Rotting roots

[mokey41]

I bought 4 orchids about 2 years ago purely because they were pretty and on sale at Walmart. Once they were done blooming I put them into my north facing bay window and really didn't pay that much attention to them. One of them died last winter but the other 3 seemed to just stay the same.

I did a bit of research at that time and discovered they were in moss and most of the roots were rotten. I trimmed them up and repotted in bark. Since then 2 more have just rotted away. The remaining plant has one nice root, one so so root and has grown a kei kei with no roots at the very base of the original flower spike.

Any advice on possibly saving this poor survivor? Will it be able to grow with only one root? How can I encourage it to grow more roots? I read on here about sphag and bag but not sure just how to go about it or if it would be helpful.

[Zoi2]

What kind of orchid is it--Phal?
What kind of culture are you providing?
Are you able to post a picture of your plant?
Joann

[mokey41]

It's a phal that was in sphag moss that was packed tight and molding. I repotted it into a bark mix that is supposed to be for orchids. The top of the plant looks fine, leaves are a nice dark green and firm.

The good root is fat and firm with silver skin over green. It turns green when I water it.

[Zoi2]

If you're providing air flow to the roots and only water when they turn silver, feed weakly weekly and are giving med. bright light (East window) your plant should do wonderfully. When the basal keiki grows, you'll have a nice large plant with more possibilities of flowers.
Joann

[Undergrounder]

Hi Mokey, first, if i can just try and break the cycle of misinformation about sphagnum moss for other people that might be reading. -> There is nothing wrong with tightly packed sphagnum moss, it grows Phals incredibly well. The problem is old sphagnum moss, and by the time you get them at the store, the moss is usually already well past its use-by date. Old moss degrades, becomes acidic, stops nutrient uptake and becomes a hot-bed for fungus. Roots hate it when it's old and decaying. They love it when its fresh, and tight-packed or loose doesn't make a difference (*With exceptions, which i won't go into here to keep it simple).

Repotting from sphagnum moss into bark is a big shock for the plant, and personally, i don't recommend it unless you use a top quality coarse, free-draining bark, you soak it well before use and you really water it constantly. But just repotting into fresh sphagnum is fine, if not better IMO.

But most of the time the stuff sold at big plant stores as 'orchid bark' is fairly poor quality, doesn't hold water well, degrades, sucks out all the nitrogen and becomes just as bad as the old sphagnum. If the roots didn't die from the shock of the dry conditions, then they die from the degrading bark and fungus.

The mix they're currently in doesn't look like a very good quality, either that or it's just degraded since the time you got it. In fact parts of it look like old coconut husk chips, not bark..

So i would repot it in something fresh. It doesn't matter what it is, fresh sphagnum moss, nice, fresh, clean bark, coconut husk chips, clay balls, a mix, or many other things... The important thing is that it's not decaying, all of the soil and 'fines' have been washed out and its watered appropriately.

After that, Zoi2 has hit on possibly the most important bit - light. It probably needs much more light. A north-facing window doesn't get much light, especially up where you are in Canada. A South-East or South-West window would be better, and a Southern window might even be good coming into winter if the temps aren't too hot, and the sun too harsh. Plants are nothing but fancy solar-panels, and it's light, not water, that really drives the growth. Give it proper light and it should reward you with new root growth.

[RosieC]

Originally Posted by Undergrounder

So i would repot it in something fresh. It doesn't matter what it is, fresh sphagnum moss, nice, fresh, clean bark, coconut husk chips, clay balls, a mix, or many other things... The important thing is that it's not decaying, all of the soil and 'fines' have been washed out and its watered appropriately.

I'm a big fan of bark mixed with coconut husk chip for my enviroment but fully agree with Undergrounder. Over everything else the main considerations is whether it is fresh.

Big box stores generally don't sell stuff that is fresh. I've found that to my cost with bark bought at my local garden center which was the cause of dying roots in the first Phals I re-potted.

I would find an orchid specialist online who sells media. I don't know ones where you are as I'm in the UK I'm afraid.

I think the use of moss depends a lot on your enviroment. I tend to work on the basis that media should dry in arround 7 day, 14 days at the outside. If it dries slower then you need something which doesn't hold as much moisture. Many people will mix moss with bark an other things to get just the right media for their enviroment.

For me moss is the wrong thing in most cases and certainly for Phals. We have very high humidity here and it just does not dry fast enough. I do have a little Masdi which came with very nice high quality moss and is still doing well in that.

[RosieC]

I also agree with Undergrounder that your bark does not look to good. The signs of CHC (cocunut husk chips) are not a problem in themsleves, but both they and the bark looks quite broken down and that is.

[Undergrounder]

Yeah in most 'home' situations sphag certainly isn't good if it takes too long to dry.. I use chunks of styrofoam (broken off packing foam or fruit boxes) to mix in with the sphag if it's a large or deep pot.

In my opinion it's not the wetness or compaction that kills roots, it's the degrading medium, fungal infection and the swings between wet and dry in culture. That's what i mean by tight packed sphag isn't a bad thing. But in many situations it can certainly contribute to bad things, and letting it stay wet can be a real problem if the roots aren't used to it.

The Taiwanese nurseries (and most commercial nurseries around the world) grow their Phals in tight-packed sphagnum, they pack the bejeebus out of their pots, they keep the media very wet and they even have very high humidity. They're practically growing in water culture. But they use fresh, good quality sphag, they pasteurise (sterilise) it before they use it, they're very consistent with their culture schedule and they repot every 6 months - 1 year max, so the sphag stays bug free, the roots are never stressed and the sphag doesn't have a chance to become sour and horrible.