Paph druryi

[cnycharles]

I am sorry for your loss! I think we must really protect this taxon in culture. I probably shouldn’t have tried it but I’m giving it my all. I’m surprised about scale killing it…I haven’t lost any plant to scale. No matter how bad the infestation, I just keep attacking until I’ve killed it. I’m guessing yours was sucked dry?

Well, there collectively have been a number of factors for waves of decline for my collection over the years… each time I needed to move in more recent times, things would go in boxes. And then be in boxes or a spot ill suited for plants, and at times scale or mealybug would creep in when I was very busy at work or it was native orchid hunting season and I was distracted. Scale may not have been the direct cause the druryi died, waves of plants dying tends to get pushed away from direct memory… most likely during a transition time I did not pay attention and things didn’t get watered in a timely periodic fashion. More recently plants would be okay and then I’d buy a few things that looked clean or ID sprayed and thought things were clean, but new scale came in on new plants and while things were busy and I looking elsewhere the scale was hitting under the water line and many mostly phrags and paphs were too stressed and ultimately died
i think the druryi was being grown by the former owner in a net pot, and after being divided and larger piece transferred to the other person maybe from here, I put it back into the net pot. While I was in one place and paying attention, it seemed to like being grown in airy conditions in a plant cart under fluorescent lights

 

[DirGo]

For me it is always a balancing act with any new plant in collection. Do I want to limit disturbance to only "a location change"? Do I want to keep it in the original media? Do I want to disturb the roots now?

After just too many trojan horses with resistant mealy bugs or other free fauna... I now use a very rigid quarantine plan: I completely remove all media until only plant and bare roots are present. firm rince under streaming water. Then a visual inspect, but also apply a systemic insecticide purely as preventive measure. Repot in fresh container and fresh media and put a red label ("quarantine") to make sure I inspect every time I am near that red labelled plant. I also put it in a separate location for at least 4 weeks, before it can join the collection. Only after a few months I remove the red label.

You might feel it is quite drastic for the new plant, but it has saved a lot of misery for the rest of my collection.
As all of us, I have lost plants, but never as a result of my joining ritual.

 

[Karp60]

For me it is always a balancing act with any new plant in collection. Do I want to limit disturbance to only "a location change"? Do I want to keep it in the original media? Do I want to disturb the roots now?

After just too many trojan horses with resistant mealy bugs or other free fauna... I now use a very rigid quarantine plan: I completely remove all media until only plant and bare roots are present. firm rince under streaming water. Then a visual inspect, but also apply a systemic insecticide purely as preventive measure. Repot in fresh container and fresh media and put a red label ("quarantine") to make sure I inspect every time I am near that red labelled plant. I also put it in a separate location for at least 4 weeks, before it can join the collection. Only after a few months I remove the red label.

You might feel it is quite drastic for the new plant, but it has saved a lot of misery for the rest of my collection.
As all of us, I have lost plants, but never as a result of my joining ritual.

I am doing a similar procedure total separation of newly acquired plants, but the red label is a good idea.

 

[JayeL]

Yip - sound advice DirGo... I nearly lost all my paphs through a school-boy error of not quarantining a plant that I suspect introduced a severe fungal infection in my greenhouse last summer. Its taken a year to get my the few remaining plants right and only now as we enter summer again do I start seeing any good growth in the leaves. What irritated me the most was that the suspect plant was only an average looking green maudiae...

Now all new paphs are banned from the greenhouse until growing well.

JL

 

[BrucherT]

Well, there collectively have been a number of factors for waves of decline for my collection over the years… each time I needed to move in more recent times, things would go in boxes. And then be in boxes or a spot ill suited for plants, and at times scale or mealybug would creep in when I was very busy at work or it was native orchid hunting season and I was distracted. Scale may not have been the direct cause the druryi died, waves of plants dying tends to get pushed away from direct memory… most likely during a transition time I did not pay attention and things didn’t get watered in a timely periodic fashion. More recently plants would be okay and then I’d buy a few things that looked clean or ID sprayed and thought things were clean, but new scale came in on new plants and while things were busy and I looking elsewhere the scale was hitting under the water line and many mostly phrags and paphs were too stressed and ultimately died
i think the druryi was being grown by the former owner in a net pot, and after being divided and larger piece transferred to the other person maybe from here, I put it back into the net pot. While I was in one place and paying attention, it seemed to like being grown in airy conditions in a plant cart under fluorescent lights

Thank you very much for all the details. This is a great thread! I appreciate it very much. So much food for thought.

 

[DirGo]

Thank you very much for all the details. This is a great thread! I appreciate it very much. So much food for thought.

I also like the many interactions and replies to my post. It was all very useful slipper talk thanks to all
Dirk

 

[Happypaphy7]

The species needs good amount of light (open grass field with a lot of dead brown grass in the in situ photos) and cooler temperature during the drier season. Then, during the active season, shaded by tall grasses all around them, tons of water, warm day but cool to cold nights. Even with warmth during the day, the night time temperature drop can be quite significant coming from high elevation. This might be the reason why many people find this species cranky under cultivation since these conditions are very difficult to provide.
I never dared to try. I'm having enough problems with armeniacum. lol