phalaenopsis orchid root rot
 

Hi,
I recently had to repot my phalaenopsis orchid that I had rescued from a dark corner in walmart, but grimaced as I found terrible medium, it was straight moss, saturated so heavily in water with just a pin-hole in the bottom for drainage, I gently pulled off all the moss from the pants roots successfully but found terrible root rot...I haven't dealt with root rot before but first instinct told me to cut off the black rotten parts of the roots until into the health green growth, afterward I repotted it in sterile medium in a clean new pot, after I had finished and brought my Orchid back inside I hopped on the web to read around, everything says I should have soaked it in an fungicide.

I did not soak my Orchids roots, will it be okay or am I fighting something I will now lose?

Any feedback or advice is welcome!

Thank you!!
(I wasn't sure if this should have been posted here or in beginners)

I think Ray Barkalow has exactly what you're looking for here, his site is a great resource for beginners.
Root Rot Recovery

And also, I think you'll be fine without the fungicide. I've heard both ways, that it's necessary and unnecessary, so take it with a grain of salt. As other people on here have said, prevention (the sterile medium and clean pot) is worth much more than the cure.

Hi,
thank you very much for the site link and advice!

It is greatly appreciated! :biggrin:

This is a great site, I've very happy I found it...I would be lost without it!

:) Good luck!

Maybe this is a weird idea. We all know that cinnamon acts as a fungicide. I reguarly use cinnamon sticks to make tea (I go through about one a week). What about saving the used sticks, cutting them into medium-sized chunks, and mixing them in with the bark used for repotting? Seems to me like it might be a good method for both recycling and fighting any fungus.

Wow, I think that may be am amazing idea. If I where you I would screen shot your screen and save it, if this would work it could be put into commercel Orchid potting bark, I wouldn't want anyone stealing your idea, honestly I do think this could work. Cinnimon doesn't break down or rot quicker then the potting mix would so it wouldn't pose any threat for molding and it is a natural fungicide and like you said would be a great way to recycle compost. I think I will try this with my next plant to repot.

Great idea, it couldn't harm either!

Be careful with the cinnamon in your potting media, it will dry plant tissue, that's why it works as a fungicide----fungus needs moisture.
Joann

Joann is right. Cinnamon is a good fungicide, but shouldn't be applied to roots liberally as it will desiccate them. That in mind, I don't think it would be a good media additive.

What about in the bottom of the pot? Or cinnimon powder? Just cerious now lol

It's best if you just apply the cinnamon to fresh cut areas of the plant.
Joann

I think we are trying to take a few, small pieces of information and apply them a bit too broadly.

Yes, cinnamon powder applied liberally to the roots of a plant will desiccate them. That does not automatically mean that a chunk of cinnamon bark will do the same. If that was true, then any cinnamon present in contact with the medium or roots would cause such desiccation, which it does not. You can treat a cut root tip with the powder, and it will branch above the cut and be fine.

The fungus killer in cinnamon is cinnamaldehyde, not simply its desiccating properties. You can extract the cinnamaldehyde with water, and the extremely dilute - and certainly not desiccating - solution will kill fungus.

However, even though I doubt that a few pieces of cinnamon bark in the medium will hurt anything (but I'd experiment on a plant or two before trying it on a large scale), I'm not sure it would be any great benefit, either. Here's where I'm coming from on this:

I think that most orchid roots do not die from exposure to pathogens, whether they are fungal, bacterial, or whatever. I believe the plants naturally combat such things - otherwise there would be no orchids in the wild, as most of their habitats are rampant with such things. Instead, I pin most orchid root death on suffocation. (Reread Samantha's first post in this thread, and you can see where that might be the case here.) Once the roots suffocate, they die, and THEN fungi and bacteria can go to work on them.

Based upon that, the culprit in potting medium is not the presence of fungi, but the suffocating effect of too dense media, exacerbated by being waterlogged. (Read "What Causes Root Rot?".) Adding a few pieces of cinnamon bark isn't going to do anything to help that directly.

However, I suppose there is the possibility that the presence of cinnamon might reduce the population of the microorganisms that break down bark, slowing the rate at which is decomposes and densifies. Hmmmmmm....