Bud Watch - purpuratum!

[NYCorchidman]

How do you know if your plants are having malnutrition issues?
I mean I know a few basic symtoms plants when certain elements are missing.

I am having a big trouble with one paph. It is my favorite super dark and glossy vini bought two years ago.
It has nice thick waxy leaves too. overall, small plant. so it is a good plant to have indoor.
It is a very slow grower.

It only made one new fan since I bought it, and almost all the leaves develop this brown patch. I would trim the leaves off. now it is making one more new leaf. I am vey excited about it, but one of the older leaves on this new fan (there are only two small leaves that are not trimmed off) is showing the dreaded brown patch. I am so frustrated!!!!

My stone lovely&spicerianum hybrid had one of its new fans all spotted. I sprayed sulfur based stuff. It didn't seem to work, the spots spread, but after a couple more application, it has finally stopped getting worse and I had already chopped off all the spotted portion of the leaves.

[The Mutant]

Almost all of them are considerably paler as compared to when I got them. They've also lost more leaves than they've gained, so they have shrunk as well.

One of the roth babies have turned almost completely yellow.

One of the issues was that I had my multis too close to the T5, but I raised it about a month ago, so that shouldn't be a problem any longer. It doesn't explain why the sigmatopetalums and my oldest parvisepalum, should suffer the same symptoms though, so it's something nutritional as well.

I'm trying out different things now though, and first out is adding epsom salts to the water with every watering. Next step is to give them a 25-10-10 fertilizer. I hope this will save them, otherwise I'll lose most of my collection...

It's sad to hear about your priced Paph that you're trying to save. I wish I could help you, but I think you're doing what you can already. If it is the same thing as my friend was having trouble with, all I can say is; don't spray the plants. It seems to spread that way, and it likes high humidity.

[NYCorchidman]

The brown patch of the leaves are something that bothers me the most about paphs.
I lost one to a similar disaster last year.
but the difference is that the one I lost last year, it was completely consumed by the browning stuff, whatever it was. I believe bacterial rot.

The brown patch that keeps showing up on my vini is different. It shows up a while after a leaf develops. very slowly. then I would trim the affected leaf off.

I have three complex paphs that are doing the same thing. oh, well...

I hope the change you are making will make a difference to your plants.
Why don't these little darn things just stay healthy for us! lol

[Discus]

Did you check your water quality as well? Some water can be quite unpleasant for plants (whilst still being "acceptable" for humans). It might be worth trying some distilled or reverse osmosis (or rain) water for a while? I think people are experiencing growing problems with chloramines in water too; they're quite hard to eliminate. Apparently more delicate plants hate the stuff.

---------- Post added at 11:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 AM ----------

According to this, Sweden "occasionally" uses chloramines EU drinking water disinfection regulation
But this may be a regional thing as the water industry in sweden seems to be very fragmented (in that virtually every municipality does their own thing) http://www.svensktvatten.se/Document...English%29.pdf

---------- Post added at 11:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 AM ----------

There is little info online about chloramines and orchids; Do chloramines hurt orchids? » slipperorchidblog.com
seems to summarise it quite well. African violets seem to object vehemently.

---------- Post added at 11:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:48 AM ----------

There's a thread that discusses it here too chloramine...

[The Mutant]

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

The brown patch of the leaves are something that bothers me the most about paphs.
I lost one to a similar disaster last year.
but the difference is that the one I lost last year, it was completely consumed by the browning stuff, whatever it was. I believe bacterial rot.

The brown patch that keeps showing up on my vini is different. It shows up a while after a leaf develops. very slowly. then I would trim the affected leaf off.

I have three complex paphs that are doing the same thing. oh, well...

I hope the change you are making will make a difference to your plants.
Why don't these little darn things just stay healthy for us! lol

The one you lost sounds like it could've been brown rot. It's really fast and can kill a plant in a matter of days after the first appearance.

Yup that definitely sounds like what my friends' Phals had. She managed to get it under control, but it might pop up again. So far, so good though.

They like to be bothersome I think. We should use the compost heaps more often. You know, just take the Paph in question to the heap, show the heap to it, and take it back inside again. For motivational purposes.

Originally Posted by Discus

Did you check your water quality as well? Some water can be quite unpleasant for plants (whilst still being "acceptable" for humans). It might be worth trying some distilled or reverse osmosis (or rain) water for a while? I think people are experiencing growing problems with chloramines in water too; they're quite hard to eliminate. Apparently more delicate plants hate the stuff.

---------- Post added at 11:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 AM ----------

According to this, Sweden "occasionally" uses chloramines EU drinking water disinfection regulation
But this may be a regional thing as the water industry in sweden seems to be very fragmented (in that virtually every municipality does their own thing) http://www.svensktvatten.se/Document...English%29.pdf

---------- Post added at 11:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 AM ----------

There is little info online about chloramines and orchids; Do chloramines hurt orchids? » slipperorchidblog.com
seems to summarise it quite well. African violets seem to object vehemently.

---------- Post added at 11:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:48 AM ----------

There's a thread that discusses it here too chloramine...

Hahaha! Did I check my water?!

Sorry, it's just that I've checked and repeated the same numbers sooo many times on Slippertalk now, that I'm practically dreaming about water.

The tap water in my municipal doesn't contain any chloramines. We have soft water (2.6-2.8 dH), with a pretty high pH 7.9-8.6, and the conductivity is 15-16 mS/m. I've started to mix it with RO water though, about 50/50, to try and mimic rainwater. I might have to dilute it some more though, I'm waiting for the conductivity/pH meter I ordered so I can check more thoroughly what happens in the pots.

[Discus]

Originally Posted by The Mutant

Hahaha! Did I check my water?!

It's quite easy to get obsessed with this topic... as I know only too well (water).

A fellow member of my Orchid Society has tapwater with a pH in excess of 9! She doesn't grow anything particularly fussy though. Some other growers there use acids (notably phosphoric) to bring the pH in line with more sane levels.

If you use a "complete" (rain/RO formulated) fertiliser, you can easily go 100% RO (assuming you're happy to buy that much RO water, or you have an RO unit).

Is that mS/meter or mS/centimeter? And is it definitely milli (m) rather than micro (μ)?

That seems quite high [I'm struggling to find a conversion between /m and /cm; I guess it's a factor of 100, but it may not be] (bearing in mind I cater my watering/fertigation towards the kind of plants that tend to freak out >50-100μS/cm; paphs are generally tougher (~400μS/cm) than that).

Interesting discussion. My multies ( sanderianum, PEoY, Lady Isabel, St.Swithin and Delrosi)are getting yellowish too and I was pretty sure it is from the high light levels.
I am using MSU ferts. What do the epsom salts do?
Thanks.
PS. it is a gorgeous purpuratum with bud Mutant you have. Sadly I lost mine to mites, so I will wait for your bloom to enjoy the view.

[Discus]

Epsom salts = magnesium sulphate. It boosts Magnesium. Your MSU should have sufficient Mg in it*, but sometimes a person likes to supplement a particular thing.

*assuming you're using the rainwater one with rainwater or RO; the "well water" formulation may not have enough if your source water is lacking.

[The Mutant]

Originally Posted by Discus

It's quite easy to get obsessed with this topic... as I know only too well (water).

A fellow member of my Orchid Society has tapwater with a pH in excess of 9! She doesn't grow anything particularly fussy though. Some other growers there use acids (notably phosphoric) to bring the pH in line with more sane levels.

If you use a "complete" (rain/RO formulated) fertiliser, you can easily go 100% RO (assuming you're happy to buy that much RO water, or you have an RO unit).

Is that mS/meter or mS/centimeter? And is it definitely milli (m) rather than micro (μ)?

That seems quite high [I'm struggling to find a conversion between /m and /cm; I guess it's a factor of 100, but it may not be] (bearing in mind I cater my watering/fertigation towards the kind of plants that tend to freak out >50-100μS/cm; paphs are generally tougher (~400μS/cm) than that).

I've used K-lite for about a year now, and I don't know why they are suffering from nutrient deficiencies (plus idiotic owner). In other words, I'm a bit reluctant to switch to RO completely. Maybe using tap water and K-lite could have caused a urea/ammonia deficiency? Too much Ca and Mg mayhaps?

It's meter and mili. I don't know if it's high or not, the limit for drinkable water is 250 mS/m according to the Swedish National Food Administration.

But well, I'm giving them some extra Mg now, and if that doesn't work, I'm going to try a 25-10-10 fertilizer.

It's just hard to see them grow so pale, and to realize it so late in the game. I hope I'm not too late.

EDIT:
I forgot, I used some sort of "poor-man's-RO" for about half a year; Dafi. I used one of these filtering pitchers to filtrate the water, so not straight tap water.

Now I have an osmosis filter, so I can make my own RO water. This is very recent though, so it's nothing that has contributed in any way to the deterioration to the plants.

Originally Posted by orchideya

Interesting discussion. My multies ( sanderianum, PEoY, Lady Isabel, St.Swithin and Delrosi)are getting yellowish too and I was pretty sure it is from the high light levels.
I am using MSU ferts. What do the epsom salts do?
Thanks.
PS. it is a gorgeous purpuratum with bud Mutant you have. Sadly I lost mine to mites, so I will wait for your bloom to enjoy the view.

Some of the multis did get too much light, but I have others showing the same symptoms (though not to the same degree), but they are being kept under Phal light, so there at least the light isn't contributing to the problem.

It's really nice, and I'm glad it hasn't lost any colour at least. It seems to be pretty happy with life at the moment.

[Discus]

Originally Posted by The Mutant

EDIT:
I forgot, I used some sort of "poor-man's-RO" for about half a year; Dafi. I used one of these filtering pitchers to filtrate the water, so not straight tap water.

EEK. Those use ion exchange resins. The more common types tend to throw out sodium (Na) for Mg and Ca (so they help with limescale in your kettle, but helpfully remove plant nutrients (calcium and magnesium) and add plant toxins (Sodium, at least when there's too much of it). Some ion exchange resins throw out H+ (aka acid) but these are less common. Just like domestic water softeners, I would not recommend using water from those (or similar Brita filters).

The only obvious deficiency you'd expect K-lite to lead to would be... K (potassium); Potassium deficiency (plants) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia but that doesn't sound like yours at all. Indeed, none of the common deficiency symptoms (http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az...es/Module9.pdf) sound quite like yours, so I guess something else might be happening? That said, I'm also not aware of anyone saying "ZOMG potassium deficiency!!!! in my plant" after using K-lite. There was quite a heated debated in a recent thread on K-lite after a recent article on the idea in Orchids... (this one I think)

It is well worth establishing whether you have a "pure" or "well" water formulation (if K-lite comes in those varieties). Certainly, the K-lite FirstRays sell has more than enough Ca and Mg for "pure" water anyway, and I doubt it's easy to overdose on Ca and Mg, particularly as you now have an RO unit.