Root life cycle.

[bil]

Originally Posted by tarev

I think it is the time of the year when you buy them. They grow in seasons, so if you chanced upon getting them in their active growing season, then you will see the happy new roots forming. Though it also depends on the type of care and culture given to it by the grower, so the older roots will be okay too, but as mentioned already, those old roots will eventually go out and be replaced by newer roots if it is getting its growing culture right.

"Though it also depends on the type of care and culture given to it by the grower"

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I accept the 'buy to die' market will always tend to have roots that are cramped and damaged at the ends, but my Catts were from orchid sellers and not run of the mill garden centres.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

If you are speaking of roots on most epiphytic orchids, I think a lot of what has mentioned holds true in one way or another.

In terms of terrestrial orchids that grow underground storage organs such as underground pseudobulbs or tuberoids, I would say that the term life cycle is pretty accurate. For these orchids, the life cycle of the roots are dependent on the life cycle of the entire plant itself and the environment they grow in. Life cycle in this case is very accurate, because there is a definite pattern, (that is sometimes finite), to root growth, development, and eventual death.

Regarding your question about the quality of roots on orchids that have been purchased through "professional" growers. I would have to say that it depends on the company's protocols and workers of the nursery as well as the orchids themselves. Nurseries are in charge of hundreds or thousands of plants of many different kinds. Not every single one of them gets the necessary care they need to thrive. Sometimes, this comes at the price of losing roots on certain types of orchids. Nurseries can sometimes take some small amount of losses. A few things do fall between the cracks.

Hobbyists are a different matter entirely. Individual/private growers can afford to give the orchids in their collections the care they need to thrive. For hobby growers, it is not a concern of getting as many orchids as you can to turn a profit, it is about getting the orchid to a good state of health so that it can thrive and hopefully produce the flowers we like to see and enjoy.

I'm not trying to give nurseries wiggle room to make the excuse of treating their orchids like garbage, but it is not always realistic to expect perfection from a nursery - especially when the market demands they sell their orchids for as low a price as possible while turning a profit to continue on with the number of employees they can afford to hire and/or keep. With nurseries, it is not only about the cost of the stock and covering for the cost of stock that didn't live, (aka loss of livestock/dead plants), it is also about overhead - such as paying an electricity bill, a water bill, employees, buying materials, etc. Running a nursery is still running a business.

Sometimes, (not all the time, and not frequently either), these "professional growers" don't always know what they're doing; particularly if they're dealing with a plant they're not used to dealing with, or if the plant is an oddball of sorts. This can cause root quality to suffer as well.

Your questions are definitely not stupid. They are just very broad, and can be difficult to answer properly in a short post or thread. There's a lot to factor in, and there is the issue of context to understand the situation(s) with.

[Optimist]

Thank you for asking. Not dumb at all. OW has pretty much described it. I have had trouble getting monopodial roots to grow. I found it much easier to get a dendrobium or a catleys or even an oncidium. My take on this is that there are optimum times in the growing cycle for the plants to put out roots. The older dead roots still have the job of anchoring the plant. For an epiphytic plant, hanging onto that tree branch is life or death. The ability to provide your own habitat is also. The dried roots may not mean much to us people, but in the wild, they are important to the orchid. So now, after listening to both sides, I do not cut old roots off. I even did an experiment that I hope someone trys to reproduce here. I took two similar sized rescue phals. On one, I left the old roots, on the other, I chopped the old roots off. The phal with the roots left on has new roots between two inches and three now. The phal with the roots cut off has a half inch root and a quarter inch root. I think keeping the old roots on has some benefit, though, possibly more of a mechanical zone of growth, and I would like to propose, a shock absorber system as well.

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[bil]

Thanks for two excellent answers. Much appreciated.