Does my phalaenopsis have thrips?

[akhenenra]

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated, I will try to be brief. My setup with my orchids is they are grown in a tent in my basement, and when they bloom I take them up into my house to enjoy them. In the tent it’s 68-80 degrees F, around 80% humidity. Upstairs it’s more like 72, 40-60% humidity, normal house environment. They do have a grow light upstairs but not nearly as strong as the tent light. This phalaenopsis finished a spectacular bloom about 6 weeks ago, I had 24 flowers for almost 3 months. Since then it has developed this discoloration and roughness on the older leaves even as it pushes out new ones. I sometimes get a little bit of environment shock bringing them upstairs, in the form of bud blast, but I haven’t had issues returning them to the tent before. I try not to be too panicky with my plants so when I first saw the yellowing I wasn’t too concerned, but it has gotten progressively worse. Any thoughts are very appreciated. The small white/dry spots are older mechanical damage, there are also some small mineral spots on the leaves- it’s the color and texture that has me more worried. I have sunburned one or two of my higher light plants in the tent before, but never a phalaenopsis, they are pretty far from the bulb.

I made this exact post on a different orchid forum which will remain anonymous, and someone said outright that it's thrips, I must throw away this plant immediately, and I should expect them to slowly take out my whole collection. So....I'm looking for a second opinion on this, obviously I'm hoping it's not quite as dire as that. I've had thrips on other houseplants but never an orchid, I honestly didn't even think of it until the post. Appreciate anyone’s help! Cheers

[Dimples]

That looks like sunburn/heat/light damage. Thrips don’t produce straight lines of color difference like that. I’ve zapped leaves from green to yellow on my ficus lyrata through a south facing window slowly over one winter. The plant was happily growing so I didn’t notice until the yellowing was pronounced on a few leaves. It’s not hard to do with direct light that’s a little too strong.

[aparnamane]

I agree with Dimples, it looks like sunburn / light damage, I observed similar light damage on my phals leaves where the light was a bit strong during the afternoon, so I moved them to a lower shelf.

[akhenenra]

Originally Posted by Dimples

That looks like sunburn/heat/light damage. Thrips don’t produce straight lines of color difference like that. I’ve zapped leaves from green to yellow on my ficus lyrata through a south facing window slowly over one winter. The plant was happily growing so I didn’t notice until the yellowing was pronounced on a few leaves. It’s not hard to do with direct light that’s a little too strong.

I appreciate this response. Only thing that trips me up there is that it's on the lower leaves which is counterintuitive for light damage. I was wondering if maybe while the plant was upstairs under lower light (for 3 months) it adapted to that light level and basically when I put it back in the tent it was extra sensitive and was burned before it adapted to the more intense levels again? Does that make sense at all?

Alternatively I have wondered if any of my fertilizer, physan, quantum orchid etc treatments could make the leaves more sensitive to the grow bulb. Has anyone else ever experienced burning they attributed to chemical treatment?

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by akhenenra

I appreciate this response. Only thing that trips me up there is that it's on the lower leaves which is counterintuitive for light damage. I was wondering if maybe while the plant was upstairs under lower light (for 3 months) it adapted to that light level and basically when I put it back in the tent it was extra sensitive and was burned before it adapted to the more intense levels again? Does that make sense at all?

Alternatively I have wondered if any of my fertilizer, physan, quantum orchid etc treatments could make the leaves more sensitive to the grow bulb. Has anyone else ever experienced burning they attributed to chemical treatment?

It does make sense - orchids hate abrupt change. So if the light level increased sharply, it would be very possible to toast leaves a bit. Phals are low-light plants, so would tend to be particularly sensitive.

I doubt that your treatments had anything to do with it.

[akhenenra]

Originally Posted by Dimples

That looks like sunburn/heat/light damage. Thrips don’t produce straight lines of color difference like that. I’ve zapped leaves from green to yellow on my ficus lyrata through a south facing window slowly over one winter. The plant was happily growing so I didn’t notice until the yellowing was pronounced on a few leaves. It’s not hard to do with direct light that’s a little too strong.

I appreciate this, thanks, after examining the leaves again based on the pattern of the damage I'm now pretty confident it's light related somehow. I'll be more careful moving plants around. Thank you!