Leaf rot? Fungus? Help!!

[GirlGoneWild]

Hi all! I bought an orchid for my dad at my favorite clearance warehouse a few days ago. Last night I went to repot it, and when I took it out of the bag and took the fancy "wrapping paper" off the pot, I discovered this crap all over the leaves!!



At first I thought it was rot, but it's not squishy at all...the leaves are completely firm, even where the brown patches are. The brown spots seem to have a "halo" of yellow around them, and they go all the way through the leaves. Here's a shot where you can see the back of one of the leaves.



I've never dealt with anything like this before. I have the orchid in quarantine right now, just in case whatever this is could be contagious. I don't want any of my other orchids catching it.

The flowers and buds still look quite healthy (buds are still opening), and there are a few leaves on the plant that seem unaffected by whatever this is.

What do I do with this plant? Can this be treated? Should I chuck it?

I hesitate to give it to my dad at this point, even though he's fallen in love with a clone (or sib) of it that I have. He drools over it every time he comes over, so I told him if I happened to see another one I'd get it. But this was a $6 plant, and this clearance warehouse gets shipments in frequently...it's likely that another will show up that's healthy. As much as I like to rescue plants, I'm leaning toward throwing this one away. Looking at the leaves gives me the creeps. But if there's an easy solution, please tell me and I'll try to fix up the plant!

What are your thoughts?

Thanks as always!

[tucker85]

It may be mesophyll cellular collapse. It's usually caused by sudden cold temperatures or watering the plant with very cold water. There may be other causes that I don't know about. It's possible that there's some bacterial infection going on also. I would wash both sides of all the leaves with soap and water. Keep it isolated from the rest of your orchids and see how it does. If it would make you feel better to throw it out, there's certainly nothing wrong with getting rid of a plant with suspicious symptoms. Good luck.

[Bud]

Jeff is right: the cell that collapsed are the dark spots; the yellow rings around the dark spots are fungi....spray the whole plant with hydrogen peroxide....cut the affected area of the leaves with sharp scissors that you heat with a lighter(so not to contaminate the other leaf parts)....make a paste with cinnamon powder and a bit of water and dab the wounds....I hope it doesnt spread to the other healthy leaves....
cold water covered with fancy wrapping makes a damp haven for fungi and mold
*dont thrash it....it is a keeper and has potential of reblooming ....

[lepetitmartien]

Got about the same thing on plants a friend left me for repotting in the last weeks (Oncidium alliance but the very same aspect : brown zones, lighter green halo in transparency, spot turning to black, then grey on some leaves). I've treated it as fungus, cut largely, fungicide all over, and cinnamon on the cut. It did the trick. Be firm, it has a serious problem here.

It had the same halo effect in transparency, meaning it's systemic and should be fought that way too.

Don't throw it away save if the disease spreads after treatment and can't be stopped. It seems a strong plant besides its issues, it'll reward you once it has recovered from the maybe fungus and the finally home after producer/transport/whatever/sale/your home shock.

[GirlGoneWild]

Thanks all! It's painful for me to throw away any plant...especially an orchid! Someone on another forum suggested it was simply necrosis of the tissue (which could be caused by a variety of reasons) and that dusting it with sulfur would solve the problem. That led me to believe it wasn't a contagious issue.

However, after reading your advice I am leaning more toward my initial gut instinct of getting this plant away from my others and cutting away the "bad gunk." I'm pretty good at removing leaf sections without harming the plant overall...I've had several phals over the years that have gotten damaged leaves for whatever reason, and I've always been able to remove the damage (even if it was a whole leaf) without significantly traumatizing the plant.

I think I will push ahead with your suggestions and treat this as a fungus issue that is possibly contagious. Once all the "bad stuff" is removed and it's been cleaned up and repotted, I won't worry so much about keeping it around my other plants. Not sure if this is worthy of being a "gift orchid" any more, but I can certainly keep it and enjoy the blooms when it decides to grace me with them again in the future.

@lepetitmartien: thanks for confirming my gut feeling that this was more than simple necrosis of the tissue. As soon as I unwrapped this, my instincts told me this was a serious problem. You've given me more confidence to trust my instincts!

And thanks to all of you, especially for your encouragement! I won't throw it away. Now I'm off to scrub up for surgery....

[lepetitmartien]

Glad to be of help.

The alarming part is the halo around meaning it's not limited but moving out, systemic. It leads to envisioning bad issues, if not fast, at least serious ones. As the leaves are already badly damaged, it's no sacrifice to cut largely to preserve the rest. And the trauma is already there. There won't be much difference for the phal to lose parts of its leaves by cutting of by some necrosis, it'll be gone anyway. The cut will prevent the problem to be worse.

I've learned one thing since my return to 'chids 2 years ago: (warning, anthropomorphizing ahead

Caring about a strong orchid that has severe issues, is rewarded fast.

This one is strong, it'll regrow leaves in months just to show you, and when it'll see fit, it'll bloom.

For the record, I rescued 3 phals from a little garden center this spring. They were dehydrated, sunburned, eaten by snails, and had mealies. They really looked desperate. the guy gave them to me for free (hurray, they add names, and serious ones !). I brought them home, repotted them, cleaned them, pampered them. And 2 months later, 2 on three rewarded me with flowers.

Hybrid phals are usually strong little chaps, and don't need much to recover and bloom.

I'm pretty sure this fellow of yours will see next year what it can do to thank you.

[SnowwyDaCreep]

My orchid has some brown spots, its my first orchid and I plan to fix a problem I made while replanting, ( I let my mom do it and she didn't know that orchids didn't like there roots being covered ) and so I plan to do that later and so... it didn't take moving too hard it seems and it kept on going for a long time, But its flowers are falling off I plan to cut the spike as recommended, to the node and I'm not too sure about this ONE leaf, and one other has been awfully weird, The first one that bothers me is there's brown spots that appeared only a week ago, (Several weeks after it moving into my room) and its bothered me for a while, and the second problem being that there's a yellowish tinted ring appearing around the stem of the other leaf, I came to this discussion because I'm not too sure if my leaf is having the same problem or if its a completely different issue.

[WhiteRabbit]

Originally Posted by SnowwyDaCreep

My orchid has some brown spots, its my first orchid and I plan to fix a problem I made while replanting, ( I let my mom do it and she didn't know that orchids didn't like there roots being covered ) and so I plan to do that later and so... it didn't take moving too hard it seems and it kept on going for a long time, But its flowers are falling off I plan to cut the spike as recommended, to the node and I'm not too sure about this ONE leaf, and one other has been awfully weird, The first one that bothers me is there's brown spots that appeared only a week ago, (Several weeks after it moving into my room) and its bothered me for a while, and the second problem being that there's a yellowish tinted ring appearing around the stem of the other leaf, I came to this discussion because I'm not too sure if my leaf is having the same problem or if its a completely different issue.

Pix would be very helpful, but you need five posts before you can post pix (at least via links to an image site - you may be able to upload directly into your post) - you can copy and past url to your images, that members can then copy and paste into a browser window.
http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ng-photos.html


Starting a new thread would also help - this thread is old, and members may not see your post here