Did I over-fertilize my Lepanthopsis astrophora?

[harpspiel]

The Lepanthopsis on April 3rd:


Today:



My Lepanthopsis astrophora 'Stalky' recently went into a rapid decline and is probably dying. The only thing I can think is that I fertilized using Schultz Orchid Food 19.31.17. My fault, I didn't measure the amount - I put a few granules into a 1 cup spray bottle. I usually fertilize around once a month, and I thoroughly wet first with pure distilled water. I fertilized all the orchids in my terrarium this way, including a number of pleurothallids, and the rest are all fine.

The Lepanthopsis was thriving, had just grown around 10 new leaves and 4 or 5 spikes. It started dropping the new leaves first and the spikes have all blasted. Also, all the moss growing in the pot with it has turned gray - I believe moss is pretty sensitive to fertilizer.

Other condition considerations: good ventilation and air movement, 65-90% humidity, potted in sphagnum and never allowed to dry out, temps between 55 and 80, and no other conditions have changed since it was thriving. The black spotting on the old leaves has been there for months, although it may have gotten worse.

Is there anything else likely to have caused this? Fortunately if it was the fertilizer, that is easy to remedy next time around.

[No-Pro-mwa]

Oh how sad. I don't grow these but I will bump you.

[Zoi2]

I don't grow them either but hopefully someone experienced will chime in.
Joann

[cbuchman]

I grow one of these mounted so it gets very good air circulation and dries out a bit between waterings. It is possible that it was too wet??

[harpspiel]

I suppose it could have been too wet, could the roots have been rotting while it put out all that new growth and spikes? The watering regimen had been the same for months.


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[RandomGemini]

I don't use fertilizer on mine at all.

I water with distilled water and once a month, I water with tap water.

[harpspiel]

Well, the general consensus seems to be that I was overwatering it, which makes more sense with the sudden leaf drop than over-fertilizing, I think. I took it out of the pot today and the roots weren't rotten, but they were light brown and a bit soft, and I did see some green stuff that looked like mold. I trimmed off all the dead stems, pulled off most of the sphagnum, and mounted it to the coco fiber/great stuff back of the tank. Hopefully it can recover with the four leaves it has left.

That's interesting about the tap water - is it only pleurothallids you do that for? I might have to try that.

[RandomGemini]

Yes, only with my pleurothallids right now, though I would do this again with dendrobium cuthbertsonii if I decided I was brave enough to try it again.

I had a bad, BAD experience with dendrobium cuthbertsonii. The thing wants lots of light. It needs nutrients. It's also super sensitive to salt build up on its roots. I killed it by watering it with tap water and not using distilled water for moisture. I also had mine potted, in moss and eventually I was keeping it too wet, and I didn't flush the pot enough... and it dropped its leaves like this and died.

I realized then that my local tap water probably has a lot of minerals in it when I saw the salt creep in the pot that I took the den out of.

When I started up my terrarium and started doing research on the pleurothallids I wanted to keep... I found that a lot of those can also be sensitive to build up on their roots.

My lepanthopsis astrophora is pretty much in constant bloom and I was told that if I was doing it right, that's how it would behave. I have it mounted on cork in my terrarium with a pad of sphagnum moss. I water it with distilled water from a spray bottle every morning. So I agree that your plant was probably too wet, but if you have a lot of salts in your tap water like I do, you might try my watering plan for these guys and see if it works for you instead of fertilizer.

Let me know if it works for you too!

[cbuchman]

My astrophora is also almost continuously in bloom. It is mounted with a pretty substantial mount of moss around the roots. It gets daily watering.misty but I go check and if it feels damp, I skip watering/misting that day.

I have switched to watering exclusively with rain water. I have a rain barrel for about 8-9 months of the year and melt snow for the other months or use distilled water. My tap water has such a high TDS level it is practically toxic. Many species, in particular, are sensitive to the quality of water.

So I strongly encourage you to use the "cleanest/best quality water' you can manager.

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[Leafmite]

I don't grow this but I grow many non-orchids along with my orchids. Too much fertilizer can indeed cause plants to drop leaves and experience die-back. It can look very much like a fungus infection. Flush the medium really well with tap water, first, to get rid of the fertilizer, then flush with distilled water. It will hopefully then recover. Good luck!