Burana beauty Sick;wrinkly leaves,half-brown pseudobulbs
 

Hi all,

I need some help with my burana beauty. New growth seems fine and no wrinkly leaves whatsoever. However, I am worried about one particularly wrinkly leaf. This is the leaf where the last bloom had come from. This severe wrinkly leaf has sunken black spots. There seems to be no secretions or odor coming from these black spots. Another concern is a leaf that looks like it has blisters. This leaf has raised spots. There also seems to be two pseudobulbs that are half green, and half brown. I don't know. It's difficult to describe all these different symptoms, so I will go ahead and let the pictures do the talking. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,
blue_312orchids

What do the roots look like? It looks really dehydrated. I've found that even during "winter" that Beauty wants a lot of water. During summer I was watering every other day with my medium bark mixture. Mine is in a 6" pot and the roots were everywhere. Its very vigorous so you have to give it the water it needs.

As for the spot, it looks like burn.

The pbulbs that are half brown might be rotting but I cant really tell from the picture.

bballr4567,

The roots, for the most part seem to be okay. Maybe I'm not watering it enough. In the summer I was watering it once every 4 or 5 days. Now I'm watering it every 10 days in the winter.

That is a VERY long time unless you are growing in a greenhouse between watering. I'd cut it in half after I checked the roots and go from there.

Hi bballr4567,

I finally ended up taking the burana to an orchid society meeting and the cattleya expert(been growing for 30 years) of the group told me that it was just severely dehydrated. I was so afraid of root rot that I guess I was just not giving enough water. Your advice was spot on, so thanks for helping me. Now I am just hoping that with enough water it comes around and does what I want it to do. I want it to bloom. The last time it bloomed it gave me three flowers, so I am hoping that it gives me the same or maybe one more. I saw pictures of your burana beauty on another thread and they looked very nice. Hopefully, mine will someday look as healthy as yours.

That's great news! Yours should turn around for sure though. If there is active growth, keep up the water. Mine has been putting out new pbulbs about two week after flowering is over. I've got three maybe four new leads this time.

Hi Josh,

I am wondering if you can give me some advice. My burana leaves are looking better but I was curious about the roots. So I took it out of its pot and I noticed that there was some bark that was soft and had fungus; there was green and i believe white fungus. I am freaking out right now because I thought it was getting better, I mean it is getting better, but the roots look pathetic. The only ones that look normal are the ones that are growing above the media. I'm thinking at soon as the new white and green roots hit the media they are going to be contaminated and look like the ones that were in the media. Oh, I also saw a piece of bark that looked like it had some kind of webbing. It was only on one piece when I took out the media .Please help me I don't know what to do. I will send you a picture of the roots soon. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

sincerely,
blue_312orchids

Get new media in there. I use a bark mix with a decent amount of moss. I'm planning on repotting mine soon and will snap some pictures for you.

Here are some pics of the roots and the new root growth. I'm having a hard time identifying roots that are rotted/dead vs healthy roots. There are some flat looking roots, but attached to them is a new part of a root growing. I am confused.:dunno:

Anything that is flat/hollow is a dead root. As you noticed they can sprout new roots from the inner part of the dead roots. I would trim a good deal of the dead away leaving some but that is me. Maybe someone else can confirm that.

I would leave the ones with new tips coming from them. You could trim them up to the tips. They are new growing tips and will feed the plant so you don't want to lose them. I find mine do this a lot after starting use of kelp in my watering and feeding regime.

Thank you Silken and Josh for replying. I sincerely appreciate all the help I can get. So I took out the orchid out of its bark mixture and put in a bag with some sphagnum moss.(This is just a temporary measure) I noticed earlier this morning that one of the green healthy roots came into contact with one of the dead looking roots and where it had come into contact, it had left an indentation on the root. Like it kind of had flattened it out. On the flat spot there looked to be brown and little white dots.(Kind of like fungal spores. What could this be? I will try to post a good enough picture if I can. I am freaking out because that was a nice healthy root that the orchid had put out. I feel so bad for this orchid.

Dont worry too hard. The best part about orchids is they dont have a memory.

My psuedobulbs put out easily 20 new root tips a cycle. It'll come back with a vengeance.

Well, I finally re potted the burana. I put it in a new clear pot, to monitor the root growth and also made some holes in the side of the pot so the orchid could breath better. I trimmed up the brown dead roots and sprayed the roots with a weak solution of Physan as a preventative measure. I also, used a rhizome clip and some jute to secure it.How long should I wait before I water after re potting and how long should i wait before exposing it to its regular light? Finally one last question why do tiny rust spots appear on the new orchid roots? Could it be mechanical damage when I re potted. Like scrapes or something. Are does the term "mechanical damage" mean snapping off the tips of the roots. One last question, do the roots just get discolored by the new media?

Resume normal activity. If there is active growth water water water. Don't forget the fert either.

these plants only grow new roots with the new growths. all them old roots are to the old bulbs. Eventually you are going to have to cut that up and remove alot of the older dead roots and maybe even carve out a shriveled bulb or 2. 'a dead root cant do anything but make more dead roots.' Needs a good trimming. Cutting them quite often will make new growths pop up on those areas that have been cut. But yeah I wack them roots like that up and off. Put it back into an appropriate sized container and no water for a week after its been re-potted and trimmed.

Squirrel,

I didn't know that the old pseudobulbs couldn't produce new roots. There were hollow brown roots in the middle of the plant,which at a joint were putting out a new root. I think you are right in saying that it does need dividing; it has nine pseudobulbs and is putting out two need growths.