Sterilizing pellets: what happens if...
 

What happens if you just stick a pp SH pot (the "light duty" kind deli container) full of pellets in a pressure cooker and cook it on the "beans" (longest) setting? That was today's experiment.

I had a shriveled front bulb from a 4N Laelia anceps seedling full of probably Fusarium wilt by the look and affect it had on the growth (thanks for selling me that, Mr. Horrible). It wanted to stay alive by putting up a new growth so instead of the trash it went into SH. It grew OK for about six weeks before the infection woke up and moved into the new growth. So I had a newish SH pot with clean pellets this morning that needed to be sterilized.

The end result was a usable pot with a bit of a pebbly texture and a plant tag that was curled and very "pebbled". So, in conclusion, don't pressure cook your plant tags.

BTW, I put a dishrag in the bottom of my pressure cooker whenever I put in stuff like that so the pot doesn't get scratched.

It's easy to sterilize the LECA in a pressure cooker. Use the highest pressure setting for 30 minutes. With less time sterility is not ensured. Electric pressure cookers are not approved by the US Dept of Agriculture for home canning, but most stovetop manual units are.

For the pots a wash with soap and water, followed by a rinse with 10% household bleach is fine to kill pathogens. With some plastics you might have had a bad mess inside your pressure cooker.

Why do you think you had fusarium? It is a very rare disease in the US. What are your growing conditions? Temperature, humidity, light? How were you watering?

The plant's leading bulb and leaf were full length but the pbulb did not "inflate" which I interpret as wilt, and it had visible browning at the nodes and underside that looked like pictures of Fusarium infection of the vascular tissue.

My growing conditions do not matter. The plant came that way from the seller whose name rhymes with oormans norchids. I cut off the growth mid winter and had it sitting around for a while and then since it had good looking roots I put it into water/fertilizer for about a month. One of the eyes started growing when spring light increased so after the move I potted it up. It acted as expected based on my experience with similar looking divisions but sometimes you get lucky. Unfortunately I didn't have any systemic fungicide to treat it beforehand.

There weren't any photos so I can't comment on how it looked.

When a Cattleya wilts the entire developing growth folds over. Mature growths are too firm to fold over; they show dessication with wrinkling of pseudobulbs and leaves.

Pseudobulbs that don't get as big as expected are often caused by conditions changing during development, like moving from one growing area to another. Or, a change in temperature, light or watering. Fungal infection causes dead growths and/or dead spots on the leaves.

I still don't think you had a fusarium problem. I'm returning to this because fusarium is quite rare and is overdiagnosed, leading to actual problems not being addressed.

Todd, I agree with ES.

If fusarium has infected a plant sufficiently thoroughly to prevent pseudobulb “inflation”, the leaves will be wrinkly, as well.