# A Possible Solution to Basal Rot



## SlipperKing (Aug 21, 2008)

I'm sure most have experienced that nasty bacterial rot. That can quickly spread from the base of your favorite paph or phrag and consume the entire plant in a matter of days. Well, some time back, we had threads posted by Sanderianum and followed up by Rick from Tenn. on nutritional requirments of paphs. Especially Ricks resent interest in phosphates and its role in the health of the slipper orchids. He had come across an article stating cash crops in tropical soils benefited by the addition of lime. We haven't had an update lately on his experiments with bone meal being added to the his plants but I decided I would try the same with my paphs and phrags. So I've been adding bone meal as a top dressing to number plants for the last 2 months and here in Texas is the prime time for basal rot to pop up. I had a couple of plants that I was fighting this rot with an expensive antibotic power, repotting and the such with little success. Out of frustration I said "what the hell, it's worth a try" so I dumped a spoon full of bone meal into the leaf axles of a phrag that I was going to loose anyway. Wha La! I watched over a few days and the rot was stopped, dead in it's tracks! All total four out of four plants with no new rot. I don't know if this is new knowledge or not but I'm pleased with the results so far. See pics below.
Paph Imperial Jade with rot (old)


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## goldenrose (Aug 21, 2008)

:clap::clap: You could be on to something! What an inexpensive way to solve a nasty problem!


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## NYEric (Aug 21, 2008)

I don't have a lot of problem w/ rot but any I do I hate so I'll try it. Going to Home Depot on Saturday, hope they have some!


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## SlipperKing (Aug 21, 2008)

NYEric said:


> I don't have a lot of problem w/ rot but any I do I hate so I'll try it. Going to Home Depot on Saturday, hope they have some!


Eric,
I got mine from the local feedstore but you may have a problem in NYC!


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## Candace (Aug 21, 2008)

I wonder if it's the drying action of the powder rather than the bone meal itself. But if it works...


I usually rip the infected leaves off so it doesn't go down into the plant. You don't?


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## NYEric (Aug 21, 2008)

Not if its rotting from inside leaves! Although I can tell you about the Pk x Living Fire I've got w/ no roots becase I tried to pull off a rotted outside leaf and the rest of the plant popped off! :sob:


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## NYEric (Aug 21, 2008)

SlipperKing said:


> Eric,
> I got mine from the local feedstore but you may have a problem in NYC!



Nah, I don't think petland discounts carries bonemeal, although it makes me curious. What do you feed bonemeal to?


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## Rick (Aug 21, 2008)

Candace said:


> I wonder if it's the drying action of the powder rather than the bone meal itself. But if it works...
> 
> 
> I usually rip the infected leaves off so it doesn't go down into the plant. You don't?



Bone meal is not that great a desicant, but it will increase the pH quite a bit like lime.

Erwinia is a fermantatious bacteria that I would expect to generate a low pH environment around itself. Rick's results are a suprise to me, but I wouldn't have chalked up the results to increased Ca or P, but rather pH increase. The Ca and P may have more influence in the weeks to come??


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## SlipperKing (Aug 21, 2008)

Candace said:


> I wonder if it's the drying action of the powder rather than the bone meal itself. But if it works...
> 
> 
> I usually rip the infected leaves off so it doesn't go down into the plant. You don't?


Candace,
Normally I do rip off infected leaves and had did so with these four plants but the rot kept coming back. Interestingly, the progress of the rot down the leaf stopped even though the bone meal wasn't in contact with that area to any extent. So I'm not sure that the physical drying properties of bone meal had anything to do with stopping the rot.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Aug 21, 2008)

Why not try powdered lime the next time and see if you get the same results? Eric


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## Ernie (Aug 21, 2008)

Candace said:


> I wonder if it's the drying action of the powder rather than the bone meal itself. But if it works...
> 
> 
> I usually rip the infected leaves off so it doesn't go down into the plant. You don't?



I think it's the drying too. 

-Ernie


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## goldenrose (Aug 21, 2008)

NYEric said:


> Nah, I don't think petland discounts carries bonemeal, although it makes me curious. What do you feed bonemeal to?


uuuhhh ........ plants, like perrennials etc. Good for roots & blooming.


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## Renegayde (Aug 21, 2008)

if I am not mistaken LOL 20 years ago when we raised pigs on the farm we added bone meal to the feed when we were grinding

Todd


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## SlipperKing (Aug 21, 2008)

Renegayde said:


> if I am not mistaken LOL 20 years ago when we raised pigs on the farm we added bone meal to the feed when we were grinding
> 
> Todd


That's right Todd, bone meal is feed to livestock. Why you may ask? Heck if I know!!


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## SlipperKing (Aug 21, 2008)

Eric Muehlbauer said:


> Why not try powdered lime the next time and see if you get the same results? Eric


Eric,
That's a good idea. I'll have look a round and pick some up.


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## Candace (Aug 21, 2008)

I made the mistake of keeping both bonemeal and bloodmeal in the g.h. Let just say the humidity and water eventually melted the bags they were in and I had a large soup of yucky matter. Be sure to keep it in an airtight container or out of your g.h.


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## streetmorrisart (Aug 21, 2008)

How about crushed oyster shell? Some might resent it, but not many of the paphs around here! I top dress with it and some of it gets in the axials anyway--maybe a nice preventative?


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## cnycharles (Aug 21, 2008)

Renegayde said:


> if I am not mistaken LOL 20 years ago when we raised pigs on the farm we added bone meal to the feed when we were grinding
> 
> Todd



yikes! in these days with mad cow disease I think feeding animal parts to other animals is heading out the door (hopefully). infected material from animals with that disease can survive cooking in an oven and then the animal eating it can get the disease. it was a source of protein and allowing animals to get to market size 'faster', saving the producer money


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## Renegayde (Aug 21, 2008)

though I am sure that the amount makes no difference as I recall it was like 100 lbs to 2 Tons of feed


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## SlipperFan (Aug 21, 2008)

Very interesting. May have to try that sometime.


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## paphjoint (Aug 22, 2008)

I use cinnamon powder for those kind of rot -it dries up the rot - but it all depend on how early you get in there, furthermore cinnamon has antifungal and antibacterial properties


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## Gcroz (Aug 22, 2008)

Well, looks interesting. Boy would it be nice to have a cheap cure for this, I've lost 2 plants this week due to the lovely weather recently. I think I even have fungi growing in our carpets up here with all the rain.

I'd love to know how this is working further on down the road.


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## SlipperKing (Aug 22, 2008)

paphjoint said:


> I use cinnamon powder for those kind of rot -it dries up the rot - but it all depend on how early you get in there, furthermore cinnamon has antifungal and antibacterial properties


I have used cinnamon in the past with various levels of success. One thing I've notice with cinnamon is if I get it in a healthy crown of paph that has basal rot the plant stops growing. I have no scientific proof that cinnamon can stop a plant from growing but it happened several times early on when I started using cinnamon. Plus its hard to get the stuff to stick to the infected areas and stay there long enough to do any good.
I will keep you all updated on the progress of these plants. The Phrag Sorcerer's Apprentice and the Paph Imperial Jade are single fans so I should be able to tell fairly soon if there is going to be any ill effects from the "overload" of bonemeal added. On the positive side, the phrag has been treated for 30 days or so with no sign of rot returning. The paph at the time of the photo was about 2 1/2 weeks with no new rot. Also, most of the bonemeal has washed away from watering (into the mix, I'm sure).


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## Elena (Aug 22, 2008)

That's interesting. My roeb is the only plant that has a problem with rot (appears to be a common issue) and Dragons Blood seems to be the best thing to control it.

I've also been experimenting with adding bone meal to slippers after reading Rick's posts. It's been a few weeks and everything is growing happily so it's at least not causing any problems.


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## NYEric (Aug 22, 2008)

Must get bonemeal, must get bonemeal..


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## Elena (Aug 22, 2008)

Just order some online, Eric  I don't drive so that's exactly what I did. What did we do before the internet?


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## Rick (Aug 23, 2008)

NYEric said:


> Must get bonemeal, must get bonemeal..




The bonemeal "discovery" is kind of ironic since its such a commonplace item for almost all other horticulture uses. Many "oldtime" orchid growers used it extensively before the advent of more targeted fertilizers. Some like Marilyn LeDeux add it normally to their potting mixes.

Maybe this is the "rediscovery" of bonemeal use for orchids.


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## Rick (Aug 23, 2008)

Eric Muehlbauer said:


> Why not try powdered lime the next time and see if you get the same results? Eric



My thoughts too Eric. You know they toss lime on top of dead things to control bacterial decomposition. It would be the same effect.

However, I would be concerned that lime is just a bit too harsh compared to bonemeal.


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## NYEric (Aug 27, 2008)

OK, I went to home depot in NJ and got some bone meal [$5/lb]. When I opened up the package it looked like brown sugar as opposed to the white powder. Porcine source as opposed to bovine I guess. Anyway, I put some on about 8 plants so hopefully I won't see any further problems!


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## SlipperKing (Aug 27, 2008)

NYEric said:


> OK, I went to home depot in NJ and got some bone meal [$5/lb]. When I opened up the package it looked like brown sugar as opposed to the white powder. Porcine source as opposed to bovine I guess. Anyway, I put some on about 8 plants so hopefully I won't see any further problems!


Keep us posted Eric either way it goes, good or bad


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## Rick (Aug 28, 2008)

NYEric said:


> OK, I went to home depot in NJ and got some bone meal [$5/lb]. When I opened up the package it looked like brown sugar as opposed to the white powder. Porcine source as opposed to bovine I guess. Anyway, I put some on about 8 plants so hopefully I won't see any further problems!



That's the stuff I got recently too Eric.


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## NYEric (Aug 29, 2008)

OK; hopefully we didn't get ripped off! Since I don't top water a lot it'll be interesting to see if it works its' way into the leaves.


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## Hien (Aug 29, 2008)

NYEric said:


> OK, I went to home depot in NJ and got some bone meal [$5/lb]. When I opened up the package it looked like brown sugar as opposed to the white powder. Porcine source as opposed to bovine I guess. Anyway, I put some on about 8 plants so hopefully I won't see any further problems!


 Did you get Bone meal or Blood meal?


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## NYEric (Aug 29, 2008)

It's bone meal.


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## Candace (Aug 29, 2008)

Hmm. Maybe it was packaged incorrectly. I say you need to sample some to make sure. Since you enjoy licking your plants, this shouldn't be a stretch for you.:evil:


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## NYEric (Aug 29, 2008)

If it wasn't pork I would!


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## NYEric (Sep 22, 2008)

OK, update. Bone meal, at least from porcine source, is out. I had terrible problem w/ drosophela and had to chuck or change media on most of the plants I was treating w/ bone meal. [scratch one Paph Cam's Cloud and one makhulii alba! ] I changed the media picked off any dead/ infected growths, treated w/ Dragon's Blood and repotted.


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## SlipperKing (Sep 22, 2008)

Sorry E, hate to hear that.


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## NYEric (Sep 23, 2008)

No problem, if the plants didn't have issues I wouldn't have had to try bone meal.


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