Bad winter: Sudden root loss

[Lars Kurth]

I have had a terrible winter in my greenhouse. I was not around much (travelling 3 weeks out of the month for work) for nearly 5 months now and having other people looking after the greenhouse. I often only had a day in between trips and just enough time to wash clothes.

As a consequence I now have a mixture of diseases as well as maybe cultural issues.

This one may be cultural as my greenhouse was not watered for 7 days during a cold spell and it really dried out, but could possibly also be a disease like Fusarium. The picture is a Barkeria. It had big fat roots before I left, a week later they were totally dried and shrivelled. A plant nearby (an Angraecum) had similar symptoms, followed by dropping most of its leaves subsequently (which is a sign of the root system not being able to sustain the leaves).

I have had two weeks at home and treated with various fungicides and for now there are no new cases, BUT I will be gone for three weeks again.