Is this root rot or a bacterial infection or bugs or all three?

[elaerna]

Orchid yellow leaves and spots - Album on Imgur

The photos are attached as well as at this imgur link. I recently retrieved a plant from my friend's home and brought it back with me. The day after I brought it home I discovered a yellowing leaf and the second leaf was beginning to yellow. I took it out of the potting medium and discovered that although most of the medium was bark, there was sphagnum in the middle that was very very damp and there were rotted roots. I removed the rotted roots by pulling off the squishy parts but leaving the center of the actual roots and then treated the roots with hydrogen peroxide. I then washed with water and repotted in bark.

The following day, today, I have found that the yellowing has progressed on those initial two leaves (expected) but now I see yellowing beginning at the ends of 2 new leaves. I don't know if I didn't do the right thing or that this may be a bacterial infection and not root rot?

I have attached photos of the leaves they have some small spots on a couple of them. I tried wiping them away with alcohol and a q tip but they will not wipe, they are part of the leaf and hard. I haven't seen any bugs and none of the other orchids that were next to this plant for a day seem to be infected.

Can anyone give any advice? Should I cut off the yellow parts?

I gave the plant 2 cubes of ice when I brought it home and washed the roots with water after the hydrogen peroxide wash but otherwise haven't given it much water really so hopefully I am not overwatering it. There are 6 leaves in total, 5 of them were shriveled like they had been underwatered when I received it but there is a 6th new leaf that does not look shriveled. So far it seems that 4/6 leaves are not in different stages of yellowing. Please help, thank you.

[DrDawn]

Ok, I've got a bunch of thoughts here, let me see if I can organize them...

(1) Good job checking the media and finding the sphagnum! The rotting roots were definitely a huge issue.
(2) Many on this board do not recommend treating with hydrogen peroxide since it can damage the roots. So unless you know exactly what problem you're treating, don't start putting on treatments that will harm the plant more than they help.
(3) why are you watering with ice cubes? Generally you should water with room temperature water or slightly warm water (similar to the conditions that the plant would get if it was outside). You should water throughly so that lots of water drains out the bottom of the pot. (There's a bunch of posts in the Phalaenopsis part of this board if you're new to Phals on care and watering).
(4) I think the yellowing leaves might be a result of the dying roots. There are maybe a few tiny bits of scale? But not nearly enough to cause that sort of damage.

Pictures of the roots would actually be way more helpful, so in the future if you repot a sick orchid, be sure to take lots of pictures of the roots so that we can help diagnose it! Leaf death can be caused by issues with the leaves or issues with the roots, so it is helpful to be able to inspect both!

Take care and good luck! Feel free to ask more questions!

[elaerna]

2) I did not know this. I've been watching youtube videos by miss orchid girl and she often recommends treating with hydrogen peroxide. Is it generally recommended on this sub not to take her advice? She also advises use of cinnamon to keep the crown dry and such.
3) I got this orchid from a friend who was watering w/ ice cubes. I know it's generally not recommended and for my orchids I typically use tap water but I didn't want to change everything for the orchid too much since I was moving it to a whole new location so I just watered it once with ice cubes.

I took this orchid just now to an orchid nursery and the person there who grows the orchids told me what you said that the roots weren't doing well. I've put some pictures here Imgur: The magic of the Internet. He said all the roots except for the top one were bad. And then he cut off a few of the leaves and said that they were a waste of energy for the plant and to cut off the remaining yellowing leaves when they became very yellow and focus on the one new leaf.

He cut the leaves off with an unsanitized pair of scissors and rough handled some of the roots now there are cracks in them. I was wondering is there anything I should do about the open ends of the leaves now? I don't want them to get infected.

As for the small spots he said those were just nature's blemishes and not to worry about them that they weren't any bugs or infections.

edit// he also said to water once every 2-3 weeks by pouring water over the roots once from a cup and not to soak or ice cube or anything else. And also that I should fertilize once a month with 20-14-13 orchid plus better gro. If you have any additional insight or this seems wrong please let me know.

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by elaerna

edit// he also said to water once every 2-3 weeks by pouring water over the roots once from a cup and not to soak or ice cube or anything else. And also that I should fertilize once a month with 20-14-13 orchid plus better gro. If you have any additional insight or this seems wrong please let me know.

Hi there elaerna. The watering rate is probably more like water 2 to 3 times in 1 week. (ie. not 2 to 3 weeks between each time you water the orchid).

Also, these following details could become helpful to you later regarding roots needing enough oxygen to survive : Click Here and Click Here and Click Here and Click Here

Good luck and all the best!!

[elaerna]

2 to 3 times in 1 week is way more often than anything I've seen so far. I have my orchid in bark with some very little sphagnum mixed in and I will water by pouring water over the plant (but not getting any in the crown). Do you have any sources for watering 2-3 times a week?

Everything I have seen is usually every 1-1.5 weeks so 2 weeks sounds way more reasonable to me than 2-3 times in 1 week. Especially since there were a lot of rotted roots on this plant. I just want to see some sources on why you're recommending this?

[DrDawn]

Miss Orchid Girl's videos vary significantly in quality over the years she has been making them. When she started out she gave a lot of advice that most seasoned orchid growers disagree with, and over time she has changed many of her opinions but not edited or noted these changes on her videos. (For example, you can find videos of her talking about only using plastic pots, talking about how terracotta pots are the best, and talking about how bad terracotta pots are. If you only watched one, you might miss what her latest advice is, or how different it can be for different environments.)

We've got many more opinions, and can give advice based on your specific growing situation (humidity, temps, environment, etc).

Definitely stop watering with the ice cubes. It is contributing to the problem. Dousing the roots with fresh water (tap or otherwise) brings fresh air to the roots. Slowly melting ice cubes don't do that so the roots will be unhappy. (Roots need water and air to grow.)

The root pictures you shared don't look too terrible! There's lots of green roots in there. Its ok if a few got cracked (not the best, but not terrible, happens to me when I repot and that's fine).

I agree that letting the plant focus on roots and not yellow leaves is reasonable. I generally don't put cinnamon on them because I wait for them to fall off instead of cutting, but others do and it works well!

So, now to the questions of how to get this plant back to healthy! How are you potting it up? What media are you using? Watering once every 2-3 weeks seems very infrequent - what conditions are you growing in? Indoors/outdoors/greenhouse? For example, I grow all my orchids indoors. My phals are all in sphagnum (which holds a lot of moisture) and I water them once they are dry. I find that is about once a week in the summer and often 2x/week in the winter. (Living in Boston, MA means lots of dry indoor air when the heat is on in the winter.)

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by elaerna

2 to 3 times in 1 week is way more often than anything I've seen so far. I have my orchid in bark with some very little sphagnum mixed in and I will water by pouring water over the plant (but not getting any in the crown). Do you have any sources for watering 2-3 times a week?

elaerna ------ the actual rate will depend on your growing conditions (environment, media, temperature, humidity etc).

During times when it's cold and not much evaporation is going on, maybe it will come down to more time between watering during those particular times.

I don't know much about this particular site here ------ so could read through that a little bit. Click Here.

[DrDawn]

Originally Posted by elaerna

Everything I have seen is usually every 1-1.5 weeks so 2 weeks sounds way more reasonable to me than 2-3 times in 1 week. Especially since there were a lot of rotted roots on this plant. I just want to see some sources on why you're recommending this?

The American Orchid Society has a lot of great resources, including culture sheets for various orchids. As we explained, watering rates can vary but the orchid should be watered only when needed. The AOS notes that watering for Phalaenopsis can be anywhere between every-other-day and once every 10 days, depending on conditions and environment.

What environment are you growing in? That can give us some clues into how quickly it might dry out.

[SouthPark]

Elaerna ------ I was mainly meaning that the 2 to 3 weeks (between watering) thing could be considered as either extreme, or maybe erroneous.

2 to 3 times a week (which I was thinking it should be) must be clarified here - where I just assume myself that the pot is relatively shallow and very free draining (with suitable size and number of drainage holes - this is just assuming regular plastic pot with holes at the bottom of it, and media is suitable size bark pieces). Whether indoor or outdoor --- I recommend having the state of the bark and roots be just moist ----- relatively soon after water drains out of the pot, avoiding quite wet bark and roots for relatively long amounts of time.

So --- in general, the rate of watering - or just when we water - should depend on rough knowledge about the state of the roots and media in the pot. This will be down to observations and/or experience.

Also - this doesn't mean that those orchids will never be able to handle overly wet bark for relatively long periods of time. For cases where the roots eventually grow into relatively wet regions of the bark (such as purposely making the bark really wet toward the sides of the pot --- roots that eventually grow out into those regions may become adapted and used to that sort of condition).

[elaerna]

Yes now that you mention it I'm finding a lot of similar comments about Miss Orchid Girl's videos. I'm glad I joined this forum, thank you so much for being so helpful!

I only watered with ice cubes once 2 days ago and will definitely stop now. I had no idea they needed air and water.

I added more photos here Orchid yellow leaves and spots - Album on Imgur which show how I repotted this orchid. It is currently in a ceramic pot that's supposed to be decorative but my friend had drilled 4 drainage holes at the bottom (also pictured at this link). The pot is about 5" wide in diameter I'm not sure if that is too snug or not snug enough? I haven't been able to find great local options for orchid pots with more drainage holes so am looking online and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I started by filling the pot with the bark mixture pictured in the photos as well. Then I added a little bit of sphagnum throughout. The amount you see at the top of the pot is probably about half the sphagnum that I added total. Is this too much sphagnum, too little, should I take it out altogether? Should I just leave it in this pot since I've already repotted it, or should I try to repot in a better drainage pot in a week or so when a better pot is available? Not sure if repotting like that is too distressing for the plant.

I also was wondering about temperature? Should I be climate controlling the room that the orchid is in? I live in Houston, TX so it is generally very humid here.

Currently I have the orchid in indirect sunlight in a room with both east and west facing windows but our building is surrounded by other buildings of similar height so I'm not sure that this is too much or too little light? I can take pictures of the light as well. And I'm wondering if I should purchase artificial lights to supplement?