Pescatoria klabachiorum observations

[estación seca]

I got a Pescatoria klabochorum in early December 2015, potted in a 2.5" / 6.3cm pot with coarse bark in good condition. It had one mature fan, and two nearly mature new fans. My growing room varied from a low of 60 F / 15C at night to the upper 80s F / 29C in the day, with relative humidity 50%-70%.

I was gone for a week for Christmas and it didn't get watered. Soon after returning home, one of the newer fans began turning brown from the center, and died. The central leaves were still firmly attached, and did not slip out, the way I would expect with rot. I cut off the dead growth. Then the main fan and the other immature growth began developing brown central leaves.

I decided I was not watering it enough, but I am very leery of maintaining bark constantly damp or wet. So I moved it to semihydroponics around the first of this year.

The roots were in good shape, but there were not many of them. I figured this was part of the problem. I treated the plant with KelpMax when I repotted it, and once a month since. I was able to watch the healthy roots begin growing, though they are not proliferating as fast as I see on Vandas treated with KelpMax. I use MSU blend fertilizer in rain water at about 20 ppm nitrogen for almost every watering; I flush with rain water about once a month.

The plant is making 3 new growths, as seen on the closeup. The cut stump of the dead growth is closest to the viewer, just under a new growth and over a clay lump; there is another new growth from the other side of the fan, seen just above this first new growth; and there is a smaller one on the opposite flat surface of the fan, just poking into the large gap between leaves in the upper right, below the pot rim.

So, I would guess steady water is very important to this plant, in contrast to some things I have read, which suggested I should let it dry out briefly between waterings.

Note that IOSPE misspells the specific. It is correctly klabochorum, honoring Klaboch brothers.

[Ray]

1) Thanks for the free ad!

2) I think you've hit on the proper culture for that whole general class of plants - pescatoria, bollea, etc. They still need lots of air to the root system, but the water supply does need to be pretty constant.

Prior to going to S/H for them, I found they did really well in live sphagnum, but that was hard to keep alive back when I fed heavier.

[No-Pro-mwa]

Looks about as good as those tomatoes setting by it.

[Kevinator]

Nice growing! I need to look for that one next even though bulbless zygos already take up around 1/4 of my indoor growing space XD.