Disa uniflora bud

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by King_of_orchid_growing:)

Once they bloom, that's pretty much it for the plant. It will either produce offshoots or leave nothing behind. I have reason to believe this plant might produce some offshoots before it goes. There's some swelling around the crown area as if something will be emerging from there.

I tend not to accept defeat so easily with Disa. Large, flowering plants should produce a replacement tuber as well as several stolons. I do lose the occassional Disa to flowering but it’s not a normal occurrence and it’s usually my fault for overestimating whether a plant is big enough to support a flower or set seed. I hope your plant performs well but I tend to agree with Naoki that you might be pushing it a bit hard by letting it flower this season.

FWIW, the photo below was taken a few years ago at the start of the flowering season. This is pretty much shows the size and how leafy my plants are at flowering size.

[naoki]

Amazing display, Andrew!

I think that the Ph.D thesis of Disa culture (I think I posted the link at one point) pointed out several causes of sucidal flowering. Is there something you can do when the small plant prematurely start to push flower, Andrew? Do you think that cutting the bud could save it?

[Tindomul]

Originally Posted by Andrew

I tend not to accept defeat so easily with Disa. Large, flowering plants should produce a replacement tuber as well as several stolons. I do lose the occassional Disa to flowering but it’s not a normal occurrence and it’s usually my fault for overestimating whether a plant is big enough to support a flower or set seed. I hope your plant performs well but I tend to agree with Naoki that you might be pushing it a bit hard by letting it flower this season.

FWIW, the photo below was taken a few years ago at the start of the flowering season. This is pretty much shows the size and how leafy my plants are at flowering size.

wow, very nice. Great info too.

[Andrew]

I think cutting the flower stem is the simplest and most effective way of redirecting the energy it was going to expend sending up a flower into tuber and stolon growth. I’ve had a lot of small-tubered Disa flower without replacing their tubers but I don’t recall cutting a flower stem on a Disa that I didn’t think was ready to flower and still not getting a replacement tuber, even on weakly growing plants.

[naoki]

Thank you, Andrew. I'll try cutting the flower.

Are you using trays of water (the gray trays) at the bottom? I was doing daily top watering without trays, but some of them became yellowish in the center. Now with the bottom water tray + daily water (and lower TDS than before), they recovered. I'm probably going to make DIY ebb-flow for Disa.

Do you also have a tip for fungal disease control? I don't like to use chemicals too much, but I seem to need to spray some fungicide. I'm wondering if Trichoderma or EM-1 (effective microbes, which I started to use recently) type spray can help with this.

[Andrew]

Yes, they're sitting in about 1 inch of water. I use rainwater in the trays and add fertiliser until I get to around 100-150 ppm TDS. The water gets changed every week. An Ebb and Flow system has been on my 'to do' list for several years; eventually I'll get around to it.

To be honest I don't have a lot of problems with fungus. I grow my plants in a shadehouse where they get very good air circulation so that may be the reason why. In the past I used to spray prophylactically with Mancozeb Fongarid without any issue. Local growers also recommend Previcur. I suspect Trichoderma would probably work well.