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.

[Connie Star]

Sorry to hear of your problems. I don't have any ideas. They say that when you have a green house, you don't own it, it owns you. I still want one, though.

[glengary54]

Lars - In your photo there is no evidence of Fusarium wilt which normally attacks the psuedobulbs first, turning them black as the infection marches along. It really does look like shriveled roots from lack of water. The plant itself looks healthy.

[Leafmite]

Sorry about your problems, too. Hope all will be better now!

[Lars Kurth]

It really does look like shriveled roots from lack of water.

That is what I thought. I had more root damage on other plants: shrivelled roots on Aerangis, root tip damage on Vanda's, etc. But this Barkeria was the most severe and most surprising.

The timing was really unfortunate: we had a cold spell outside (below freezing all time for two weeks) and one watering was missed in the greenhouse. So essentially 8 days without water and low humidity. When it gets that cold the heating runs a lot and dries out the greenhouse (humidity drops to 10% after 4 days of watering).

Anyway, that type of damage is recoverable and spring will be coming soon.