Pale leaves with green veining

[Roots]

I have two miniature paphs whose new growth is pale with green veining, Little Charlie and Sandra Helen's Maha. They are the only two in my collection which have this noticeable veining. They were on a windowsill here in the very dark PNW but were move under lights about a week ago-as were all my other plants.

I found a suggestion that sulfur deficiency could cause this veining in this thread: https://www.slippertalk.com/threads/too-much-light-for-newer-phrag-growths.57027/post-767701. I checked my tap water and it doesn't seem to have any sulfur in it. So, my last three waterings I have alternated between Epsom salts and gypsum, 1/4 teas. /g, instead of the normal cal/mag addition. I haven't seen much change.

I am wondering if this is a light issue or a nutrient issue? Am I too impatient and just need to give more time for the lights and the Epsom/gypsum to have an impact? Or, do I need to look deeper into my fertilizer composition? Is it possible this is a virus?

Thanks for any thoughts/ideas on this.

 

[CharlesD]

Plant will appreciate epsom salts regardless. I mean as long as it matures to a regular green as the leaf gets bigger I think it’s fine. Plant looks healthy. If mature leaf still looks like that then worth reassessing but I don’t think plant looks very nutrient deficient

 

[gonewild]

I believe the green veining you are seeing is actually underlying genetic leaf mottling. It becomes more visible when the leaves loose chlorophyll from an imbalance between light and nutrients.

 

[Roots]

Ahh, so maybe not enough light and too many nutrients? Thanks to both of you. Maybe with some additional artificial lighting and lighter hand with fert. things will improve. I appreciate the advice.

 

[gonewild]

Ahh, so maybe not enough light and too many nutrients? Thanks to both of you. Maybe with some additional artificial lighting and lighter hand with fert. things will improve. I appreciate the advice.

Usually pale leaves result from too much light and not enough nutrients.
What fertilizer do you normally use and how much do you apply?
What is your water qualities?
What is your light source and intensity?

 

[Stone]

When you grow hydroponically, your fertilizing has to be spot on since there are no colloides for cation exchange and buffering. No ''bank'' of nutrients from humus.
No humus means no buffering and you can quickly run into problems of deficiencies and toxicities (less frequent) and pH problems unless you are really on top of things. Each plant or cultivar behaves individually as well.
Chlorosis in the new leaves is usually due to a deficiency in either Fe, Mn, Zn, B or Cu. An imbalance between them can produce symptoms of something else. For example too much Mn can show up as an Iron deficiency etc.
You need to experiment with nutrients and pH but it's much easier to manage with an organic medium. Personally I think it's crazy growing Paphs hydroponically when they do so well in bark or fibre mixes.
Applying something like N or Mg can make thing worse!

 

[Ozpaph]

Basically, what he said ^^^^^^

 

[Ray]

Suggesting that growing plants a certain way is “crazy” is insulting and/or narrow-minded. There are multiple ways to accomplish anything in orchid-growing, considering the diversity in growing conditions.

Personally, I like growing in inert media, as that give me control over the feeding regimen and greatly reduces issues with media changes over time.

@Roots - what is your current routine feeding regimen? Fertilizer formula? Amount dissolved per gallon? Frequency of application? Application technique?

 

[Stone]

Suggesting that growing plants a certain way is “crazy” is insulting and/or narrow-minded. There are multiple ways to accomplish anything in orchid-growing, considering the diversity in growing conditions.

Personally, I like growing in inert media, as that give me control over the feeding regimen and greatly reduces issues with media changes over time.

@Roots - what is your current routine feeding regimen? Fertilizer formula? Amount dissolved per gallon? Frequency of application? Application technique?

You would have to be pretty sensitive to take the word ''crazy'' (in this context) literally. It was neither insulting nor narrow minded.
But there you are. Have you not heard the phrase ''you must be crazy'' said in jest? For Christ's sake Ray.
The point I was trying to make is that a ball of leca has the surface area of a ball of leca or a bit more whereas a gram of humus has a surface area of around 900 square meters. That is why control is so much easier. Paphs have evolved to grow in humus and this is why they get by with extremely low nutrient input and huge volumes of water in the habitat - because of the reserve. Without this reserve we need to keep on top of pH, EC, and nutrient ratios constantly. If you like that idea, knock yourself out..

 

[CharlesD]

I will say it looks like @Roots is doing fine with the current set up but i have to agree with Stone that why make you life harder. The best way to keep the plants going long term is to simplify as much as possible.

I’ll also say the talk of fertilizers and ‘inert’ media I don’t think are 100% accurate. Yes rockwool doesn’t add nutrients but what about the effect of all the moss it grows? I grow in a bark mix and every time I repot I see tiny critters crawling all of over the bark chunks. I know bark is not fully inert but a lot of literature says urea won’t work in bark because of the lack of micro-organisms

 

[gonewild]

Bark is not at all inert. It is acidic and is in a constant state of decomposition.

 

[CharlesD]

Bark is not at all inert. It is acidic and is in a constant state of decomposition.

I’m trying to say that one of the arguments against urea is that bark does not have micro-organisms like soil where I don’t find that to be true not that it is inert

Just want to accent stone’s point to they trying to re-Engineer nature is difficult

 

[Tom-DE]

I've used fir bark mix for potted plants from the very beginning of this hobby of mine and it has been working fine for me and the plants for the last 35+years...I have never tried SH or any other mix, so no comments.... do whatever works for you and you should always take all advice with a grain of salt.

 

[Ray]

.... do whatever works for you and you should always take all advice with a grain of salt.

Bingo!

That's one of the things that bugs me most about orchid growing advice - "do this" with no explanation of "why" or that "this works under my growing conditions and how much I like to mess with my plants."

 

[gonewild]

Without knowing what nutrients Roots used during the time the pale leafed plants grew on the dark shelf there's nothing here to discuss and stay on topic. Choice of substrate or cultural method is not the cause of his concern.

 

[Stone]

Choice of substrate or cultural method is not the cause of his concern.

No one said it was.

 

[Roots]

What fertilizer do you normally use and how much do you apply?
What is your water qualities?
What is your light source and intensity?

@Roots - what is your current routine feeding regimen? Fertilizer formula? Amount dissolved per gallon? Frequency of application? Application technique?

First, I want to thank both of you for your response and advice. Your help saved my first few flasks from complete demise. I appreciate you taking the time to offer more advice.

Below is my city's water report. Although they draw from a number of wells, the city told me 95% of the water comes from the Green River, second column.

As of Sept. I have been using:
Peter's Excel cal/mag 15-5-15-5-2, 7.2 g/5 gallons
Urea 46-0-0, 1.8 g/5 gallons, (Unless there is an obvious imbalance caused by urea, maybe we can table the benefits or lack thereof for another thread. I decided to add it because of an article I read and cited elsewhere, and I felt that it improved the leaf quality of my plants)
Cal/Mag 1-0-0-5-2, 14.4 g/5 gallons
Three weeks ago, because of the veining, I began substituting 1 1/4 t./5 gallons of either gypsum or epsom salts for the cal/mag and then returned to the cal/mag for the third watering.

I am watering about every 8th day. I fill 5 gallon beer kegs with the fertilizer solution and tap water several days beforehand so that the water is at ambient temperature when I water. I push the water from the kegs with oxygen but I don't let the kegs sit under pressure so not too much should be dissolving in the fert solution. I use 5 gallons to water about 12-14 plants.

Until a week ago all the plants were grown on windowsills scattered throughout the house. I have a hard time imagining that anything could be getting too much light from a PNW window in Dec. but I suppose it is possible. I just got a ppfd meter and should see what DLI is at the windows but haven't yet. A week ago everything was moved to a new grow space in the basement under full spectrum LED's. They are on their dimmest settings and anywhere from around 50 ppfd to 120 ppfd depending on placement under the lights. To be clear, the veining started before the plants were moved to the LED's.

Finally, I noticed tonight that a recently flowered henryanum is starting to show the same veining and a hirsutissimum which has never been happy. All three of these plants are in the subgenera Insigne/Paphiopedilum. I feel that most of my plants in this subgenera are failing to thrive while the brachys and parvis seem to do okay.

If this is overkill, I apologize. I really appreciate any insight you might have.

Below are henryanum, a poor hirsutissimum, and a belatulum and delenati for comparison.

 

[Roots]

When you grow hydroponically, your fertilizing has to be spot on since there are no colloides for cation exchange and buffering. No ''bank'' of nutrients from humus.
No humus means no buffering and you can quickly run into problems of deficiencies and toxicities (less frequent) and pH problems unless you are really on top of things. Each plant or cultivar behaves individually as well.

This all makes perfect sense. I am sure you are correct that finding the correct balance of nutrients in S/H is more challenging than in an organic medium. And I obviously haven't found it yet. I guess maybe that is part of the challenge, I want to try to figure it out. Perhaps someday I will throw in the towel and return to bark culture but I am not there yet. I will take another look at the micronutrients and also the ph and see if I can find something that should be tweaked.

 

[gonewild]

A quick look at your water analysis looks like the pH is to high. Have you tested the pH of your fertilizer solution?
The water TDS is also high.
What is the TDS (ppm) of your fertilizer solution?

I agree it's not likely your plants were getting to much light intensity. BUT maybe they got to much light because of your long days. The plants need enough darkness for respiration otherwise they can't use carbs produced during the day.

I would get an RO filter and a TDS/pH meter. Eliminate the nutrient mysteries.
Apply fertilizer at around 400 ppm total.
Test the reservoir water at pot bottom or test by the flow through method. Try to keep the TDS/ppm under 450 ppm.

At this point I think the plants are pale do to lack of nutrients and high waste salts.

 

[gonewild]

I just realized you are in Tacoma. Forget the RO filter. Forget the tap water.
Use rainwater.