big deal out of it. Now the leaf tips are turning black, it has more black spots and one leaf is turning yellow.
What is the problem?
i water few times a week. sometimes i let it dry out betwen the wattering sometimes not. i fertilize almost every time.

Any suggestions would be welcome.
I just hope it's not viral

Best regards
gregor

[euplusia]

In Madagascar, germinating and growing on Platycerium madagascariense, a staghorn tree fern, provides fairly even conditions for the root system.

I do not like the look of the roots. In pic 3 you can see that the root tips turn black and stop growing before entering the potting medium. This might be due to detrimental high concentration of salt, inconsistent watering or acidity when the potting medium decomposits and sets free some humic acid.

Do you check the amount of fertilizer? What about the quality of your water? Do you flush the medium with clean water between fertilizing? Do the roots inside the pot look healthy?

Black tips of leaves and black spots are often a symptom, when the plant tries to get rid of unwanted metabolic deposits. This might be promoted by a lack of Calcium, Magnesium and Molybdän (to utilize Nitrogen) inside the plant tissue, which follows the malfunction of the roots.

Moreover I do not like the colour of the leaves. They should have a fresh green. Actually there is a greyish and whitish coloring and eventually many very small white spots. So I am afraid that the air has been too dry and spider mites have sucked out the cells.
A magnifying lens clarifies a possible infection, and an acaricide or miticide helps.
A viral infection is basically possible at any time, but the least I think of.

[GregorK]

Thank you very much for your reply and sorry for answering so late.

So... i was doing everything wrong i guess :S

Yes the new roots look bad. It could be because of too much fertilizer... sometimes i get carried away and i didnt flush it betwen watterings. I shall do that from now on. But they are not all bad. some of them are just fine. you just can't see it on the picture.

I use NPK ratio 6:8:7. i dilute about 5 ml of it in a 1,5 L bottle. Which is about half recomended strenght.

I dont know about the quality of my water. and i use tap water from a pipe. I live in apartment and i canot gather rain water.

This might be promoted by a lack of Calcium, Magnesium and Molybdän (to utilize Nitrogen) inside the plant tissue, which follows the malfunction of the roots.

I dont really understand this sentence.I understand that this happens because there is not enough Ca, Mg, Mo... But i dont know what you ment by utilizing Nitrogen. Is there too much nitrogen?

about the leaves... hmm i dont know. they look fine to me. and i dont see any white spots. but i will inspect them closely with the lens.

What do you suggest now? should i repot? i have never touched the roots because i heard it doesnt like to be repoted.
if you have any cultural advices... it would mean a lot.
Any suggestion what to do now are very welcome!

i like the plant. dont want to end like that

Best regards
Gregor

[euplusia]

For your consolation: this is not the end. Bigger plants of Cymbidiella pardalina can stand some trouble. Your plant doesn't look like being about to die. But there is no more time to waste and you have to improve things.
You say that you watered with tap water from a pipe. You added fertilizer to this tap water. You do not know the quality of your water. Start here.
To my knowledge there is a karst landscape south of Ljubljana. Where does your city draw the water from?
If the sources are in the karst area, the water is unsuitable for orchids. The dissolved CaCO3 kills the roots sooner or later, beginning on the surface of the medium because of evaporation.
I check the conductivity with a meter. If you don't have one, other orchidists or hobby aquarists or an aquaristic shop or a zoological or botanical garden can help you. The water company should know it best, but the answer is not always satisfying.
If this is not successful, you have to look for somebody who can help you with rainwater or you have to buy distilled water. Best thing is to measure out pure water and water with fertilizer. 300 - 500 mikroSiemens is enough.
Next step is to check the potting medium and roots. Soak the whole pot and roots and medium in clear water, wait a few hours and then take the whole rootball out and check it. As long as you do not unpick the root system, the stress can be tolerated.
If you are sure that inside the pot everything is okay, flush the medium with rainwater or distilled water to remove salt deposits and keep the medium evenly moist avoiding inconsistent watering. It may last some months until the roots recover.
I do not explain causal relations here, this would go too far. I mean no matter how much you give, when roots are sick, then this causes a problem in the uptake of nutrients and trace elements. A lack of trace elements in the plant tissue causes a metabolic malfunction. And a metabolic malfunction causes sick leaves, spots and black tips.
I would avoid a complete exchange of the potting medium right now unless it is inevitable. And I would make sure that there is no infection with spider mites. Mites not only suck out cells, they also inject a toxic agent.

[james mickelso]

Looks like guignardia or polysticia. Both are the same disease just different stages of the same. Better air movement, less water, and a fungal systemic spray. Remove the affected leaf (the bad one) and keep area clean. This could also be from high concentrations of salt or other dissolved solids in your water. Cymbidiums get brown leaf tips with too much fertilizer.

[GregorK]

Thank you both for your answers! I'll do my best to make things right. I will post the progress.

I will flush it with rain watter and check the roots. I think repoting is not necessary.

thanks again especially you Euplusia! I will go to the store and check for the conductivity meter.
Our water is drawn right here in the Ljubljana region, not from the Karst. But i read in one article that this water is medium hard ( 1,5-2,5 Caco3 mmol/L) and sometimes even har ( more than 2,5 mmol/L) which is not very good. but there is not much i can do. except to buy destiled water and spend a fortune on it.
I can buy it for plant or to. but not for my entire collection :S.

I wll do what i can.

Best regards
Gregor

P.S I checked again. the hardness of water is between 12-17 °N. wich means its medium hard

---------- Post added at 09:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:52 AM ----------

Oh yes. and one more thing. If i add some charcoal to the water will it help to reduce hardiness of the tap water?
( i also add some charcoal to my potting medium)

Gregor

[euplusia]

I don't think that adding charcoal or boiling the water reduces hardiness considerably.
In this board you find more threads about tap water, reverse osmosis water, water quality and related topics.

[Rowangreen]

Also, many orchids will do fine with water that's a bit hard. I live in London, which has hard water, and most of my collection are doing fine on it, though some would probably be better on purer water. Phals and Paphs in particular seem to be fine, some of them actually like it. You need to flush through with every watering though to keep it from building up.

At the moment the only plants I have that I'm watering with purified water (de-ionised water for irons etc in my case...) are some Pabstia jugosa seedlings and a pitcher plant, because I heard they were especially sensitive.

I'm thinking of getting a Cymbidiella pardalina, so I may have to add to the 'special water' list!