Is this root rot or a bacterial infection or bugs or all three? - Page 9 - Orchid Board

SouthPark · #81 08-04-2020, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elaerna

I just feel like I keep doing something wrong but I don't know what I did. It seems like it's slowly getting worse.

elaerna - the orchid may have been recovering before your trip. But when you went away for 3 days, it's possible that the orchid just didn't receive the amount of water it needs to grow properly. It got dehydrated.

At the moment - the conditions still appears to be recoverable. So for now, just provide the orchid with a nice warm environment, and provide some gentle air-movement ----- gentle air-flow, medium lighting conditions, no direct sun ----- and water as you did before your trip.

And skim through the messages within this same thread - as that information can really help you with maintaining very long term good health for your orchids.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roberta

You're at the stage where you want to observe, and learn. What you don't want to do is "try this" for a couple of days and then "try that" for a couple of days. Orchids just don't respond that fast to any treatment. Don't focus too much on the leaves... what you really want to see is new roots - which can take some considerable time to appear, but if the plant "chooses to survive" it will get some. New roots are the efficient ones. Orchids have several strategies for survival, and one is that if it loses the main growth, it can produce a new one at the base of the plant below current leaves. Again, not fast, and not always. But as long as you have green, there's hope!

Well said Roberta! I couldn't have said that any better myself. Well - I could have, but ....... (no --- only joking hahaha).

Actually - what Roberta mentioned is excellent. A nice steady approach will be to provide nice growing conditions/environment, and stay with a fairly regular plan - and monitor the situation.

Keep us posted elaerna! We want to see this one grow and make it!

elaerna · #82 08-04-2020, 04:48 PM

Yes, I haven't been really doing anything too different. Watering down the sides of the pot and checking it with skewers every day. Usually that ends up being every 2 or 3 days I had hoped that one more day wouldn't cause too much of an issue but apparently that wasn't the case.

I thought about bringing it with me on my trip but I didn't want to confuse it by changing everything all of a sudden. Thank you for all the advice.

SouthPark · #83 08-04-2020, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elaerna

Yes, I haven't been really doing anything too different. Watering down the sides of the pot and checking it with skewers every day. Usually that ends up being every 2 or 3 days I had hoped that one more day wouldn't cause too much of an issue but apparently that wasn't the case.

Sounds good elaerna. When you were away - was the orchid indoors? And were the conditions the same as when you were there?

That is - was anybody still occupying the house - as in window still open, temperatures around the same as when you're there, lighting conditions, humidity etc?

When watering down the sides - it's generally ok to water every day (quite nice). You don't necessarily have to water every day though. It just depends on how quickly the media dries out in your growing area. Once you have your watering schedule nice and workable (and the other quantities nice ---- light, temperature, etc) ----- the orchid is expected to do well. We know already in advance that you're going to be a good orchid grower. We all started somewhere and were once beginners - and we are all still students of orchid growing - always learning new things.

elaerna · #84 08-04-2020, 05:41 PM

I moved it from an east facing window to a west facing window. I live in a collection of townhomes so I don't really think that the lighting should have been too different since our building is surrounded by a lot of other tall buildings. I only moved it because the other window directly faces another house and I would have to had kept the blinds open all day while I was gone.

It was indoors as it always was and I kept the temperature around 85 which is how it normally is. No one else was in the house. There were no blinds on the windows but the windows were closed.

I wonder if I should get some sort of lamp? Then I could move it to the first floor which is better temperature controlled but has less lighting.

SouthPark · #85 08-04-2020, 06:38 PM

Elaerna -- thanks for describing the conditions for the time when you were away. Those previous questions asked were only to determine if any particular requirements for healthy growing were compromised.

For example - if the orchid was doing ok with your schedule before the trip, but its condition wasn't good when you returned from the trip, then just think of what changes could have caused the down-turn in leaf health ---- such as whether the closed windows could have led to uncomfortable high temperature in the home. And closed windows might mean no air-movement (leading to possibilities for unwanted activity like organisms growing on leaves and/or roots/media etc.

And whether the temperature at the other window - at some times of the day might have been too warm ....... things like that.

Also - regarding a lamp. Whether one is needed or not depends on how much light this orchid actually receives during the day. Eg - how intense is the light, and for how long during the day does the orchid receive that light.

Phalaenopsis orchids can grow well and do quite well with lighting levels significantly less than say what a lot of cattleya orchids and lots of other orchids need. It just depends on what amount of light there on the first floor.

elaerna · #86 08-04-2020, 07:02 PM

Hmm I am not sure if the window blind being closed would make it hotter, but I left the air conditioning on and it was set to 83 so it shouldn't have gotten much hotter than that. The second floor gets a mixture of direct and indirect sunlight while the first floor only gets indirect sunlight.

That's why I was thinking about moving it to the first floor, I was wondering if it might be too hot for the orchid even with the air conditioning. I'd say both floors get sunlight all day from sunrise to sunset but I'm not sure how to quantify how intense the sunlight is other than indirect vs direct.

Where the orchid is now on the second floor I try to set it a couple feet from the window so that the direct sunlight doesn't touch the orchid.

SouthPark · #87 08-04-2020, 07:13 PM

The second floor conditions sound workable elaerna. Good idea too - about moving the plant back a couple of feet. This will cut down on chances of intense light heating the orchid up too much. And maybe even heat coming off the windows from over-heating leaves ----- if it can happen that is.

Roberta · #88 08-04-2020, 07:14 PM

Phalaenopsis orchids like warmth. It is unlikely that it got too hot f rom ambient temperatures. Direct sunlight can cause hot spots that burn leaves, but I don't think that is your problem... what you have is long-term dehydration from a combination of bad roots and not enough water. As I recall, you have a good root that is mostly outside the pot (which is fine... misting works great for keeping aerial roots hydrated... but must be done frequently, since the water evaporates) A/C tends lower the humidity - which is a problem for a plant that is trying to hang on to water however it can. With fresh medium, I don't think that overwatering is likely to be a problem... the open mix allows air to get into the root zone, which is what you're trying to do. And as the medium dries, it pulls in more air. The goal is not "wet", it is "humid air" around roots.

elaerna · #89 08-04-2020, 07:32 PM

Yes I think in the last couple weeks I started misting the aerial roots daily so I'll keep doing that. I agree it seems like the main issue seems to be underwatering since the leaf got droopy and wrinkly. Thank you.

SouthPark · #90 08-04-2020, 08:07 PM

Misting is certainly a technique of keeping things moist and/or humidity levels up ----- best carried out by machines and automated.

It's possible that the manual method can get a bit tedious or just impractical after a while.

If the indoors area does get really low humidity due to air-con, then you could just try skipping the manual misting (indoors) and see what happens if you water the media as usual. Just keep watching the orchid each morning to check on the condition of it.

If there are roots or enough roots in the media section, then the plant will get the water from that section - or even grow some more roots there.

But if you find manual misting effective and don't mind it ----- then that's ok too! Whatever works and you're ok with it - is good.