Phalaenopsis stem rot progression

[aliceinwl]

A few months ago I bought a NOID that looks and smells identical to Jiaho Ho Summer Love at Home Depot. It was a crispy critter in moss with 4 leaves and a huge spike. The leaves, however, were very yellow. I watered it and repotted into bark and discovered it actually had fantastic roots. The upper two leaves gradually greened up a bit, the lower two continued to yellow until they both dropped (probably a month or so after the repot).

This was unusual so I carefully peeled off the basal sheaths of the leaves that had dropped and discovered that the stem looks to be completely rotted. Based on the improvement of the upper two leaves there must still be some connection to the roots. The rotted area is dry and does not seem to be progressing, the roots are still in fantastic shape.

I’m curious what Phals in this shape typically do. A basal keiki seems like a good bet since the roots are so healthy? Will this condition increase the chance of a keiki off the old spike? I was going to cut it off, but if a keiki is likely I’ll leave it on.

In the attached photo, the plant was just watered, hence the wet bark. It looks over potted, but I had to use that pot in order to fit all of the roots.

[Bill U.]

It looks like you might be safe from the progression of the stem rot if the area that was affected seems dry. I personally would either lightly dust it with some cinnamon powder or spray it with a fungicide to be sure. From what I can see with your leaves, it seems to be surviving the rot pretty well. I don't think that this is going to cause it to keiki either on the stem or basally. If it were my phal, I would cut off the spike, treat (as described above), give it some Kelpmax to promote root growth, and then move it into a humid environment to help encourage more root production. I have found that phals from HD tend to get this basal leaf rot because when the plants are in the store and someone waters them, they get watered from above. The problem is that after this watering, the leaf axils are not able to dry out with those plastic sheaths surrounding them= prime conditions for rot.

[aliceinwl]

I decided to kind of let nature take its course. The spike eventually turned brown and dried up and it lost another leaf. But, it’s pushing a new leaf from the crown now and there is a bud near the base of its remaining leaf that may be the start of a keiki. There are also two new buds at the base of the plant where the roots are that also may be keikis. The buds have pointed tips which has me thinking they’re not roots, but I’ve been wrong before.