what causes rapid plant death?

[BrassMonky]

this happened to a few of my plants ,(c. walkeriana, onc. nanum ect) at once. within a few days all the leaves would turn black and fall clean off at the pseudobulb. the pbulb staying green.

this occurred a while ago but would like to know why so i can prevent it in the future.

[orkie]

Sounds like some type of rot. Do you have high humidity or low air circulation? Do you mist your plants or splash water on the leaves when you water? Those are things that can get rot going.

[BrassMonky]

i grow outside under a shadehouse. starting from the tip ten plus leaves (the whole plant) turned black and fell of within what seemed like a week. i use drip irrigation sprinklers overhead to water.

[orkie]

If there is water getting on the leaves or in the joints of the leaves at the stem and it isn't evaporating by night fall, that can certainly cause rot, which can progress quite rapidly. You may want to try watering early only on warm, dry days or not using a system that splashes water onto the leaves so much. Good luck!

[Izzie]

MY CAT!


just kidding.

[dounoharm]

i have tried several drip systems and they all DRIP from the heads....which makes it impossible to have plants under the mist heads.....i ended up tossing em all and hand water....much better....lots of bacteria that cause rot can infect plants with water standing in the leaf axis....got to water only in the early morning to let the plants dry during the day and before nitefall....

[Andrew]

You shouldn't have too much of a problem with poor air circulation in a shadehouse and if your overhead sprinklers were the culprit I would have expected the leaves to die from the leaf axis, where the water usually accumulates, not the leaf tip.

Did you get any of that cold snap that the rest of the people from Florida seemed to have been complaining about? Cold temperatures can cause the type of damage you seem to be describing, especially if the mix isn't dry.