This is only tangentially related to the topic, as I'm not using rockwool for SH, but I had a couple Phals and a couple Catts that I had neglected to repot in a timely manner, and they lost very nearly all of the roots. I was about to throw them away, but then I thought what the heck, let's experiment. I planted them in pure rockwool to see if that would encourage root growth and help revive them.
The results have been good. The Phals are doing great in straight rockwool. I think I'll leave them like they are indefinitely and see how they do, but they're good so far. They grew new roots, and the floppy leaves firmed back up, and new leaves are growing.
As far as the two Catts go, I don't feel like growing them in rockwool permanently would be the best idea (just a guess, I might be wrong), but like the Phals, they put out new roots (new roots on mature growths which should have been past the rooting phase, I might add), and then new growths. When the new growths started to root, I potted them back into a bark mix, and they are doing great, so based on my limited experience, it seems like rockwool may be useful for helping to recover plants with severely compromised root systems.
I had the rockwool on hand because in Milton Carpenter's article about his warm blooming Cym hybridizing program, he mentioned that he was growing Cyms in pure rockwool with excellent results, so I decided to try it, and I potted one of my Cyms in pure rockwool. It hasn't been in there long enough for me to really tell what the results are going to be, but so far there are no negative results. The plant is growing happily so far, so I'm optimistic, and I'm interested to see how the one in rockwool compares over time to the ones potted in organic media.
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