Trouble getting pals to grow roots

[j_orchids]

Julie,
Don't despair. It's normal for Phals to abort leaves as they are recovering - they use the nutrients from the leaves when they have an inadequate root system to take in nutrients. I imagine a keiki could be "used up" by the mother plant in the same way. If you share some more detailed pictures of the plants you are concerned about (under a balanced light source so we can see the true color and such) we should be able to tell you if you have anything to really worry about.

I recently had a rescue Brassavola that aborted 3 of 5 leaves before putting out new roots and starting to recover - the remaining two leaves were shriveled like raisins and beginning to yellow, but they plumped back up and turned green again - now it's putting out tons of roots and has two new leaves. My current rescue Phal aborted 3 of the seven leaves it had before seeming to stabilize. the other 4 leaves are still floppy, but have not yellowed, and it is putting out a new leaf.

~ Jon

---------- Post added at 10:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 AM ----------

also, it sounds like your humidity is in a good range (50-80% is recommended by AOS for hybrid Phals), so 90% is a bit high, but having a fan inside your small enclosure could provide too much circulation to the point that you are encouraging evaporation and drying of the orchids. Only a bit of circulation is required. Think of how anything (clothes on a line, your car after you wash it) dries quicker in a breeze - the same could be happening to your orchids.

~ Jon

[jwhitley527]

Thank you, Jon,
I will gather some pics now and upload them.

[jwhitley527]

Here are the photos guys. There are 4 different orchids here.

[j_orchids]

Thanks for the photos, Julie. I still think that the floppy leaves and yellowing are the plant using them up to survive - this would be especially true if the plant's root system has been damaged. I don't see any clear signs of disease (except for the mold you mention). Have you completely killed the mold and/or cut off any moldy parts of that one plant? If it has an active fungal infection, then it should probably be well separated from the other plants or discarded to prevent the infection from spreading to other plants.

You are providing warm steam by means of a vaporizer, correct? I have read that a cool steam humidifier should be used (though I don't know the reasoning for this). Also, If your humidity gets up to 90%, and the plants are wet/moist, especially if you have water on the leaves/crowns of the plants, then they are more susceptible to infection.

When you water them, are you making sure you are soaking them thoroughly? You should then be letting them get almost dry again before the next soaking. I literally soak my Phals in, like, a basin of water for up to an hour to make sure everything (roots and media) are fully saturated. I try to keep all water off the leaves, even when I give the aerial roots a bit of a misting.

Please don't take anything I have said as gospel - there are users of this forum who are far more expert than I. Again, it looks like you are doing everything correctly. The only one I would be concerned about would be the one with the mold.

Orchids can also "sulk" when being repotted or moved to a new environment, so I imagine it could take them a bit of time to recover from that shock, even though you have moved them into better conditions.

I hope some other forum members will chime in too, and offer more expert advice.

~ Jon

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[jwhitley527]

so I decided to hang my struggling orchids and much to my surprise 6 weeks later we have new leaves. One of them has a new root and they are happy. My mommy orchid lost her kei kei but is producing a new leaf and root.

I purchased 2 struggling oncidiums (bad dehydration) and one mini phal. I repotted mini phal in Hydroponics and one of the oncidium the same the other was divided & repotted in bark mulch and the 2 baby pseudobulbs that dell off the division had roots and I hung them to see how they do. So far they are all happy. Oh, and my Dendrobium seedling is growing healthy and happy.

[jwhitley527]

the rest of the pic update