Paph. 'President Fred'

[lotis146]

So for the past 1.5-2 weeks the two older growths of my Pres. Fred have turned yellow...okay they started getting yellow and brown spots, then leaves yellowing overall, and now they look to be well DONE!

Like I said these are the two oldest growths, then there's the one in flower, another that may come into spike yet this season and a new growth is developing. This "death" started after I first put it outside for about 4 days then sprayed it with insecticidal soap before bringing back inside. After several more days rain was in the forecast and i decided to put most of my lot back outside. The yellowing/browning really took a turn for the worst. Does this sometimes happen with old growths so suddenly like this, two old growths, or should I be concerned?



I thought maybe they got burnt except the yellowing/browning continued along the whole leaf but not both sides of the growths.







Now three days later the bigger leaf on one growth is almost totally brown, the other one is on its way and totally yellow. Also. the youngest leaf on the biggest old growth is more green than yellow, but the smaller leaves below this (belonging to it and other old growth) are totally yellow.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[RosieC]

It seems very sudden, but could just be the old growths dying back. Sorry, not sure.

[NYCorchidman]

Well, given the appearance, it looks like a common and normal "aging", but I've never seen two old growths dying all together on a relatively small plant.

Old growths usually stay alive for many years. Then once the plant clump up quite a bit, the oldest one start to yellow and dry up dark brown, or lose one leaf at a time.

The fact that it's the oldest two growths that are dying, but I think it could be that the insecticidal soap might have adversely affected the old growths that are weaker??

Keep watching the plant and hopefully the rest of the plant will stay green and nice.

Very nice flowers by the way!

Oh, and did you have reason to spray or was it "preventative"?
Unless you see bugs, you don't need to spray. and when you do spray, test on one leaf and wait for a few days to see if anything negative happens before spraying the whole thing just to be safe next time.

One thing I used on my paphs (because some recent purchases all came with mealy bugs) that did not harm them was 3-1 fungicide, insecticide, miticide stuff. Its main ingredient is sulfur.

[quiltergal]

It seems a little odd that the leaves started to die at the same time it went outside. If the leaves were wet from the rain and the sun came out that could cause burn. If it was too hot out that could cause heat stress. I also wonder about the insecticidal soap.

[lotis146]

Thank you all!

I considered that it was the insecticidal soap. No one else, and no other part of the plant, suffered from it but it is curious that it's the old growths. NYC I wondered the same thing since I had heard of plants getting really big I didn't think it made sense that old growths would be dying this soon on this plant. Maybe it was the soap on the leaves added to heat/sun that butchered them.

I sprayed all the plants that were outside before I brought them in because night time temp dropped to 46, and actually we'd had 50s for most of that week. Not only did I not want to bring any bugs inside but I have a Wilsonara that I found one mealy on and since they're all outside together and these two had been next to each other on the shelf inside, I thought it best to cover my butt.

I've not repotted this plant at all either since it came in bud, don't know if that matters at all.

Admittedly I sprayed them something fierce. No other plant seems to be affected by it but I guess in this case I may have learned the hard way. Seeing it today, the oldest (smallest) of the two is definitely dead, while the other still has one green leaf but it has orange-brown spotting on the underside. I'll keep an eye on it, hopefully that's the end of it...well, you know what I mean

Thanks again!

[NYCorchidman]

Wow~ that sounds like you're heading into winter! lol
It is uncomfortably hot here.

Well, as long as the label says flowering plants or rose, I assume it is ok for orchids, but testing beforehand is always a good idea.

Regarding the orange brown spotting, if they are present on the dying leaves (naturally dying due to aging), it's fine as they are dying anyways.
If they are present on the otherwise healthy leaves, you want to monitor. It is common bacterial disease on paphs.

[lotis146]

Thanks for that info. That was a while ago that we had those temps but we do have some cool evenings coming up that I'm actually looking forward to.

I'll keep an eye on this plant for sure. Does this disease show on the flowers? There is some rust looking spots on the first bloom but I thought this was because it got too much direct sun...hmm

[NYCorchidman]

It can attack leaves and flowers.
Funny thing is bruise on paphs also show up as orange brown marks. They can look similar or different. kind of hard to explain.

[lotis146]

Hm, so many different & new variables in this situation I don't expect any easy or concrete answer. Could be adapting to outside, the insecticidal soap, the sun, the age...but thank you, i'm going to keep my eye on it. The newer growths continue to look well so I'm keeping my fingers crossed maybe this was just an age related adaptational thing.

[lotis146]

Well Pres. Fred is back in action only this time it has only one bloom. Btw the oldest growth died completely meanwhile the leaves that I showed brown all died but that 2nd oldest growth still lives with one leaf. Back to the flower...

It's been over a week now I think since it opened fully and it looks very much the same except that I think the petals have more pink in them as does the dorsal this time around. I was really happy to see it spike again and only a matter of months later! Oh and this plant spent the summer outside, along with Odette's Vision and Lebaudyanum, both in bloom as I posted. (And btw my Hawaiian Illusion has a sheath/spike just peaking out from the leaves of a younger fan...)

Enjoy.