Colmanara dying while in flower, help!

[ambitele]

Thanks, LizB88, it could have happened because of cold water and dark surroundings since I recently moved it away from a windowsill to prevent sunburns

[LizB88]

When you cut the flower spike, you can put it in water with a little bit of sugar and that will help the rest of the blooms to open. I had one like that for a couple of weeks.

Sorry about your plant being sick. And I think that once you stop the rot from spreading you will be able to enjoy blooms in again.

Also when you repot, if you use the same kind of potting media that you put some perlite or packing peanuts.

[silken]

For sure if it is soft, get rid of it. Be sure to use a sterile blade and cut into healthy green tissue. I had a Colmanara Wildcat that has bulb rot which I kept removinh and going to healthy tissue to make sure I got it all. But it kept returning until I finally got aggressive and actually took the entire healthy bulb next to it as well. Not saying you need to that if you catch it early enough. And yes, some hydrogen peroxide should help disinfect and clean everything.

[bil]

You might want to dust the cut surface with a dessicant like cinnamon or sulphur powder yo discourage rot. I like mancozeb powder, it's a fungicide.

[lotis146]

Something like this happened to my Dgmra (Aliceara I believe it's not called??) but in my case it didn't actually get soft-soft. But anyways, someone here suggested that maybe I had watered it too much, leaving it too moist, too damp. When you moved it from the light was it actually getting burnt? Was it direct sunlight that was coming through the window?

In other news, I would be sure to disinfect the pot before repotting as well, say in a strong bleach solution. When I doctored mine last year I used Physan-20 and per the instructions I soaked the new potting medium in Physan as well as the whole plant prior to cutting and after cutting the infected pbulbs. In the meantime be sure to keep this guy away from any other orchids you have, don't water them together, at least don't let water splash from this plant onto others, fungus and bacteria can spread just by water splashing.

Good luck.

[ambitele]

Hi again,

Yes, lotis146, it had direct sunlight when it was on a windowsill and it had some sunburns last summer (I thought it was some kind of infection by then ), so I placed it in a shadier location this year

Today I finaly found some inner strength to repot and perform the "pseudobulbectomy" What I found out was that the roots weren't so healthy after all - I didn't notice that when I last repotted but it formed into a ball with some degraded stuff (old roots?) inside. Then I remembered that this was my first orchid ever (I got it as a birthday present a year and a half ago) and decided not to be so harsh on myself... Also, found it's name tag and it is cambria, not colmanara, sorry about that.

So at fitrst I cut the flower stalk and placed it in sweetened water (as LizB88 suggested), then I tried to free the roots a little bit and washed them with water. Afterwards I removed the pseudobulb (first I tried to twist it off, then I cut it ), sprayed the wound with hydrogen peroxide and sprinkled some cinnamon later. I repotted it into dry medium, when do you think should I water it? I really hope it was just bad roots and not some kind of infection and my beloved first orchid recovers.

Thank you guys really much for all the advices and support! I don't have any friends who are interested in orchids, so you are my only supporters here

P.S. how do you pot such orchids? the oldest bulb is almost buried in the medium while the youngest floats above :/

[silken]

It sounds like you have done what you can. If you have access to some seaweed, many growers use that at intervals in the water as it really helps promote root growth. It is found in liquid or powder form in hydroponics stores and some gardening stores.

These prefer not to dry out so you will need to water it soon if the media was bone dry. But letting the cut seal for a day or two might be a good idea. Unfortunately many of these Onc. type do have an upward growth habit so the old bulbs can be buried a bit to get the new growth at media level. It doesn't seem to cause a problem. Good luck with it. The blooms are lovely.

[ambitele]

Hi again, guys!
So as I was waiting for the new roots to grow, another bulb got bad. Yesterday I saw a leaf drop off and another leaf was yellow. Today I took some photos and as I was turning the plant other leaves fell... I removed the bad bulb again (it was soft already...). I don't have any more hope on this one, since there were no new roots and the old ones are almost dead. The plant is left with only two pbulbs and two leaves...
So what do you think? Is it an infection or just bad roots?

[ambitele]

could this be an erwinia infection?