Crown separated from roots??
 

Hi Everyone. I'm kind of new to orchids in comparison. I have a few phals that I've had for a few years that consistently rebloom so I'm familiar with their care, but never ran into what I'm about to describe.

I have a mini phal, who was done flowering and I wanted to repot it in some fresh medium. I carefully removed the plant from the pot/medium and as I was inspecting the roots the crown broke right off. I was barely touching it, and the whole thing just fell into my hand. I'm now left with a bunch of healthy roots and two leaves.

My questions are:

How could this have happened?

Is there any probablility of saving this plant? Can I cross my fingers and put the crown in some medium hoping it sprouts some roots? (And since there are no leaves to bring energy to the plant, I'm assuming the roots are toast- going in the compost.

Thanks and I really appreciate your feedback!

Sorry for the bad news, but it does seem to look like crownrot. A result of allowing water to settle on the crown. I had a beautiful red phal succumb to this same thing only last week. Id bin it and move on.... i know, alot easier said than done.

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Yep; compost heap.

Welcome to the Orchid Board! Sorry it had to be under these circumstances.

Phals are unhappy being cool and wet. In the winter it is very important they dry completely between waterings.

Here are two good Orchid Board threads on caring for Phals:

http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ad.php?t=81484

http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ad.php?t=44792

It's sad but true.

Yeah, I always come at this from a different angle.

I think that there are three causes of crown rot.

1. An injury that allows entry to a fungus.
2. Overheating.
3. Chilling so as to drop to a suboptimal temp so badly that tissue damage, necrosis and fungal infection kill the plant.

You will notice that at no point did I mention wetting.

I spent two years deliberately filling the crowns of all my phals with water at every watering. The water drains away in seconds (try it if you don't believe me) and the crown dries by the time you can walk to the kitchen to get a paper towel to dry it.

HOWEVER. I water with room temp water, and I water in the morning, never in the evening. I do accept that soaking an already chilled phal late in the evening, or a hot one with stone cold water could induce the same sort of tissue damage that might well lead to crown rot.

Getting other orchid crowns wet though is a BAD IDEA.

an old lady who mentored me on orchid growing told me, "whatever you do, do it before noon"....its always worked good for me, and it has been so in every greenhouse I ever worked in.....

and I must agree, crown rot...

What I've learned is just about the only thing you can usually try is coating the infected area with cinnamon and sphag-n-bag it. I've never had any luck with Phals though when crown rot sets in. Unless it shot out a keiki. Without any roots there's little chance of that. One of my very first orchids was a gorgeous phal from a big box store that looked like it had cherry blossoms. Same thing happened to mine as you have, so I sphag-n-bagged it and it did try shooting out a new root after a month or two of waiting. But I had it in too much sun light and didn't keep up on the humidity enough so it died. I don't regret having tried because I've never found another orchid as pretty as that one was.