# Vanda coeruea problem



## Stone (Nov 2, 2011)

Anyone have experience with Vanda coerulea?
I have a particular clone that's growing ok but each time its roots start
growing they extend about an inch then seal over and stop. this keeps happening over and over. Any ideas as to what is causing this?


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## paphioboy (Nov 2, 2011)

I don't grow coerulea specifically, but have a couple of mokaras and some papilionanthe. Your problem sounds like low humidity..


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## Shiva (Nov 2, 2011)

I agree with Paphioboy. Vanda coerulea, like other vandas, require a high level of humidity, and perfect drainage. In these conditions they need to be really ''hosed down'' at least twice about half an hour apart in the morning. Once to get the velamen wet and then to really water the plant. Since I grow it under light inside the house, I dunk it twice a week in a large container of water and let it stand there for about half an hour. It won't flower inside but I'll keep it alive until it can go outside in the spring.


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## Stone (Nov 2, 2011)

Could be low humidity. Although I have 3 different clones all on big slabs and 
the other two dont have this problem
Maybe I'll try spraying and watering this one more often.
Thanks.


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## Rick (Nov 3, 2011)

What is your humidity level?


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Nov 4, 2011)

Humidity is a big issue with Vanda's. Where are you growing it? Since I grow indoors in winter, no greenhouse, I have found that to grow Vanda's successfully I have to break all the rules. No baskets, no simply hanging bare plants on wires. I use plastic pots with CHC....in fact, i have successfully grown and bloomed Vanda's in plastic pots with sphagnum. That might kill them in a greenhouse, but in the home, with lower humidity, that's what works. I only wish I had space for more of them.


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## Stone (Nov 4, 2011)

Humidity is usually 60%. they are REALLY established on big treefern slabs so
no chance of removing them. Dont get me wrong they're growing in fact one's
in spike but the problem child has all these ugly knobbley roots.
BTW Aerides,Rhyncostylis,renanthera all ok.


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## John M (Nov 4, 2011)

I grow thousands of Vandas and while all my hybrids have wonderful, long, juicy roots that grow and grow and grow....., my coeruleas do the stubby root thing! My humidity is almost always VERY high. I simply have no idea what causes coerulea to do this with it's roots. I noticed that coeruleas I've imported from overseas and other coeruleas from other sources all have this type of root growth. Maybe it's just the way this plant naturally grows? Maybe it's what we should expect?


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## Roth (Nov 4, 2011)

John M said:


> I grow thousands of Vandas and while all my hybrids have wonderful, long, juicy roots that grow and grow and grow....., my coeruleas do the stubby root thing! My humidity is almost always VERY high. I simply have no idea what causes coerulea to do this with it's roots. I noticed that coeruleas I've imported from overseas and other coeruleas from other sources all have this type of root growth. Maybe it's just the way this plant naturally grows? Maybe it's what we should expect?



I have seen Vanda coerulea in the wild a couple of times, in Thailand, close to Doi Tung, in Burma once, and several times in Vietnam. They have very long roots, and there are two forms. 

One is a litophyte terrestrial to start its life, a bit like some Vandopsis. It grows usually with holcoglossum amesianum and some paphios concolor.

The other one grows only on dead trees, like in Thailand or Burma. We have this type too in Dien Bien, Viet Nam. It usually never grows on live trees, a bit like chiloschista, some of the small phals...

Unlike the hybrids vandas, I grow mine in pots, about 30 cm diameter, Orchiata grade 5A, lots of lime. I bury the lower leaf a bit, and after a while it grows up. Even when it does aerial roots, they will plunge in the mix sooner or later. This way I get very good quality roots. It definitely does not grow like the hybrid vandas. The same applies to some of the miniature vandas ( and to the very big Vanda concolor, which is exclusively a terrestrial...).

Now, for the bad news, though the plants kept the habit of Vanda coerulea for many things, the Thai strains ( bred from the 'Saragarik strain') are absolutely not a pure species.

This spring I had the chance to see a wild collected coerulea pink, that's something. There were blue wild ones, that cannot compete in term of shape, but they are at least the real ones.

Some of the 'real' coerulea can have many more flowers than those fake ones from Thailand. The pink one had maybe 15 flowers on a spike. In Dien Bien and Lai Chau I commonly see collectors with 15-20 flowers per spike coerulea too.


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## Stone (Nov 4, 2011)

John M said:


> I grow thousands of Vandas and while all my hybrids have wonderful, long, juicy roots that grow and grow and grow....., my coeruleas do the stubby root thing! My humidity is almost always VERY high. I simply have no idea what causes coerulea to do this with it's roots. I noticed that coeruleas I've imported from overseas and other coeruleas from other sources all have this type of root growth. Maybe it's just the way this plant naturally grows? Maybe it's what we should expect?



I wonder if its a temperature thing. From what I read V. coerulea usually grows in a climate with dramatic temperature drops at night and quickly
rising to warm in the morning. I just can't give it that. Maybe our temps are too stable throughout the year.


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## Stone (Nov 4, 2011)

Roth said:


> I have seen Vanda coerulea in the wild a couple of times, in Thailand, close to Doi Tung, in Burma once, and several times in Vietnam. They have very long roots, and there are two forms.
> 
> One is a litophyte terrestrial to start its life, a bit like some Vandopsis. It grows usually with holcoglossum amesianum and some paphios concolor.
> 
> ...



I'm going to put it in a terracotta pot slab and all and fill it up with bark as soon as finish typing this and check results at the end of summer.


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## John M (Nov 4, 2011)

Stone said:


> I'm going to put it in a terracotta pot slab and all and fill it up with bark as soon as finish typing this and check results at the end of summer.



Oddly, even though coerulea is reported to tolerate quite cold conditions, all my coeruleas died when my greenhouse went down to -1*C in 2008. I have since purchased a new V. coerulea v. alba and I'm having this funny root problem with it too. I also get leaf tip die back on the newest leaves. My plant is in a clay pot with no medium. I think I'll try adding a mix of CHC and stones to fill the pot. It can't make this plant do any worse than it already is doing.


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## Shiva (Nov 4, 2011)

Could it be that these new roots expect to attach to some kind of support, like a tree trunk and when they don't sense one, they abort and try send another one in another direction looking for that support? Those vandas grow very tall and they need that support. So some roots would be specialised for gathering humidity and water while others would go for support and wouldn't waste energy when they find none.


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## paphioboy (Nov 4, 2011)

Shiva said:


> Could it be that these new roots expect to attach to some kind of support, like a tree trunk and when they don't sense one, they abort and try send another one in another direction looking for that support? Those vandas grow very tall and they need that support. So some roots would be specialised for gathering humidity and water while others would go for support and wouldn't waste energy when they find none.



I don't think that is the reason. Papilionanthes are much taller and lankier than most vandas, but none of the roots which appear high above the ground abort. They all have growing tips (in my conditions anyway), even those roots growing 2m above ground and exposed to full sun.


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## Shiva (Nov 4, 2011)

paphioboy said:


> I don't think that is the reason. Papilionanthes are much taller and lankier than most vandas, but none of the roots which appear high above the ground abort. They all have growing tips (in my conditions anyway), even those roots growing 2m above ground and exposed to full sun.



You may be right but two different plants in two different habitats may have solved the same problem differently. 

We know very little about the genetics and physiology of most plants. We have always assumed they were ''dumb''. A plant of rice has twice the number of genes as a human, and I doubt they bother with the colour of their eyes and control of cholesterol in their blood.


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## NYEric (Nov 4, 2011)

coerulea needs cool temps.


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## Rick (Nov 4, 2011)

I only have a few vandas, and no coeruleas. I do have a V roebellinii which is supposed to be a relatively high altitude, coolish growing speces.

I have it in a busted clay pot, but without any substrate. The pot was just an initial support to hold the plant up while it roots, and now the roots hang down lower than the the height of the plant and are very healthy.

I'm going to say it again. Get rid of the K. Last winter I saw "root burn" on each of my Vandas but so far they are better than ever.


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## Stone (Nov 5, 2011)

Rick said:


> I only have a few vandas, and no coeruleas. I do have a V roebellinii which is supposed to be a relatively high altitude, coolish growing speces.
> 
> I have it in a busted clay pot, but without any substrate. The pot was just an initial support to hold the plant up while it roots, and now the roots hang down lower than the the height of the plant and are very healthy.
> 
> I'm going to say it again. Get rid of the K. Last winter I saw "root burn" on each of my Vandas but so far they are better than ever.



Most plants have K levels in their leaves 50 to 150% to that of N.,Yes they can accumulate more and more when it is available but they may use this
during cold weather and low light to balance N. so some K is essential.


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## Rick (Nov 5, 2011)

Stone said:


> Most plants have K levels in their leaves 50 to 150% to that of N.,Yes they can accumulate more and more when it is available but they may use this
> during cold weather and low light to balance N. so some K is essential.



The literature I've been looking at indicates that perennial plants/trees have K at maybe 10-25% of N. Ca (and often silicates) are up to around 50% of N. The literature that suggests high K is normal is usually in agriculture for annuals such as wheat, corn, and exposed to fertilizers. I have an article on rice (on of the most researched and economically important plants on earth) that shows that when offered K is sucked up disproportionately to other nutrients and causes deficiency of Ca/Mg/P.

I won't disagree that plants need K, but my point is that we are flooding plants with a nutrient that they are designed to extract from very low levels very efficiently from their environment. (I have another paper on the efficiency of K uptake of tropical epiphytic plants). The bark, CHC, or sphagnum moss in our potting mix naturally has K in it (as you said its in plant tissues). Most growers using surface or well water with at least a few ppb of K in it naturally.

So there is no reason to douse our plants with 100 ppm of K on a weekly basis when these plants do just fine in the jungles extracting a tiny fraction of this amount from the environment. And I am finding that this practice is not only a waste of time, but actually detrimental for long term growth of orchids.


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## keithrs (Nov 5, 2011)

DUNO recommends 8-5-25 for aussie natives. He said to avoid high N fertilizer like the plague..... He said that they need the extra K for the carbs and sugars....


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## Rick (Nov 5, 2011)

keithrs said:


> DUNO recommends 8-5-25 for aussie natives. He said to avoid high N fertilizer like the plague..... He said that they need the extra K for the carbs and sugars....



Maybe the species that annually produce big underground tubers are a special case, but this recommendation is a rarity. K ends up more concentrated in roots fruits and flowers, but K is not much of a component of carbs and sugars (almost nothing but carbon and hydrogen), but K is used in the enzymatic reactions to make carbs and sugars.

There are several articles by potash industry associations that don't go this extreme.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/cropsystems/dc3425.html

Here's an article on potatoes. An annual plant pushed for high production in short time frames. This falls within the N vs K levels Stone has seen in literature, but doesn't advocate reversing priority of N to K fertilizing.

Note in the first chart the relative amounts of NPK Ca Mg in production vines versus the tubers.


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## Stone (Nov 6, 2011)

I'm looking at Dutch figures for optimum growth of a range of hydroponic crops ranging from Tomato to Chrysanthemum, Rose, and Cucumber etc.
K levels in every case are over 100% of N levels and Ammonium approximately 10% of Nitrate.

These figures are for plants grown in totally inert media with probably very low cation exchange and on continuous feed. It shows how much K plants can use given certain circumstances. Of course it doesn't necessarily follow that we should feed paphs like that because as you say most of the organic media we use has high to very high levels of K in it along with the capacity to hold even more. Mineral soils also usually have a good amount of K in them
as your paper says so these figures aren't applicable there either.
But I use fert. within this range for all my epiphytes on cork and they do extemely well. With paphs though, I will try to cut K percentage because of the interference with Ca and Mg you've been talking about.
The important thing for me is good root and as you know Ca is vital for root growth and good root growth is essential for Ca uptake.


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## Rick (Nov 6, 2011)

Stone said:


> I'm looking at Dutch figures for optimum growth of a range of hydroponic crops ranging from Tomato to Chrysanthemum, Rose, and Cucumber etc.
> K levels in every case are over 100% of N levels and Ammonium approximately 10% of Nitrate.
> 
> These figures are for plants grown in totally inert media with probably very low cation exchange and on continuous feed. It shows how much K plants can use given certain circumstances. Of course it doesn't necessarily follow that we should feed paphs like that because as you say most of the organic media we use has high to very high levels of K in it along with the capacity to hold even more. Mineral soils also usually have a good amount of K in them
> ...



Your data base brings up the points I've been making all along. With the exception of the roses, all the other plants are annuals. Going from seed to harvest in less than one year, and plants are selected for maximum fruit or tuber production (which also requires/sequesters K). The potato link in my earlier post is in the same "agri-application" type. If you switch to perennial crops like fruit/nut trees, coffee bushes.... in non hydoponic settings the K use drops dramatically. The GA ag extension recommendation for pecan nut growers indicates no fertilizing at all except for rare additions of N and zinc. Leaf tissue values of pecan trees (which matches the values for tropical leaf litter) has low levels of K in leaf tissues.

Another issue with high K is that plants become susceptible to disease. I've distributed a short paper on this to a handful of ST members on demand. I'm hoping that eventually ST may have a library function that we can upload papers to). The disease problems in the paper I referenced were Erwinia bacteria attacking annual plants like beans. Going back to the high K hydroponic growing methods for perennials like roses and orchids reminds me of all the posts on things like crown rot, soft leaf rots, botrytus, black mold.....which seems to plague are orchids and roses grown with these standardized agriculture fertilizers. Subsequently we have standardized the practice of heavy use of anti bacterial and anti fungal chemicals and practices of "only water in the morning" and "don't get water in the crown".

I have seen amazing plants grown under high K feeding regimes (some in my own GH). Ive seen many of these same plants crash and burn the year after coming back from a show with a CCE. Ive also seen plenty of CCE quality plants grown with no fertilizing whatsoever, and have been extra impressed that some of these plants have been in the owners collection from decades with no extra special care or consideration. No use of crazy chemicals.

I realize that growers have a zillion strategies to accomplish there growing goals, I'm just finding out how much the low effort versions are all converging on the same basic formula.


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## Rick (Nov 6, 2011)

[/




Good and bad roots before and after K reduction V. sanderianum




Potting method and roots of V. roebelingiana



Mounted Esmerelda clarkii. Generally considered a difficult cool growing vandaceous species. This plant was less than the palm of my hand when first purchased less than 2 years ago, and growing very quickly on a low K diet.


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## Rick (Nov 6, 2011)

Also depending on how you look at it, some people consider mounting another form of hydroponic growing. Except exposure to feeding media is once a week instead of continuous to once and hour.


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## Makule (Nov 7, 2011)

The knotty roots may also be related to the plant itself, as alluded to earlier. I have had several V. coerulea and some show that trait while others do not. All types are grown in the same area under the same conditions and culture.


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