HELP!!! Seedling root rot :-(

[Nutz4Paphs]

I know, I know...I committed one of the worst crimes in orchid growing. I left plants in another growers mix!!! I usually always take a plant out of its growing media and put it in mine since I know how it reacts to my environment. Anyway, I purchased several complex paph seedlings from a great grower and left them in the original mix since they were seedlings. This mix retains much more moisture than the mine. I was looking closely at the plants today and noticed that the plants were looking just a little sad. I decided to take one out of its pot and look at the roots. Well, the little root system was almost gone. The leaves look healthy enough and no signs of crown rot. This is quite embarrassing since I pride myself on healthy roots. See my kolopakingii 'Riopelle' roots I posted a couple of weeks ago if you dont believe me
What do I do to save these little guys? I worry that if I try to baby them, they will just get worse.
HELP!

 

[Damas]

Try the bag with moisted sphagnum, or just sphagnum, it works ! And as soon as you see new roots coming, you put them in your own media. Here

 

[Nutz4Paphs]

Thanks Damas,
I read the thread, but I am still a little confused I get a plastic bag, put some moist sphag in it, place the plant base in the moss...but do I close the bag to give high humidity or leave it open for more air circulation. Place in the shade, under my flourescent lights or should I give them natural light in the greenhouse? I also have a large terrarium that has good humidity and is constantly warm but not much air circulation. Maybe that?

 

[Damas]

Hum... I think you should do it the way you prefer. I only have experience on placing the plant directly in the moisted sphagnum, under artificial lights, 14 hours a day. T° was from 22° at night to 27° during the day. No plastic bags, and it worked well.
The other way is to put plant in a bag, sphagnum in the bag too, but not touching the plant. Bag inflated by blowing into it, and sealed with a rubber, hanged on the front of a window.. Once a day you open the bag and blow it again (that is supposed to provide CO2, to help the plant). I did not test it myself, but people I know had good results. You can also plant it in sphagnum and top it with a plastic bag upside down, kept open for aeration. The idea is to keep constant humidity near the plant base, where new roots will emerge and to avoid rot, by providing light and heat to the plant.

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

I vote for a whole diffrent approach. Take a piece of that green wire that many of use to hold our spikes up with. Cut off a small piece and take each end of it and twist it back onto it'self so that it forms a circle approx. the size of a quater. After you have that done on both ends take the wire in the middle and twist it around what is left of the roots at the base. Then just repot it into your normal mix and treat it like you would the rest of your plants. That wire will hold the plant firm so that it can grow some new roots. I got this tech. from Hadley of Marriott Orchids. I've seen him do it to plants with no roots at all and bring them back to life. That spagnum and bag thing never seemed to work for me.

Hope this helps.

 

[SlipperKing]

There is an article in a recent AOS mag where the grower put new roots on 1/2 doz. plants by placing them in straight sponge rock(in a pot) and watered. He did add a growth hormone at the begining and maybe something else was done. Or was it in the Orchid Digest? Oh well, someone here will remember and add to this! Good luck

 

[NYEric]

With sphag-n-bag I use a closed plastic bag. I have about 50% success rate. Since you have seedlings you can test diff methods if you want.

 

[swamprad]

There is an article in a recent AOS mag where the grower put new roots on 1/2 doz. plants by placing them in straight sponge rock(in a pot) and watered. He did add a growth hormone at the begining and maybe something else was done. Or was it in the Orchid Digest? Oh well, someone here will remember and add to this! Good luck

It was a recent Orchid Digest, I have heard about this article but I just subscribed to OD, so I don't have my own copy. I would greatly appreciate hearing more details of this method!

I have used sphag in bag successfully on several occasions. I put the orchid base in moistened sphagnum, seal the bag, and put it on a shelf, not under my grow lights, just in ordinary room light, and wait a few weeks.

 

[Mrs. Paph]

There's a post awhile back where I described my 'sphag in Vase modified 'sphag in bag method - I've had issues w/ moisture collecting on the bag, and it tipping over onto the plant, which leads to nothing good, so you might look up that and try it. If you already have really good humidity levels though, the twist tie in regular media sounds like it could be good too. I just don't have the humidity I would like to have in my current setup, so if something's damaged, I really feel I need to help it out by upping the humidity somehow. I also agree w/ the comments about lowering the light for awhile. Good luck w/ the seedlings!

 

[Paul]

hello,
I know this problem. If you have superthrive, then you can soak the roots and crown into a solution at max strengh (look at the instructions on flask) for 15-30min then repot into your normal compot. Then the best would be to use 10-52-10 fertilizer for 2-3 weeks not more (at pH 6.5 to 7.0 for best results). You should have strong roots quickly (I do that way)
good luck!

 

[biothanasis]

Good luck...! I hope they all grow up and reward you with great blooms...

 

[Rick]

There is an article in a recent AOS mag where the grower put new roots on 1/2 doz. plants by placing them in straight sponge rock(in a pot) and watered. He did add a growth hormone at the begining and maybe something else was done. Or was it in the Orchid Digest? Oh well, someone here will remember and add to this! Good luck

I read this article too.

Not only did they go into sponge rock, but they used KLN (maybe in a semihydro setup. KLN I believe is a high K fertilizer, but also has the same hormone and B1 as superthrive in it.

The article also says to support rootless plants in high humidity conditions.

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

The article was in the Orchid Digest. I am currently trying it with 6 rootless paphs. Some have been in it for 2 months. No roots on any of them. The leaves do stay firm....but I have yet to see a single root. One appears to be on its way out...another seems to be starting to go downhill...the rest have firm leaves, but no root growth. Take care, Eric

 

[Rick]

Yup. It's OD 72-3 3rd 1/4 2008

It is a SH treatment using sponge rock as media. Dyna Grow KLN is the supplement.

KLN is not a high K but a high P fertilizer. It took a little digging, but its a 9/11/6 mix. It also has IBA, NAA, and B1 in it (NAA and B1 are in Superthrive). The authors also profess that maintaining a high air humidity is critical. They also say that starting in fall/winter seems to be much slower than for spring.

 

[Corbin]

I vote for a whole diffrent approach. Take a piece of that green wire that many of use to hold our spikes up with. Cut off a small piece and take each end of it and twist it back onto it'self so that it forms a circle approx. the size of a quater. After you have that done on both ends take the wire in the middle and twist it around what is left of the roots at the base. Then just repot it into your normal mix and treat it like you would the rest of your plants. That wire will hold the plant firm so that it can grow some new roots. I got this tech. from Hadley of Marriott Orchids. I've seen him do it to plants with no roots at all and bring them back to life. That spagnum and bag thing never seemed to work for me.

Hope this helps.

I've read this several times and I still can not figure out, for certain, what you do with the two ends that you twisted into circles. Will you help a confused old man out please.

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

Corbon. What you are going is attaching the wire to the plant at the base where the roots should be. You plant the wires into you meidium as if they were roots. It stablizes the plant so that it can grow roots. In other words these wire are proforming only the stabilization functin. Naturally it doesn't do anything more then keep the plant stable and allow new roots to grow. I'm telling you it works great. Least it does in my growing space which is a green house.

 

[NYEric]

But don't you grow in S/H Bob?

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

Eric the vast majority of my collection is in S/H. However in the last year and a half most of what I've been buying I'm putting in chc and aliflor (or similar product). It seems to me that some of my s/h plants may be growing slower then they would in a chc mix. I've decided to experiment with chc and aliflor. As a matter of fact I bougth about 40 paphs just to experiment with. I put them in diffrent formulas and diffrent kinds of pots. Some are in clay and some in plastic. I even when so far as to put a couple in staright CHC to see what happens. The ones in straight CHC are already starting to fail as the days are getting shorter. I however will not move any of the plants out of there pots no matter how badly they do. That is not until about 12 to 15 months into the experiment. One of them in my test group in currently in high bud. Seems it's a white complex.

 

[NYEric]

I think the sphagnum may have some property that the roots like to grow into - simulates natural condition!?

 

[Corbin]

The article was in the Orchid Digest. I am currently trying it with 6 rootless paphs. Some have been in it for 2 months. No roots on any of them. The leaves do stay firm....but I have yet to see a single root. One appears to be on its way out...another seems to be starting to go downhill...the rest have firm leaves, but no root growth. Take care, Eric

Eric,

I have a concolor that I unpotted after blooming to find that it had absolutely no roots. It just had a stub sticking down into the medium. I have had it potted in sphagnum now for 6 or 8 months. The original growth and the existing second growth have not grown any. Two new growths have started but are growing so slow they seem to be standing still. I unpotted it again about 2 weeks ago and it still had no roots despite the fact that it added two new growths. Part of me says keep trying and the other part of me, which is probably winning, says give it up and get another one.