# Can anyone identify these problems?



## kylemartinx (Nov 4, 2009)

I aquired these orchids about 3 months ago from a friend who couldnt take care of them. I've been trying to nurse them back to health with good results. Each plant has a new leaf coming up and the roots are beginning to grow again. However, being a beginner I'm not too sure what is wrong with each orchid. 

The first one here is a paphiopedilum hybrid lunamoth x limelight
it has some brown spots that I'm not sure are a disease or not.














and this one is a paphiopedilum delenatii. this one has some yellowing of the leaves and the lower leaves are darker and wrinkled.









any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
-Kyle


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Nov 4, 2009)

I'm not sure what the Luna Moth has...but I've seen it enough on my paphs. its disfiguring, but not deadly. The delanatii is a different story. If the yellowing was on the oldest leaf, I'd say pull it off and forget about it. But its on a younger leaf, so I think that needs watching...I'm no expert on paph diseases...they all look like variations on the same thing to me.... but I can (sometimes) tell the difference between fatal diseases and cosmetic ones.....Eric


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## SlipperFan (Nov 4, 2009)

They are planted in coco-chips. I wonder if the salt was washed out of the chips before potting them up.

I also wonder if they have mite damage -- some of the pitting looks like that.


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## cnycharles (Nov 4, 2009)

one time I tried to plant a bunch of armeniacum seedlings in large coconut husk chips, and they had a cross between drying out and rotting. the big chunks were too big on top so that the top roots and emerging ones would dry out so that new roots wouldn't form. since the top looked dry, I would water more and the roots below were too wet and rotted. a mix of that plus some salts might be causing the problems with the delenatii


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## biothanasis (Nov 5, 2009)

Hello Kyle and welcome to the forum!

What water type do you water your plants with and how often? I usually got the effect on your delenatii when there was salt build up, too much water and not good ventilation! Be careful and reducing water amount or frequency might solve the problem!

I have this effect as shown on the first picture on a couple of my dendrobiums' new growths, but do not know what it is eighter!

Good luck...


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## kylemartinx (Nov 5, 2009)

Thank you everyone for the replies.

I water my orchids with just our tap water which is from an artesian well located in Maine. After researching a bit about what water I should be using I checked our water and it appears to be rather on the hard side. I guess that means I should be using rain water?

These plants haven't been repotted in over a year I presume so I'll go ahead and get them out of the coconut husk and into a bark mixture that I have for my Phals. Hopefully that will help.


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## goldenrose (Nov 5, 2009)

WELCOME Kyle!
I think you've made a wise choice to repot to a mix you are comfortable with concerning your watering. I'm a fan of rain water, as I'm in an area of hard water too & that made a huge difference in my plants.


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## Heather (Nov 5, 2009)

Just want to add another welcome here, Kyle! Glad you found us!


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## biothanasis (Nov 6, 2009)

kylemartinx said:


> Thank you everyone for the replies.
> 
> I should be using rain water?



If it is easy to find ok, otherwise distilled or osmosis water is good too! 

(Sometimes rain water may contain bad particles that were "collected" from the atmosphere, so in some cases it might not be good! I live in a city and I avoid using rain water for my orchids...)


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## Ron-NY (Nov 6, 2009)

the delanatii appears to have some cellular collapse. Could water have been on leaves and then low temps? I would also check for mites as well as pulling the plant and look at the roots.

Although the coconut chips were washed well you can have salts from hard water and fertilizer build up in the medium causing leaf burn and possible root tip burn. How often do you flush out the medium?


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## kylemartinx (Nov 6, 2009)

Ron-NY said:


> the delanatii appears to have some cellular collapse. Could water have been on leaves and then low temps? I would also check for mites as well as pulling the plant and look at the roots.
> 
> Although the coconut chips were washed well you can have salts from hard water and fertilizer build up in the medium causing leaf burn and possible root tip burn. How often do you flush out the medium?



I just repotted and from now on I'm switching to distilled and or rain water.
In the 3 months that I have had the plants I haven't flushed the medium at all really but these are also not very new problems. Now that I am able to be home for more than a few weeks at a time I'm going to focus on taking better care of them all.


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## Jim Toomey (Nov 11, 2009)

Always flush pots really well first, so that the water is gushing out of the bottom of the pot, then go back and fertilize later on.

This flushes out the salts that would burn the roots.

Many if not all of your best commercial growers flush their pots heavily first, then fertilize later on (an hour or two later or even the next day).
This also saves you money, because after flushing the pots with plain water, you wet the pots/foliage/media with the fertilizer water (what Bill Thoms calls the "Money Water")

If you can, read Nick Tannaci's article in the latest Orchid Digest. He reveals his method of watering and fertilizing his orchids in detail. It involves lots of flushing of the pots.

Orchid Digest is a great magazine with the best articles, written by some of most knowledgeable and successful people in the world!

Jim T


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Nov 11, 2009)

In my experience, delanatii really hates coconut chips. I don't think its a salt issue, as the very sensitive brachy's seem to like the chips better than most other paphs.


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## cnycharles (Nov 11, 2009)

that's interesting. the delenatii I have is in chc's and spongerock and it's very easygoing. maybe because I'm light on the fertilizer it doesn't build up to a point the plants are bothered?


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## luvsorchids (Nov 11, 2009)

cnycharles said:


> that's interesting. the delenatii I have is in chc's and spongerock and it's very easygoing. maybe because I'm light on the fertilizer it doesn't build up to a point the plants are bothered?



I got baby delenatii earlier this year in a similar mix. It looked like it had been recently repotted so I left it. It's growing like a little weed. I'm not heavy on fertilizer either.

Susan


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