Is this Phrag. pearcei okay?

[The Orchid Boy]

I my Phrag. pearcei okay? I've noticed it seems to be slow in leaf growth, but it does seem to be doing well in growing roots. It has gotten a lot of yellow leaves and I've cut them off once they got ugly. I've had it since 12/14/13 and I transferred to S/H on 1/27/13. It may have grown leaves but I just didn't notice because it has 14 growths. 2 new growths started around when I transferred to S/H but they still aren't much but little nubs. I also noticed today on one of the mature growths there is some strange coloration on the leaves. Should I be worried? I flush it once a week, always keep water in the saucer, fertilize w/ K-lite at 1/4 tsp. per gallon once a month, and I only use distilled water. It looks like hardly any of the growths have bloomed.

Leaf coloration

The plant now

 

[gonewild]

More water.... Try to keep the media surface moist. Right now most pearcei in their natural habitat are completely submerged under water. They like a lot of water.

 

[The Orchid Boy]

It is in S/H. Just under the surface the LECA is moist. There is just a "dry line".

 

[NYEric]

wetter.

 

[Leo Schordje]

Sounds like you are giving enough water. Does it stand in water, or is there a water resevoir? Still make sure to flush the water, I think they do best with a complete change of water at least once a week. Also, new roots come out right near the surface. So I would put a layer of NZ Sphagnum, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick over the aggregate. That way it stays moist to the top. New root buds will be able to reach down then without dry tips.

If the watering is okay, think about your fertilizer. During growth spurts (often in Spring) Phrags can be heavy feeders. If it is growing fast it may need an addition dose beyond your normal schedule. do it until newer growths stay green, more frequent is better than stronger, but you can safely increase concentration up toward 100 to 120 ppm N, but I'm not sure I would go any higher, try more often if you are already using more than 75 ppm N fertilizer. Use the calculator at Ray's website. http://www.firstrays.com

If you have not repotted recently, I would consider checking the roots, there might be a problem down there slowing nutrient uptake. Early symptoms of a root problem often look like under feeding.

I would also check for spider mites. I can't see them, the leaf surface will 'feel dusty', but your young eyes are better. If they are present they can cause a mottled look, before they cause more severe damage.

My thoughts.
Overall the plant is fairly healthy, but it could be better, so you are right to be concerned.

 

[SlipperKing]

You are staving the plant to a slow death. You feed once a month? How would you like it if I feed you only once a month? Do Not use DI water only on your plants. You need some kind of minerals in the feed water all the time otherwise you are leeching out minerals, salts, organics out of the plant.
I fertile every 4th time and I water minim 2X a week at or about the same concentration as you. You say S/H but is it really? Is your pot a solid pot with 2 holes drilled through the side of the pot about 1 inch or 1.5 inches up from the bottom? If not then you are not growing S/H. If its a regular pot setting on a saucer then you're not getting the benefit of S/H. Water travels the path of less resistances. In other words, the water will evaporate out of the saucer from the outside of the pot faster then it would traveling up through the pot. Hence, very wet bottom aggregates and very dry top layers.
According to Jay and believe it to be true, it doesn't matter the size of the pot in S/H culture so fine a plastic container that had potato salad, cotton candy or whatever in it and poke 2 holes in the side, close together about an inch up and use it.
You and your plant will be much happier!

 

[Rick]

Can you check the pH in the sump water?

With straight RO it could be a bit low for optimal nutrient uptake. 5.5-6.5 should be good.

The brand new LECA could also be pulling out some of the goodies before the plants had a good chance to establish, but eventually it should saturate.

It wouldn't take a lot of tap water blended in to get the pH and alkalinity in a more useful spot. I've run pearcei an caracinum in LECA for years in a similar setup, and using incoming water with a conductivity of 80uS/cm and weekly feedings at 50-100ppm N.

 

[The Orchid Boy]

It stands in about 2 inches of water in a saucer. The pot does have raised feet and the saucers bottom has ridges so there is a little more water movement. What if I put some LECA under the pot, between the pot and saucer? The pot has moisture all the way to the top, the bottom half of the top pebbles are moist. I definitely feed more. I use straight rain water for the rest of my plants, otherwise I have hard well water with a pH of about 8. There are no pest on the plant that I could see.

 

[cnycharles]

only thing I could think of was that for finely-rooted plants, the big pellets on top might be allowing the top root zone to be a bit too dry for this water-loving plant. when I first tried large chchips with a handful of armeniacums, the top was always drying out and the new roots weren't happy and would dry off, so I watered more. The chc in the pot were soaking wet and the roots rotted away.

maybe try putting a thin layer of sphagnum over the top of the pellets, and as rick says 'dirty' your water a little bit rather than having absolutely pure water. since it's so clean, it may pull some initial junk out of the s/h pellets

 

[Rick]

I use straight rain water for the rest of my plants, otherwise I have hard well water with a pH of about 8. There are no pest on the plant that I could see.

Do you know the hardness/alkalinity of your well water?

I would dilute to a hardness of 20ppm (CaCO3). My well water is also "hard" so I do a 10:1 dilution with RO water.

In some ways you accomplish a similar thing (hardness wise) by presenting a constant feed of about 5ppm N from K lite in RO. But if the pH is staying too low, then nitrate uptake could be compromised. You could also add a bit of kelp extract to your sump water to get some nitrogen diversity and some supplemental minerals available.

I don't think its panic time to push the pedal to the floor.

 

[The Orchid Boy]

The hardness/alkalinity is hard and is perfect for my Tanganiykan cichlids. I think it is around 150 GH and around 180 KH. These are rough estimates from the last time I tested my water. They should be close but may be off quite a bit.

 

[Rick]

The hardness/alkalinity is hard and is perfect for my Tanganiykan cichlids. I think it is around 150 GH and around 180 KH. These are rough estimates from the last time I tested my water. They should be close but may be off quite a bit.

need to check units or decimal points on these numbers.

1 degree general (or german) hardness = 17.8mg/L as CaCO3

So 2670 mg/L CaCO3 is not just hard but EXTREEMLY hard. Like off the EPA scale. At that level of hardness it should have chunks of gypsum coming out of the pipe. But at 15 units of general hardness, that's 267 mg/L as CaCO3 which is rated as "hard" on the EPA scale.

 

[The Orchid Boy]

need to check units or decimal points on these numbers.

1 degree general (or german) hardness = 17.8mg/L as CaCO3

So 2670 mg/L CaCO3 is not just hard but EXTREEMLY hard. Like off the EPA scale. At that level of hardness it should have chunks of gypsum coming out of the pipe. But at 15 units of general hardness, that's 267 mg/L as CaCO3 which is rated as "hard" on the EPA scale.

I probably read it wrong, or maybe it was a typo.

I have a Paph. urbanianum seedling in "true" s/h and give it the same water and nutrients as the Phrag. pearcei, a month or so ago I did put a layer of sphagnum on top so it stays more moist. For a few months I had it in a courser bark mix, in a smaller pot, sitting in water all the time; it seemed to do a lot better. The urbanianum is really doing well but the pearcei doesn't seem to be growing like a phrag should. If you have a Phrag. pearcei, exactly how do you grow it?

 

[Rick]

If you have a Phrag. pearcei, exactly how do you grow it?

I have 2 different big plants and sometimes divisions/seedlings from various breedings.

In terms of potting, I grow them different ways. Plastic pots /SH, baskets of moss/gravel. They really don't seem to care as long as they are kept dripping wet all the time.

They like fairly bright light (that you could bloom Vandas in) but good airflow so they don't get very warm. The GH stays at ~70% or greater humidity.

TDS needs to be low. I use RO water with about 10% well water added. Conductivity is under 80 uS/cm. Sump water for SH pretty much stays under 200 uS. Hardness is <40 mg/L as CaCO3.

Feeding is weekly with N less than 50ppm N. If I add a lot of fert to a SH sump, I'll dump it out after a couple days, and refill with the low TDS irrigation water.

 

[gonewild]

The urbanianum is really doing well but the pearcei doesn't seem to be growing like a phrag should. If you have a Phrag. pearcei, exactly how do you grow it?

MORE WATER!!
P.pearcei is almost an aquatic plant.
In it's natural habitat pearcei grows on rocks in rivers just above the low water line. During the rain season and during rainstorms in the dry season pearcei is submerged underwater.
It grows with it's roots attached to rock not in coarse media. So if you want to see you plant grow better as Rick said keep it wet.

The picture below shows pearcei growing on the big boulder. This boulder gets completely underwater, notice the water swept bush growing on top.

If your pearcei is not growing as well as you want pour water on it everyday and see what happens. (If it rots I'll buy you another one! )

 

[Rick]

I've had this plant since 2001, and maybe repotted twice since I got it.

I'm not sure if this has hydroton in the pot or if its solid roots/moss/chc?? But I just keep it in a bowl of water and it goes nuts. It's starting a new round of spiking. I found this over the top root mess last week when I thought I'd clean it up for show season.

 

[The Orchid Boy]

I can't seem to keep it wet enough with S/H. So it is basically a "bog" plant, in a sense. Do you think I could put it in a mix of two-thirds sphagnum (for wetness) and the other third bark and charcoal (for aeration) and keep it sitting in water? Or just in moss sitting in water??? I'm really successful with things in moss. I'm ready to try something different and open to any suggestions.

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

Try 1/3 moss, 1/3 bark, 1/3 spongerock....and leave it sitting in water.

 

[Rick]

Try 1/3 moss, 1/3 bark, 1/3 spongerock....and leave it sitting in water.

That could work especially if you use one of those plastic net pots. If you get too stagnant that probably wouldn't help either.

As far as SH goes, plug up the present holes and raise the water level an inch or so until the wicking action gets the water to the top of the pot.

 

[NYEric]

I can't seem to keep it wet enough with S/H. I'm really successful with things in moss. I'm ready to try something different and open to any suggestions.

Lots of s/h set-ups have water dripping constantly onto the media. If you cant do this and are good with moss, try that, add some clay balls and perlite to create air spaces and keep that wet.