Disaster!!! - micranthum x vietnamense

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Bolero

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Hi guys there has been an unfortunate death in my orchid family today...........

I will post the photo below but you may or may not remember I bloomed this over a year ago in May 2008. Anyway I grew it for several years before blooming it, it also started to form two new growths.

However once the plant stopped flowering the main growth fell apart and the two small growths stopped developing. There is no rotting and when I finally threw it out it had 6 strong healthy roots filling the pot.

Any thoughts on why this might happen? I treated this thing like a baby and kept it cool to intermediate in winter and warm in summer. I have other plants like Ho Chi Minh, Magic Lantern and Golddollar growing beside it and they are all healthy. I had it growing in a 50mm pot.

This is after it had just finished blooming and as you can see the growth is still healthy:

DSCF5741small-1.jpg


This is the bloom itself:

DSCF5698small-1.jpg


I just don't understand after forming two new growths why the old one would fall apart and the whole thing would stop growing. The roots as stated above were all very healthy and I had great hopes for it. I don't have anymore of this one so now I will be battling to find another one. As you can imagine it's all very disappointing.
 
Sorry for the loss of this beautiful plant and I cannot help you with the solution of the problem :(:( I hope you can find another one soon!
 
Doesn't look like anymore are available. I will have to be patient I guess or just settle for what I have. Just very disappointing after all the hard work.
 
:sob: Sorry for your loss.
A picture of the plant when it was healthy may not help us to help you.
 
:sob: Sorry for your loss.
A picture of the plant when it was healthy may not help us to help you.

I take your point but it was shortly after that the leaves fell off and they looked much the same. The small growths looked fine as well. I guess I should have taken a photo but by that stage all the growths had fallen off and I had healthy roots and not much else.

Thanks for looking guys.
 
maybe this cross doesn't like salt from chc's? actually someone was telling a fellow orchid club member that she was likely overwatering and that caused all of the growths to split away from each other. difference is that her plant(s) stayed alive
 
the genetics of the plant were not compatible for vigorous growth...?

I hate it when plants just sulk, I feel your pain. When things fall apart for me it is usually a crown rot that I did not catch
 
Sorry for your loss. 1st of all I question the blooming on such a small plant. 2nd Some people say coconut husk chips hold too much salt. 3rd I have a lot of trouble w/ Paph Ho Chi Minhs; just not steady as delenatii hybrids IMO.
 
The little growths had fallen off, also? Or just stopped developing?

The first growth fell off and the new growths just stopped growing, I gave the new growths over a year to do something but really they didn't grow one bit from the time the original growth fell apart.

When I repotted last year the growths fell apart. I still had hope for the two new growths but when I repotted one of the new growths (the most mature) just fell off. No wonder it didn't develop.

Sorry guys, I guess I was just venting. There is probably a reason for this happening and it may beyond my skill as a grower to understand it.
 
That's too bad. I wish I knew what the problem was. Could it be that there was some insect chewing off the growths, much like cutworms do?
 
I guess anything is possible. I will have to keep the spraying up to stop it happening to any other plants.

Thanks for looking guys.
 
I call these scenario as 'stung and death'. LOL It's very prone in parvi and multiflora paph. I think it maybe the plant genetic is not strong enough or when the plant was flowering for the first time, it used up too much energy from the mother plant and the plant stop growing. The plant will be just sitting there for months and then slowly decline to demise. Sometime it recover, some time it doesn't. Mine usually just sit there, the leaf turn yellow as it aged, and its history.

My suggesstion, next time if you have any plant on single growth or first blooming, don't keep it more than one week. I usually cut off the spike after one week, you can still enjoy the flower in a vase for a few more days. I know that grower in Japan, use to pintch off the first flowering spike on Paph. sanderianum, just to make the plant to produce more new growths and conserve energy.
 
I call these scenario as 'stung and death'. LOL It's very prone in parvi and multiflora paph. I think it maybe the plant genetic is not strong enough or when the plant was flowering for the first time, it used up too much energy from the mother plant and the plant stop growing. The plant will be just sitting there for months and then slowly decline to demise. Sometime it recover, some time it doesn't. Mine usually just sit there, the leaf turn yellow as it aged, and its history.

My suggesstion, next time if you have any plant on single growth or first blooming, don't keep it more than one week. I usually cut off the spike after one week, you can still enjoy the flower in a vase for a few more days. I know that grower in Japan, use to pintch off the first flowering spike on Paph. sanderianum, just to make the plant to produce more new growths and conserve energy.

I like that idea! I have done that with cattleya's before so it might be time to try that for paphs as well.
 
I call these scenario as 'stung and death'. LOL It's very prone in parvi and multiflora paph. I think it maybe the plant genetic is not strong enough or when the plant was flowering for the first time, it used up too much energy from the mother plant and the plant stop growing. The plant will be just sitting there for months and then slowly decline to demise. Sometime it recover, some time it doesn't. Mine usually just sit there, the leaf turn yellow as it aged, and its history.

My suggesstion, next time if you have any plant on single growth or first blooming, don't keep it more than one week. I usually cut off the spike after one week, you can still enjoy the flower in a vase for a few more days. I know that grower in Japan, use to pintch off the first flowering spike on Paph. sanderianum, just to make the plant to produce more new growths and conserve energy.

It is difficult to sacrifice a first bloom for the sake of the long-term survival of a plant; but, it's good advice. Whenever I have a single growth Paph or Phrag producing an inflorescence, I cut the spike before the buds develop if the plant is not in perfect health. I like to see the blooming growth looking robust and strong with at least one strong new growth well under way. Plus of course, the plant must have a well developed root system. Any wobbly plants don't get to bloom until they have lots of good roots.

I have a Paph. haynaldianum right now that had 5 growths; one that is old and the rest new; one of them in spike. However, the growth next to it got Erwinia rot. In order to remove all the rot, I ended up removeing every leaf of that growth, right down to the rhizome. I'm certain that I got all the affected tissue; but, I still think that the plant must be stressed from this event. So, I cut off the developing flower spike on the other healthy growth. This plant is important to me. I don't want it to put all it's energy into this spike (in the hopes of setting seeds), and end up sacrificing more growths to rot. Now that the blooming has been stopped, the plant will have no choice but to put it's efforts into growing more foliage. I'd rather wait to see the blooms than to risk losing the plant.

The idea of pinching off the first spike on any Paph or Phrag is a sound practice; but, hard to do. No plant will give it's best quality flowers on a first bloom and pinching off the first spike forces it to immediately begin growing a new growth. By the time that growth tries to bloom, the plant will then have two fans of leaves, eash with a healthy root system to feed the emerging spike. Pinching the spike on a first bloom baby helps ensure that the baby gets to grow up and really show us what it can do. Otherwise, sometimes they just tucker themselves out so much that they go down hill after that and the plant is lost after a long, lingering death.
 
That is good advice, I have 2 plants in spike right now for the first time, all Parvi's. So I might have to sacrifice them all..........it's going to take some courage.......one Magic Lantern and one Fumi's Gold x micranthum.

Mmmmmmmmmm!!!
 
That is good advice, I have 2 plants in spike right now for the first time, all Parvi's. So I might have to sacrifice them all..........it's going to take some courage.......one Magic Lantern and one Fumi's Gold x micranthum.

Mmmmmmmmmm!!!

Mmm the advice is for generic. You have to judge the plant yourself. Some clone seem to produced several growths before its even flower for the first time. Mine Joyce Hasegawa has 3 large healthy growths before it flower for 1st time, and I got 2 blooms on the spike, with good form. My Norito Hasegawa has 6+ growths even before i see the first spike. So i just leave it and enjoy it. It will be ok in these cases. Some clone just bloom on small single growth, and thats worry me. Of course you don't always get good quality flower on the first bloom so, cutting off is really no loss at all.

Certain parvi hybrids are prone to slow recovery after flowring for first time. Most emersonii hybrids fall into this category, but of course there are always some exceptional robust clone.

Your plants should do fine, as most Magic Lantern these days are very robust and any hybrid that has concolor, are usually strong. Now if your plant is pure Fumi's Delight (arm x mic), yeah definitely pinch it off. God knows how many Fumi's Delight I killed. lol
 

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