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Not sure if this is the best place to post this, but in early spring, I deflasked some Phrag hybrids. They were all strong and good sized and all did well for awhile, but I have lost a few in the last month or so. The leaves all browned from the tips (stayed soft) to the crowns and that was it. They are in quality sphagnum and getting quality water... Any ideas what could have caused them to die? Thanks! (sorry no photos)
I'd repot them all right away into separate small pots, carefully trying to wash off all the old sphagnum. I'm not sure how many you have, but if it's something contagious, the idea would be to separate them so you can save any that have not yet been infected.
Hi , If the tips are soft and it is progressing to the base sounds like some type of rot I agree with Janet also I would cut off any that you see going brown soft ,then treat the cut with peroxide then cinnamon to dry it . I bought seedlings long time ago and started to have a problem , to cool I think ? moved them and used Physan . it cleared up . Good luck with them know how it is .. Gin
Thanks, folks... rot? Ick. I will try recommended solutions STAT!
Hope it works out for you Julie. I have a similar problem with some of my little paphs. My issue was caused by too much heat though and not rot. I lost so many little paphs. Their leaves did the same thing and I did not repot, but did cut them off and treat with a fungicide.
Good luck!!
Cheers,
BD :D
It is so difficult to diagnose problems at long range, and there are so many factors necessary for good growth especially of seedlings. There is a very good book just on that subject - probably out of print, but maybe a good Orchid Society library will have it - "Orchid Seedling Care" by Bob Gordon. I can't recommend it enough. I bought it, newly published when I was struggling to build a paph collection , and importing half a dozen flasks at a time from a New York state specialist, whose name I now forget anyway ( I stopped buying from him, when he changed his agar - or the lab he was using changed - to a slushy one which did not hold the seedlings in place firmly, so that after an air-mail journey across the atlantic, I opened the flasks to find a sort of gooseberry jam of seedlings and mush...) but before that, using Bob G's ideas, in the best cases, I got up to flowering every one in the flask, within 2 years from deflasking.