rusty coloration on phal roots

[VickiC]

Hello everyone,
My phal's lower leaf had yellowed and was close to falling off, but since this is a natural growth habit, I didn't give it a second thought.....but.....the leaf above it was yellowing, too, and now is completely yellow. I took the plant out of the S/H pot yesterday to check the roots and saw that quite a few of them had rotted. I didn't expect to see this because I repotted the phal only 2 mo. ago into a slightly larger S/H pot (I'm wondering now if I should have put it back into the same size pot....or would that have mattered??). Besides the rotten roots, there was a rusty-ish coloration on many of them, both dead and healthy. Can someone please tell me what this is....a type of fungus maybe?.....and what should I do next?

I would appreciate your advice,
Vicki

[tucker85]

I could be wrong but I think that the color may just come from the medium you're using. Hydroton and similar products are made of red clay and the color can transfer to other things. My hands are red after repotting in hydroton. I'm not a fan of s/h so I can't help you with pot size but I would certainly trim off all those dead roots before repotting and don't worry about the color.

[Zoi2]

I agree with Tucker on the rust color. If you don't rinse the leca well enough, the red dust will color the roots. Overpotting in S/H is not as important as it is in other media but I still have a tendency to underpot. As Tucker says, just trim off the dead roots and repot and all should be fine.
Joann

[scy]

Some of the older roots may rot because they were not tailored to growing in s/h but you do have new root nubs all over, so they will do fine. I am not sure why your leaves are yellowing. I know when I first started, my fertilizer concentration was a bit too strong, so some of my leaves suffered as a result. I used Ray's calculator to help me determine the optimum ppm.

[VickiC]

Thank you for your reply and advice, everyone!
Vicki