Questions about orchid care.

[silken]

I have gone against Bil's advice before and I am going to again. In the wild Phals are not sitting propped up in pots with a crown full of water. Yes, they get rained on. But if you ever see Phals in situ, you will notice they are attached up in a tree top, mostly hanging sideways where their crowns would never fill with water. Add breezes that quickly dry and the whole trees swaying and shaking the plants off, and you can see why a Phal in your home with a crown full of water, and a Phal in the rain in its natural environment are two totally different things.

People who have done it may have been lucky, but I don't believe in encouraging fairly new growers to do it or not take care keeping the water out. It is just setting them up to have a problem with crown rot.

[bil]

Originally Posted by silken

I have gone against Bil's advice before and I am going to again. In the wild Phals are not sitting propped up in pots with a crown full of water. Yes, they get rained on. But if you ever see Phals in situ, you will notice they are attached up in a tree top, mostly hanging sideways where their crowns would never fill with water. Add breezes that quickly dry and the whole trees swaying and shaking the plants off, and you can see why a Phal in your home with a crown full of water, and a Phal in the rain in its natural environment are two totally different things.

People who have done it may have been lucky, but I don't believe in encouraging fairly new growers to do it or not take care keeping the water out. It is just setting them up to have a problem with crown rot.

Well, like I say, I am not here to fight, but to establish where the truth lies.

1. Yes, phals hang down. Most of mine do. However, some stand up, and I have tried, over and over again to fill a crown with water so that it stays there for more than a few seconds. Try it for yourself. I can't do it. They all drain out quickly.
2. We are talking about wetting. Up in the trees phals will on a nice cold morning get contact with mist. Now mist will penetrate every crevice, and completely wet the orchid, crown et al. I know this, because I cannot leave battery powered MinMax thermometers outside. If I do, the mist gets right into them and shorts out the circuits.
3. How does wetting a crown cause it to rot? I have been doing this every watering, for the last 2 years to 20 odd phals. Any idea how many crown wettings that represents? In all that time I have never lost one to crown rot. The only two I have lost from CR were ones that were chilled, and amusingly, they were watered carefully to keep the crown dry because they had been chilled.

I repeat. NO-ONE has as yet given me a sound reason why a healthy, well kept plant would get Crown rot from a wet crown.
I think by telling newcomers to the hobby that it is vital to keep the crown dry, you actually do them a disservice. That's getting them to focus on something that quite probably has no relevance at all, when they should be focussing on temp, medium and watering frequency.
You show me a crown rotted phal, and I bet I can show you that the real cause of death was cold, over watering or suffocated roots. If you showed me a crown rotted phal that had never been chilled, and had been potted correctly in large chunks of bark and nothing else, I would be pretty damn surprised.

I will say that if you water your phal with very cold water when it is in a weak state, then by all the gods, you will likely kill it.

I just think that this fuss about wetting the crown takes attention away from the important aspects of their care..
If you are going to claim that "It is just setting them up to have a problem with crown rot." then I would ask, what is the mechanism? How does wetting a healthy plant with ambient temp water do harm? I think that question has to be answered before you say I am setting them up to have that problem.

We all know damn well that leaving them in wet moss for long periods really is setting beginners up for failure, but where do people say that?

(Yes I know moss can work. In the hands of an experienced grower.) I just defy anyone to overwater or suffocate the roots of a phal that is potted in sieved, large bark. How could you do it?

[silken]

Bil, We'll have to respectfully agree to disagree I think. This discussions will serve to give newbies some food for thought and let them make their own decisions. I grow my few Phals in a warm house (sadly hubby who has no fat on him wants the house warmer than me). I have just lost one to crown rot. Not for lack of using care and tepid water either. It was one of those ones with the tight leaves that cover the media quite low and very hard to water other than soaking from the bottom. In my lazy way I occasionally watered at the top of the media, using great care. Well, the first 2 leaves yellowed and fell off recently. Then the next two and now the last two that were healthy were on such a thin crown, they snapped off, Good bye primary hybrid named Phal with nicely patterned leaves. I have a certificate in horticulture and am not a newbie orchid grower. So I will still argue in our homes or in a damp cool environment water in the crown or between leaves may cause a problem. Why invite trouble if you don't have to?

We can try but most of us can't perfectly imitate nature so we don't grow them as in nature. If we did they would all be hanging from trees. We adapt by using pots or mounts, different medias. Why not adapt our watering to what is best for the health of the plant?

[bil]

Originally Posted by silken

Bil, We'll have to respectfully agree to disagree I think. This discussions will serve to give newbies some food for thought and let them make their own decisions. I grow my few Phals in a warm house (sadly hubby who has no fat on him wants the house warmer than me). I have just lost one to crown rot. Not for lack of using care and tepid water either. It was one of those ones with the tight leaves that cover the media quite low and very hard to water other than soaking from the bottom. In my lazy way I occasionally watered at the top of the media, using great care. Well, the first 2 leaves yellowed and fell off recently. Then the next two and now the last two that were healthy were on such a thin crown, they snapped off, Good bye primary hybrid named Phal with nicely patterned leaves. I have a certificate in horticulture and am not a newbie orchid grower. So I will still argue in our homes or in a damp cool environment water in the crown or between leaves may cause a problem. Why invite trouble if you don't have to?

We can try but most of us can't perfectly imitate nature so we don't grow them as in nature. If we did they would all be hanging from trees. We adapt by using pots or mounts, different medias. Why not adapt our watering to what is best for the health of the plant?

Oh I have no problem with someone disagreeing. A question tho. Your phal that went down with crown rot. You were watering that with great care, clearly, so we can rule out wetting the crown as the source of the problem. What was it potted in please?

Also "So I will still argue in our homes or in a damp cool environment water in the crown or between leaves may cause a problem."
But your home is warm, so temp wasn't a problem surely?

[silken]

Temperature was for sure not an issue. 70 to 72F at all times.

I was using care but not enough. Because the leaves were very close and tight, water did get in and couldn't dry quickly enough. I should have watered it from the bottom only. It is potted in a mix of moss and bark in a well draining clear pot and condition of roots is excellent. Each leaf seemed to rot in the crotch of it and left a very thin amount only of healthy stem material in the inner core of the stem. It couldn't support the two remaining healthy leaves and snapped right off. Maybe if I hadn't ever moved it, it wouldn't have snapped, and managed to recover. But eventually I had to move to water it, dust the table, etc,etc. i do blame trapped moisture in what was a very healthy looking plant for its demise.

[bil]

Originally Posted by silken

Temperature was for sure not an issue. 70 to 72F at all times.

I was using care but not enough. Because the leaves were very close and tight, water did get in and couldn't dry quickly enough. I should have watered it from the bottom only. It is potted in a mix of moss and bark in a well draining clear pot and condition of roots is excellent. Each leaf seemed to rot in the crotch of it and left a very thin amount only of healthy stem material in the inner core of the stem. It couldn't support the two remaining healthy leaves and snapped right off. Maybe if I hadn't ever moved it, it wouldn't have snapped, and managed to recover. But eventually I had to move to water it, dust the table, etc,etc. i do blame trapped moisture in what was a very healthy looking plant for its demise.

Sadly, a lot of plants look healthy right up to the point where all the wheels fall off.

Moss and bark? I assume that the roots could breathe well, because you aren't a beginner. You KNOW my opinion of moss with phals. I regard it as a step too far. Not quite as bad as eating people, but perilously close.
Why do you use moss?

I would refer you back in the nicest possible way to what I said before. "If you showed me a crown rotted phal that had never been chilled, and had been potted correctly in large chunks of bark and nothing else, I would be pretty damn surprised."

There are a number of ways that fungus can gain entry, but it always relies on there being a point of entry thru damage. A torn leaf at the base, a wounded leaf, a cut spike or tissue breakdown from overheating or chilling, or a damaged root.
The best defense against fungal attack is a healthy plant.
Of course, we keep coming back to the same point, which is, how does wetting with ambient temp water cause fungus to gain entry?
Now on some of the thin leaved orchids, letting water get into the sheaths of the pbulb will initiate rot. I've had that happen with an Odontoglossum I had. Now I don't know whether it was a combination of heat stress and opportunity that allowed the fungus to take root. I was a little tardy in getting it outside after the winter. I haven't noticed a similar problem since. Again, that to me points to a stressor. I just don't think it 's a problem for an unstressed phal.




---------- Post added at 06:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:11 AM ----------

Of course, where no one can pronounce absolutely on the subject, we have to turn to science. I have been running the experiment for two years now with over 20 phals. Every time they get watered I maliciously wash the leaves down and fill the crown with water. I haven't had a case of crown rot yet except for two cases where the plant was chilled, and had the crown kept religiously dry.

If you have phals outside, and don't dry them after rain or mist, you too are taking part in the experiment.

For these reasons, I do not see wetting the crown with ambient temp water at the beginning of the day as a risk factor.

Now, if anyone is interested in all this, I would urge you to purchase a cheap NOID phal, pot it up in a decent sized pot so the roots can spread out, and pot it in 2" bark chunks. Don't bother soaking it but wash it if it is dirty. Doesn't matter if the pot is big. I've done this in pots 14 inches in diameter, and more than 14" deep.
Give it two days for any broken roots to heal (don't cut any off when you repot,) and after two days water away, filling the crown and not caring.

I appreciate that being a newcomer is daunting. You don't KNOW which is the way to go, and you worry that working outside the box will be risky. I was lucky. When I started off with phals, I was advised by someone who very emphatically told me you put them in large bark and nothing else.

[Orchids4ever]

Okay now i would like to chime in about growing Orchids in Spag.I have been growing them for 10 Years now and from Day one i have grown my Phals in spag.
No problems ever growing them this way,i think everyone has to find there own way to grow them in there growing conditions .Nobody should tell someone else not to grow in spag- that it doesn't work-it works perfectly for me -you just need to learn how to water them correctly in what ever you pot them up in--you can even grow them in rocks if that what you like.I was repotting one this morning -so i took a picture to show that ,yes you can grow in spag.




Also ,if you grow in a Home -normal People temperatures -and you get water in the crown- they do rot--i found that out when i lost one years ago.If you grow where its always nice and warm and windy-you have a better chance of not rotting them.