Help. Do I throw out these paphs? Diseased?

[johnndc]

Gang, I've got 4 or 5 paphs I'm seriously getting ready to throw out. I have a sinking feeling they're diseased, and I have a sinking feeling that it's the same disease I got a year and a half ago and, mistakenly, tried to treat rather than throwing out the plants. It appears to have spread. Please take a look at these photos and see if you agree.

Just fyi, I don't overfertilizer, use Jack's, every few months use cal-mag, every few months use epsom. I do use tap water, which means around 175ppm and 7.8pH - though I only have a handful of plants with this problem, they're ALL paphs, and all were near each other when they got it.

Paph Dollgoldi - same plant, 3 views - note the discoloration at the base of the plant, the whitening, and the leaves turning white







Wilhelminae - some kind of rusty thing under the leaves and pocking on top





Skip Bartlett cross - same thing as dollgoldi, plant going white on leaves and at base





Venustum album - same problem with whitening at base of plant, also noticed a white dot on one of the leaves - this is how the trouble started 2 years ago, the weird whitening at the base



So please, advice - do I just check these 4 in the garbage? I'm especially bummed about the dollgoldi, but it's been like this for 1.5 years and not getting better. Oh, and I've treated everything with physan and phyton, and probably orthonex too over the last several months. Thanks, JOHN

 

[Mahon]

John,

I wish I had some advice... the last picture with your Paph. venustum, I have the same problem on 4 of my Paph. violascens... I still don't know what to do, the top falls over, and it doesn't want to come back up... one of my other Paph. species had it, then it corrected itself when I repotted in humus... hopefully this doesn't happen to your plants...

-Pat

 

[Marco]

Here's a website on some info for viruses

http://image.fs.uidaho.edu/vide/famly094.htm#Paphiopedilum

Also, if you want you can send tissue leaf samples to critter creek

http://www.crittercreeklab.com/

It's about $4 for each test.

 

[Jon in SW Ohio]

What percentage of your plants are showing these symptoms? Are the ones showing the symptoms ones you've had longer than those that aren't showing them? What are you keeping your humidity at, and how constant is it?

It could be a lot of things, hopefully some of these answers will help narrow it down.

Jon

 

[likespaphs]

did you check in the leaf bracts for pests? what's the white stuff on the top of the pot in that picture? can you check the leaves with a strong magnifier to look for (nearly) microscopic mites?

 

[johnndc]

White stuff on top is oyster shells - other than a microscopic spider, I haven't seen pests at all - and I've treated them pretty recently with orthonex.

 

[Rick]

I don't see anything worth throwing these plants out.

They do seem a bit dehydrated. As Jon was asking what's your humidity level.

 

[Heather]

I'm with Rick. They look a little rough but...How are the roots? I think the wilhel. looks like old mite damage and some cellular collapse.

Oh, one more thing on the whil. Could you have had a phytotoxic reaction to something? It looks like my stonei (which is a mess and I am constantly trying to convince myself to keep it despite that, as it was rather pricey). It reacted very badly to (not so) Safer Soap, so the leaves are very dessicated in a similar fashion to your whil, John.

 

[johnndc]

The Wilheminae JUST did these over the past several days. The other guys have been doing this a while, that dollgoldi has been like that for 1.5 years. As for humidity, yes, it varies - it can get down to 20% on days that I have to open the windows (otherwise the apartment soars to 90+ degrees - it's a southern facing studio with all windows), otherwise the humidity stays around 50%.

 

[Rick]

50% should be your bare minimum humidity level. Optimally it should be 60 to 80%. Many species and hybrids of barbata parentage should always stay above 70%.

 

[Heather]

John, I've had that sort of cell collapse overnight on my laevigatum. But the underside of the leaves looks like a different issue to me?
I dunno.

 

[johnndc]

Ok, I unpotted these guys and they were all severally underwatered - other than the semi-hydro guy, of course. Dry as a bone, though good roots, which makes me think chemicals/nutrients could be the problem - concentration at the roots, etc. I've got them soaking in distilled, and I'm going to finish moving these guys over to semi-hydro - the reason I started moving my other paphs there was exactly this, to help me keep the moisture more regular. And I did use physan and/or phyton on all of these quite recently - when I moved them in for the fall. It's possible I only added to the perceived problem. Also, I did the cloth wipe on the leaves, no red spots or anything else, so I'm doubting mites. Man, maybe I overdoased them. Soaking them now in distilled.

 

[Heather]

John,
All of my paphs have done really well moved into S/H. I think it is a good system for them. I am sure your plants will buck up in no time!

Sometimes when you have a crummy looking plant and you are frustrated, it's really difficult to resist the urge to just junk it and fill the space w/ something happier. We've all been there though, so I think these threads are good for a) learning the potential problems and b) hopefully convincing the owner to keep at it!

 

[johnndc]

Ha! My problem has been more that I tend to keep things RATHER than throw them out - thus is the nature of a collector But yes, I'm going to give these guys another try because they're all really nice plants, I had to lose them. And judging by the inspection of the roots, I definitely was underwatering, horribly, which would lend itself to a greater concentration of chemicals. And as I also noted, I'll bet the wilhelminae response was to the physan and/or phyton.

 

[Roth]

It is a systemic bacterial disease, nothing can be done, you better destroy all the plants infected, or it will spread slowly but surely. Some large collections have been wiped out by this disease. If you cut one of the nearly dead roots, the cutting wil not be white, but various shades of orange, yellow and black-brown. Sorry, but it is already all inside the plant.