Yellow Spots And Drooping, Dying Paph Collection

[orchidbri]

Hello all. I have a small collect of paphs that are rapidly failing, doubtless thanks to an ebay venustum that came infested with the plague. It dissolved into rot 3 days after arriving. I asked for my money back so the seller sent me a second orchid. Beautiful root system, wonderful plant. I still look at it and adore. But I am watching as my tiny, tiny collection just dies.

I have 6 all together. Venustum (the baby of the group), Venustum var Album, Venus Aglow, Stella Scope, Fanciful Flight, and Charmingly Wood.

My grow area:

The original venustum that died: (this is right after soaking it in Physan20, that is why it looks wet)

Physan 20 only seems to make it worse. I cut off humidity and all but stopped watering. When I did water, it harpooned a huge boost in the infection. This same type of whatever also killed off my supermarket phals. Cinnamon seemed to help somehow, but not for long. I noticed that many times the edges and tips of the leaves would turn brown and crusty, perhaps like a dormant disease(?), for many weeks before a spot or two begins spreading from the middle of the leaf. It does not always follow a pattern, and sometimes comes from the leaf tip or the base of the leaf and spreads from there, or from many places at once. It makes the leaf thinner, browner, slightly translucent, and almost papery. Only one and occasionally two leaves are effected at once. I have not noticed the spots being particularly wet or oozy. The spotting leaves are not the only symptom- they are DROOPING. It's almost worse than the spots. Extremely sad to watch, especially on my older, multi-growth paphs.

The disease is now blasting the buds on my venustum var album. The two that opened AND the one that never did. This same plant has lost two mature growths.

They came to me with overgrown root systems and springy, happy leaves. They came in bud, or budded the weeks thereafter. All 6 were in bud at once. The happiest 3 weeks of my life. They all looked something like this when I first got them:

...and by adapting my culture, I saw many perk up and shine even more. Please help me identify what is happening to my plants! I feel like it is already to late for them but I need to at least try.

 

[ALToronto]

So - none of your paphs has been in your home longer than 6 weeks?

 

[PaphMadMan]

Honestly, mostly what I see is Paphs dying of thirst.

 

[Justin]

those plants are all severely dehydrated.

your mix is probably too coarse and you may not be watering enough? can you pot them in a finer grade of bark? you might mix in some chopped sphagnum moss too. also, the base of the plant should be flush or just below the top of the mix so that new roots can emerge and not dry out.

some of them may be too far gone but try to get them hydrated and see if they can recover...if they do recover it will take many months.

Also there is a fungal infection spread across your plants. Phtyon 27 or a copper based forumlation from Lowes would work much better than Physan. you need to cut off infected parts with sterlized tools (and of course this will make dehydration worse...)

 

[troy]

you have a major project at hand use ro water should be ph neutral also what fertilizer do you use?

 

[troy]

I use a water ph 6.5 on my majority and fertilize lightly with ro having to adjust ph because once added fertilizer usually throws ph off because it's unstable I keep my humidity 70 '/. although high humidity would explode your fungul problem, when your plants get healthy keep an eye on TEMP, WATER, HUMIDITY, LIGHT

 

[Bjorn]

You have a serious problem there, but I believe that much can be gained by following the above guidelines. Mine are the same, keep em moist and increase humidity. Water quality is important as well, if you can use rain water, then try that. Its a misconception that orchids are to be kept dry, where paphs come from it rains heavily almost every day. Good luck!

 

[Happypaphy7]

Overall, yes, your plants look severely underwatered.

Some definitely have rust/rot diseases as in the first two pictures.
The next four pictures look like "natural" aging process or what happened to some of my orchids when they were sprayed with certain things.

I would trim off the diseased leaves and soak the plants good a few times to plump up the plants.

By the way, physan 20 is not going to help here.
I find it has minimal to zero effect on diseases.
There is also a chart somewhere on the internet where it compares various sprays regarding what they are good for and how effective they are.
Not surprisingly physan 20 is nearly useless against disease.

By the way, I would send everything back and get money back.
If they began to get sickly looking within 3 days after arrival, then they were already sick at the seller's place.
I'd like to know who the vender is? maybe PM me if you're not comfortable disclosing the info publicly.

 

[mormodes]

Honestly, mostly what I see is Paphs dying of thirst.

Same here. IMHO the original poster could easily slide these pots (with too many holes) into plain plastic pots - to cut down on transpiration. Maybe some new roots will grow in a few weeks. If s/he still worries about a pathogen pour 3% peroxide straight from the bottle over the plants and potting medium. (The same stuff you get at any grocery store). Keep evenly moist, which is difficult to do indoors (dry) and under lights (hot) but we all managed to eventually learn how to grow in these conditions. Keep out of any drafts from the room's heat register. Hopefully in 4-6 weeks new growths will start and if you are really lucky new roots. I'll leave it to people smarter than me about whether or not to take off the old brown leaves or the buds, and whether or not to feed. Personally I'd remove the one old brown leaf, I may or may not take off the bud and I'd wouldn't feed. I'd just keep it evenly moist until the plants show improvement. I might even turn off the lights and just go with whatever light is available from the window. YMMV. Growing indoors is hard to do. Don't beat yourself up. IMHO the trick is keeping things evenly moist and what that means in your environment. Not soaking wet, not dried out. Just evenly moist. Hard to do indoors in the wintertime. I think that's why people will tweak the concept of semi-hydroponics for their conditions. Ray Barkalow's web page has a nice write up about it. (First rays orchids) or just google search the term semi-hydroponics and see if it turns up. Personally I tweak the idea of standing my paphs in a small tray of water ( about 1/2") and that helped me. Not that I'm a great grower, but I get some blooms. I hope any of this helps.

 

[The Mutant]

A lot of great advice here. I'm a windowsill grower myself and winter really is the most difficult time of year to keep the plants happy indoors.

Personally, I would remove all spikes/buds to let the plants focus on growing roots instead. A dead Paph is very difficult to get to flower while a living one at least stands a chance. :wink:

And please, don't let this deter you from growing Paphs. I've killed plenty of them myself already despite being relatively new to them. Learn from it and do better with the next ones instead.

I'll hope for the best and good luck!

 

[troy]

mormodes, you have more awards than just about anybody else lol..

 

[TyroneGenade]

Is that digital thermometer reading 37 oC or oF? If oC the that is WAY too hot. If oF then that is way too cold. What is your humidity like?

 

[NYEric]

welcome to the forum. As mentioned, looks too dry-increase the moisture, then lose those pots with the extra air slits on the sides!!! Also, add something a little moisture retentive to your mix, sphagnum moss, cork, etc. Finally, get some Physan fungicide/cleaner and make a solution to drench the plants, then dust on powdered cinnamon to prevent rot. Good luck.

 

[Erythrone]

Is that digital thermometer reading 37 oC or oF? If oC the that is WAY too hot. If oF then that is way too cold. What is your humidity like?

You are right!!! I just saw it on the 8th picture!!! Could be in USA because of name Texas we can see on the same picture. So it could be F degrees... Or maybe it is a
digital hygrometer?

 

[RNCollins]

Welcome to the forum from New York State!

My suggestion is to get the powdered cinnamon off the roots... Cinnamon is a desiccant, it will dry out and damage the roots.

 

[mormodes]

mormodes, you have more awards than just about anybody else lol..

?? Oh, you think I'm Dave. No. I'm not.

 

[Ozpaph]

nip out the bud, cover the roots with more mix, turn the fan off, increase humidity and water them!

 

[tnyr5]

Is that digital thermometer reading 37 oC or oF? If oC the that is WAY too hot. If oF then that is way too cold. What is your humidity like?

I bet it's reading 37% humidity.

 

[daniella3d]

they look awfully dry, wilted. I keep mine wet and they are doing great.

If you think they have a fungus problem, spray them with a systemic fungicide like tebuconazole or Bayer advance product for fungus, but I would not cut on the watering like that. Mine are in fine bark, not corse as yours and the mix remain quite humid all the time. I water them a little bit every day so they don't dry.

Also you could try spraying them with aspirin. I think it's one aspirin in a liter of water but I am not sure. This is supposed to increase the plant immune system. I have not tried it myself but I have read about it here in this forum.

 

[orchidbri]

Thank you all!

I'll try to answer everyone as briefly as possible, and then I have a few questions of my own...

First off, that is 37% HUMIDITY. Haha. In that room the temperature is 23.3C, or 73F, with little variation.
I understand that the humidity is still much lower than what healthy paphs like, the room has been allowed to moderate its own humidity levels. The humidifier used to keep the small room around 50%-70%. They loved it. The fan was always on during the day, pointed off into space but kept things circulating nicely. I'll start that up again.

I have had these plants for about 5 months. The decline was slow, but it was immediately noticeable when they began drooping and stopped putting energy into their new spikes. For almost a month they were booming, and then nothing.

I would water them once every two weeks or once a month in the winter, using their plant label or a pencil to check when the medium is dry. When watered, they are kept away from the window for a day or two (supplemented with daylight spectrum CFLs) to save their roots some of the chill.

Happypaph7, the ebay vendor was something like springwater orchids. I cannot find it in my purchase history as it was so long ago. Absolutely no problem calling out a vendor in public for something that was obviously an issue. I tried them twice and got burned both times.

Mormodes, 3% hydrogen peroxide was among the many things I tried on my supermarket phals. It destroyed their roots, especially the air roots of a certain phal saved from root rot way back when I first got started. Extremely sad. I suspect the peroxide simply dried them out. Perhaps if one rinses the plant after the fizzing settles, but otherwise I'd rather not try it again.
Ah, funny you should say that. I'm currently trying semi-hydroponics. I like it so far, and I need a lower-maintenance method of growing for college in the near future, but I am trying it and tweaking it on phals before my precious paphs. I have been collecting vases and using diamond drill bits to add the drainage holes, it's exciting.

Thank you for the welcome RNCollins! The cinnamon is already long washed off the roots, those photos are rather old. I did not know that about cinnamon, and will keep a careful eye on it in the future!

I don't always use fertilizer, but when I do I use MSU for RO/TAP/RAIN as per the directions. I have just gotten my hands on some Dyna-Gro K-L-N rooting stimulate, but have not yet used it when I water.

-
I agree now with what y'all are saying. Dehydration. Of course. No doubt weakened by winter temperatures back in November before I realized the damage and moved them to their current location. Each night, I move them from the windowsill down to the counter space below. Texas winters are pretty cold in this area (about an hour from Dallas if you want to know).

Phyton 27 sounds like the way to go as far as infection. I'll buy some off ebay tonight. Probably useful to have around anyway. Does anybody have an opinion of Phyton27 vs. Bayer Advanced?

Should I be using fertilizer or root stimulate at all? Simply let them rehydrate for a month or so? Instinctively I err more on the side of using nothing but water, to avoid more complications while the plants recover. Or would y'all recommend I water them with RO and a half-dose of fertilizer? Again... I'm cautious to fertilize normally until they recover, but RO water has absolutely no mineral content, as I understand?

Is it possible for me to accurately check municipal water pH using the stuff made to check pH for freshwater fish? I can't see why not. Of course the tested sample of water would not be used on the plants. Any quick "OH NO DON'T DO THAT" statements I should consider before trusting the outcome?

I was expecting maybe one or two posts, never this much support overnight. What a wonderful community. Thank you guys for expanding my knowledge of paphs, and helping me debunk some of my culture pitfalls. Before this I would lurk and research when a problem arose, but it is much more beneficial to ask for advice on my own photos rather than to try and hunt down someone with a similar problem. Wide as the web is, it ain't that efficient. Thanks again everyone, even if no one can get to my new questions. You guys have helped me out so much already.