# Barbata culture



## paphioboy (Jun 15, 2008)

Although I am doing ok with brachys, I can never seem to grow barbatas well. I wonder why?  i grow them in the same medium as other paphs, and they receive same amount of light as my small/medium sized seedlings (which are mainly derived from cochlos/multis, and I give higher light anyway)... It is an embarrasing fact that I have killed 2 of each callosum and sukhakulii, which are reputedly 'difficult-to-kill' plants. :sob: Well, the callosum died of rot anyway.. Just how shady do I grow barbatas? It is often mentioned that they grow in 'deep shade'. Is my current light level enough? 

One thing I often notice is that when I buy the plants, there is a strong contrast between the light and dark mottling of the leaves, but when I grow them, the mottling becomes 'blurred' and the lighter regions (which often appear wtihish in some species) become light green. Does this indicate light levels that are too high or low? For example, when I first bought this lawrenceanum, the lighter green parts of the leaf were very pale, but it turned greener under my conditions. The leaves grew shorter too...






My barbata paphs also frequently succumb to this:




Can someone please tell me what that is? The yellow/brown regions of the leaves are pitted and turn brown from the leaf tips. Is it fungal? TIA...


----------



## Rick (Jun 15, 2008)

I use to have a similar problem.

I found that barbata in general only want a small amount of light compared to every other paph I have. They also want higher humidity.

So I have been moving them to the darkest, dampest, breeziest, and often coolest parts of my GH (these areas still get into the mid 80's).

Typically the humidity stays >70%, and in the morning and evenings it gets over 90%. This may be the easy part for you in Malaysia, but definitely cooler and darker should help.

The group as a whole is more associated with the forest floor than exposed rocky areas and cliffs, so they are often in deep forest duff that can be somewhat acidic. This is where the fine tuning with bone meal instead of limestone or oyster shell may be important. Bone meal will buffer the pH a bit, but not as much as lime or oyster shell. But it will supply a lot more phosphorus to promote root growth and flowering in lower light conditions.


----------



## paphioboy (Jun 16, 2008)

Thanks, Rick...  Does the stronger contrast between the light and dark areas of the leaves means that the plants are happy, and vice versa (more 'muddled' colour means they're not so happy)? I have read that happy plants have beautiful clearly defined patterns on the leaves...


----------



## Rick (Jun 16, 2008)

I think the better the contrast the better you are matching their light requirements.


----------



## Candace (Jun 16, 2008)

My barbata group isn't as happy this time of year due to the increased light and temps. Like was mentioned with increased sunlight the leaf coloration becomes muddled. I have them hiding now behind other larger plants to get the most shade I can give them.


----------



## Eric Muehlbauer (Jun 16, 2008)

Yes, shade, as everyone else mentioned...what are you growing them in? I find that barbata types dislike coconut husk media more than any other paphs. Eric


----------



## paphioboy (Jun 17, 2008)

Eric, I don't use CHC.. My medium for barbatas is mostly fern-root, with leca and charcoal mixed in...


----------



## SlipperKing (Jun 17, 2008)

Not to be mean but I don't like how you have these two potted up. They look too deep in the pots. Are you trying to avoid "over potting" them? I find that if I have my plants too low, below the rim of the pot the mix/plant becomes stagnet and they rot off. This often is in conjuntion with poor air movement a round the pots/plants. Use something in the bottom of the pots to lift the plants up. Like rocks or broken clay pots then add your mix. What kind and how much fertilizer are you using, if any? I personally don't think your leaves look all that bad, you just don't have very many per plant.


----------



## Rick (Jun 17, 2008)

SlipperKing said:


> Not to be mean but I don't like how you have these two potted up. They look too deep in the pots. Are you trying to avoid "over potting" them? I find that if I have my plants too low, below the rim of the pot the mix/plant becomes stagnet and they rot off. This often is in conjuntion with poor air movement a round the pots/plants. Use something in the bottom of the pots to lift the plants up. Like rocks or broken clay pots then add your mix. What kind and how much fertilizer are you using, if any? I personally don't think your leaves look all that bad, you just don't have very many per plant.



This brings up an interesting point. Barbata are notorious for climbing out of pots and producing aerial roots. In situ photos often show these guys burried up to their "axels" in leaf litter. So some of us have speculated that the climbing growth is to keep from getting buried. I just found a paper abstract about nutrient cycling in tropical forest leaf litter that indicates that these ecosystems are very restricted in phosphorus (plenty of nitrogen). So it may be that the climbing is a means of keeping the root zone in fresher and more phosphorus rich duff, so it may be a good idea to supplement with P with these plants too.


----------



## paphioboy (Jun 17, 2008)

> Not to be mean but I don't like how you have these two potted up. They look too deep in the pots. Are you trying to avoid "over potting" them? I find that if I have my plants too low, below the rim of the pot the mix/plant becomes stagnet and they rot off. This often is in conjuntion with poor air movement a round the pots/plants. Use something in the bottom of the pots to lift the plants up. Like rocks or broken clay pots then add your mix. What kind and how much fertilizer are you using, if any? I personally don't think your leaves look all that bad, you just don't have very many per plant.



Slipperking, the roots of the lawrenceanum just fits snugly in the pot. The second pot is much deeper than the other pots I'm using, so I did plant it deeper. Anyway, i just thought planting deeper would be convenient because I continually feed my plants with dried leaves (as can be seen from the pic). I don't use any other fertiliser, just add extra limestone for the calcicolous species from time to time. 



> This brings up an interesting point. Barbata are notorious for climbing out of pots and producing aerial roots. In situ photos often show these guys burried up to their "axels" in leaf litter. So some of us have speculated that the climbing growth is to keep from getting buried.



Rick, I think this is why some people growing barbatas have their medium (usually burnt earth) covering the 'crown' of the growth, sometimes burying 1 or 2 leaf axils as well. But I try to avoid this because I found that when the medium stays overly wet, the ;eaf axils and the 'crown' tends to become infected. So now I plant all my paphs the 'brachy way', so that the medium stays level with or tiny bit lower than where new roots emerge..


----------



## Candace (Jun 17, 2008)

I don't believe adding ground up leaves to them is giving your plants the nutrition they need. You need to purchase a balanced fertilizer. I would also think adding unsterilized medium of any kind to your plants is giving them extra doses of fungus and pathogens.


----------



## Rick (Jun 17, 2008)

Sterility is an illusion. How do these guys survive in the wild with piles of unsterilized leaf litter around them?

I was talking to a microbiologist this past weekend that told me he came across a strain of salmonella that could survive boiling! I've seen this in my lab with fish pathogens, that often you try to sterilize the medium (bleaching, UV, peroxide), and you end up killing the beneficial bugs, and the pathogens just get pissed off and grow out of control.

Pathogens will find stressed organisms no matter how much the media around them is sterilized. In many cases the pathogens are normally carried on the host full time, and they are just waiting for an environmental upset to take advantage of a weakened immunity system.

Obviously sterility matters for things like surgery where you are purposely stressing an already stressed and sick organism in order to correct some imbalance.

As far as the ground up leaves thing goes, that's what granddaddy used to do in the garden for years and grew the best 'maters in the county! 
Now you young'ns use all them new fangled chemical fertylizers!


----------



## Rick (Jun 17, 2008)

I'm being goofy, but there is such a thing as organic gardening, and it can be applied to orchids too.

But you loose a lot of control over the situation (that us control freaks have problems coping with), and it feels like you are growing on pure faith rather than science.


----------



## Candace (Jun 17, 2008)

> (that us control freaks have problems coping with)



That's me alright.


----------



## paphioboy (Jun 18, 2008)

> Sterility is an illusion. How do these guys survive in the wild with piles of unsterilized leaf litter around them?



Exactly...  It is my belief that the breakdown of organic material encourages the growth of beneficial microbes which may help the orchids grow. 



> As far as the ground up leaves thing goes, that's what granddaddy used to do in the garden for years and grew the best 'maters in the county!
> Now you young'ns use all them new fangled chemical fertylizers!



:rollhappy::rollhappy:
Seriously, the dried leaves do work... Especially for those pure epiphytes like lowii and its primary hybrids (which I have quite a few). These had growth spurts right after I fed it. Without the feeding, they just grew rather slowly. 
I do change the medium annually, if not twice a year, and most of my paphs are doing well.. Its just that the barbatas are being finicky, I guess...


----------



## paphioboy (Jun 18, 2008)

> I'm being goofy, but there is such a thing as organic gardening, and it can be applied to orchids too.



I think I am one of these organic gardeners... I do not use insecticides or fungicides in my collection and I only use organic fertiliser (pelleted goat poo/soyabean)for my orchids (not paphs though).


----------



## Eric Muehlbauer (Jun 18, 2008)

I used to add crushed oak leaves to my paph media many years ago.....I'd bake them in the oven birefly to "sterilize' them.....I stopped when I became afraid that it was making the medium to acidic...and they did speed up the breakdown time of the media...but it seemed my paphs appreciated it.....Eric


----------



## Rick (Jun 18, 2008)

paphioboy said:


> Especially for those pure epiphytes like lowii and its primary hybrids (which I have quite a few).



I wouldn't call lowii a pure epiphyte. I have at least one source that found them growing on the same limestone hills that sanderianum were growing on in Borneo. But they are big plants that I think are fertilizer hogs.

But back to the culture issue... I think there are lots of ways to skin the culture cat so to speak, and its pretty obvious that folks can get fantastic results by doing what seems completely opposite things.

I think this makes for some great learning opportunities, because I think the principles that are running the system are fundamentally the same for these diverging culture strategies, and when you discover what is in common that works, you end up with a greater understanding of what these basic principles are.

I just got hold of a paper on nutrient cycling in tropical forest leaf litter. This seems totally pertinent to this discussion of barbata culture.


----------



## Corbin (Jun 19, 2008)

Rick said:


> I just got hold of a paper on nutrient cycling in tropical forest leaf litter. This seems totally pertinent to this discussion of barbata culture.




Well where is it? You going to keep it all to yourself?oke:


----------



## Rick (Jun 19, 2008)

Corbin said:


> Well where is it? You going to keep it all to yourself?oke:



I fell asleep before I finished reading it last night


----------



## Jim Toomey (Jun 19, 2008)

and?


----------



## Rick (Jun 19, 2008)

AHAB said:


> and?


I haven't got back into it yet,but the short answer is....

Forrest litter generally has more than enough nitrogen in it at any given time to more than meet the needs of plants in a local stand, but phosphorus is limited (sometimes severely), and plants within a stand become very efficient and competitive in its use.

From my own conjecture at this point. The MSU fertilizer NPK balance, which was based on what was found in an orchid, may represent the minimum that it has evolved to get away with rather than what may be optimal or extra-beneficial.


----------



## papheteer (Apr 5, 2010)

Rick said:


> I use to have a similar problem.
> 
> I found that barbata in general only want a small amount of light compared to every other paph I have. They also want higher humidity.
> 
> ...



sorry to bring this old thread back. But I do have the same problems with them too. I only had the hybrid barbatas. So do these things apply to the hybrids as well?


----------



## PaphMadMan (Apr 5, 2010)

papheteer said:


> sorry to bring this old thread back. But I do have the same problems with them too. I only had the hybrid barbatas. So do these things apply to the hybrids as well?



Absolutely.


----------



## paphioboy (Apr 5, 2010)

Update: I currently have success with hybrid Maudiae types (Maudiae coloratum and Holdenii alba), and callosum, but still am reluctant to try more difficult species. Hookerae and appletoninum are growing, although rather slow...


----------

