Please help! Catt Seedling dropping leaves, PS.B brown and dry - Orchid Board

emmajs243 · #1 03-07-2019, 02:27 AM

Guys. I am at a complete loss and really quite heartbroken. I got my first two Catt seedlings this past December. This One has been doing pretty good. Not very many new roots yet but she had a nice new little growth that's been coming in over the past couple of weeks and it's been so exciting.

Ok. Sunday, I was watering and suddenly one of the leaves just dropped with literally just the lightest touch. I thought it was weird but I tend to over react so I decided to just keep an eye on her. I hadn't misted that week like I normally do and figured I had screwed up and underwatered her. The next day, the once green pseudobulb (it was the oldest) with the dropped leaf was dried up and brown exactly like a stick.

Monday night I am checking on them and become a tad worried on this seedling so decide to put her in my "sick/isolation bay". I then do a spritz of just the top bark and roots (I always am extremely careful about not getting the plant itself wet or drying them off immediately), I went to dry the next oldest pb/leaf and barely dab when that leaf falls off. Yesterday, once again, the remaining pb was dry as can be and shrunken like a twig. Also, the new growth started to look darker In color....

And this has repeated. This morning I lost another leaf pb and now tonight I see a brown band forming on the base of the next oldest pb and her new growth is 100% dark brown. I mean when the First two leaves dropped I thought maybe this was just due to me being busy and not misting last week but now I only have two leaves/pb left and one looks like it's going down hill. I just always over react so I really thought I just needed to relax but now....Definitely not the case...I just have no idea what could have happened or what this is.

No new plants have been introduced, I am extremely careful about contamination, I have scoured the plant trying to find possible bugs and idk.....I found these black spots on the pb that now has this brown band forming but idk if they are a bug or not? I am beginning to question everything....the little spots are so tiny...how tiny are the common orchid pests?

Ughh guys I just have no idea....Is it a fungus what? At this point I am ready to cut off the last remaining pb bulb in an effort to try and save it as unlikely as that may be. Then again, at this rate the entire plant will be dead by tomorrow night probably....I am especially worried my other seedling might be sick though so I need to figure this out so I can catch this early on this time....

Please help & thank you!

emmajs243 · #2 03-07-2019, 12:03 PM

Well the plant was lost....the rot had spread well past the vet last eye and roots. This is the first none rescue Orchid I have lost and am pretty heartbroken but I will learn from my mistakes in the sense of not treating it early enough....I just couldn't find anything to tell me what it was but after hours of searching I finally diagnosed it to be rhizome rot.

Word of caution to any beginners out there! This took a healthy thriving seedling with six full grown growths and #7 developing and destroyed the entire plant in under 72 hours.

My only real question at this point, does anyone know how this starts?? I read it is more common In the cold but other then that, I have no idea how this could have started unless the media was going bad or something.

The plant sat with its rhizomes clearly on top of the media with a little space even. When this started the plant had been underwatered if anything....I mean I was so mad at myself because I really dropped the ball on keeping my seedling ever so slightly damp all last week...so it's not like the pot/media was too wet and never got to dry because it was DEFINITELY dry....if anything, too dry. It was Constantly on a heat mat in about an 80 degree room.

I mean, where did I go wrong? What could this of been from?? I am SUPER careful about not getting the leaves/eyes/growths/foliage wet and if I do, I immediately get a new paper towel for each plant, rip it into strips for each pb/leaf and dry the plant then put a fan on them for a short while if they aren't dry within 3-5 minutes. I just really don't want this to happen again....the only thing I can think of that is different between this seedling and my other is the other was reported and this one wasn't but I didn't feel like the media was bad...the seedling was from C&H and everyone agreed that I should wait to repot until roots really start up when the weather warms. There was no bad smell or anything....the bark was more like cypress wood chips so idk maybe it was going bad and I just couldn't tell due to the different look of the mix but all the wood was hard and didn't break up upon Inspection....

Just be cautious everyone and I guess make sure temps stay high, even at night to avoid this type of rot. It is terrible. Other then that..maybe someone will chime in with more advice on what could of caused this and how to avoid it??

estación seca · #3 03-07-2019, 01:20 PM

How hot was the plant on the heat mat? You might have cooked it.
Misting almost never helps and can increase risk of fungus attack.

emmajs243 · #4 03-07-2019, 04:36 PM

That was my first thought too! That why I didn't post on here asking about Well let me correct....its more of spritzing. I dont spray the plant at all just the little new root tips and for the seedlings, the top of their media because it dries out nearly immediately and the

emmajs243 · #5 03-07-2019, 05:01 PM

That was my first thought too! That why I didn't post on here asking about it because I thought it was my fault for not watering enough and now the oldest leaves are dropping as a result. The heat mat itself is about 85 degrees and the top of her pot stayed about 82 degrees but when I moved her to my "sick bay" her pots top temp dropped a few degrees to 79 ish. But idk.....the way it looked when I unpotted and inspected the rhizomes...it was just awful.

Her pseudobulbs were always really thin/twig like but green and healthy looking tissue just really skinny little pseudobulbs....So the pbs definitely never had that "Rotten" mushy inbetween stage happened. They just went so fast they went straight to being dried twigs.

when I unpotted her I could see the brown band at the second to last pbs so I made a cut separating the dead dry pbs from the last two. The rhizome was completely mushy. Even with razor sharp clippers it just smushed it basically and the inside was dark dark brown. I kept inspecting and that's when I found black mushy patches at the base of the last surviving pb around where the roots join the rhizome. I really had hopes that maybe It hadn't traveled up the pb yet and I could keep a few eyes and some roots but slowly came to find more mushy brown/black rhizome and then I found where the largest eye on the newest growth had brown streaks going through it too. I cut little by little hoping I could salvage as much as possible but the healthy looking green pb was black all the way up past the eyes.

So idk....I normally firmly hold to never cutting an orchid without talking to some experts first but at the rate it was going, she was going to be a goner by today probably if she wasn't already so I decided to go for it. luckily she was also a fairly cheap seedling so I decided to try and see if I could save her and at least get some education out of it. I hope it was the right choice and there wasn't something else I could have done but I've unfortunately accepted it either way. I just wish I knew why this happened...

Oh and in terms of "misting" maybe I used the wrong terminology? Spritzing??? I dont know....I don't spray the plant at all just the little new root tips emerging and for the seedlings, the top of their media/air roots because it dries out nearly immediately long before the rest of the pot does so I spray the very top layer to balance the drying of their pot and keep the new root tips hydrated......should I not????? I just thought we wanted to spray new root tips daily and not let seedlings completely dry out so that's why I was doing it!

Orchid Whisperer · #6 03-07-2019, 05:26 PM

Probably a bacterial rot. Those seem to be the infections that spread the fastest. It is hard to say what caused it, other than the right bacteria showing up at the wrong time, maybe after an injury too small to notice, or exposure to some environmental condition (cold, or something else?). I don't think it was anything that you "did" to it.

Sorry it happened, but don't feel too bad, it happens to all of us, certainly to me.

FWIW, For really young Cattleyas, such as deflasked seedlings, I keep them in very shallow containers with drainage holes; the containers have medium bark in them, I just place the plants on top of the bark, I don't attempt to cover the roots. The shallow containers sit in plastic containers with a clear lid. To water, I spray the bark, plant, including leaves, and don't dab anything off. I don't spray heavily, and don't spray again until the bark seems dry. The water has dilute NPK fertilizer with a little added Ca nitrate and Epsom salts. I haven't lost a plant since deflasking.

Seedlings that are a little larger I mount, onto a small piece of cedar or other wood that won't rot for a couple years. Also watered by spraying (summer outdoors, they live on a lattice wall with my other mounts and get the same treatment). Also no losses.

WaterWitchin · #7 03-08-2019, 10:36 AM

Pretty sure ES is correct. I think you likely cooked your Catt. And for Blc that constant temp of 80 is too high. Pretty high consistent temperature plus on a heat mat, no night time drop, misting or spritzing daily, lack of air flow likely. Plus spritzing then wiping everything down daily. All of those things together can promote bacterial or fungal rot.

You appear to be "hovering" over the plants. You might want to step back and give them a bit of breathing room. More orchids have been killed with kindness than neglect. They do appreciate benign neglect to a certain degree.

Orchid Whisperer · #8 03-08-2019, 10:53 AM

Had missed the heat mat thing.

No orchid I can think of would be too cold in an 80 F room. If the heat mat raised temperature even higher, it could be a problem (sort of depends on how hot it got). Whether it was directly cooked, or just stressed enough to be susceptible to infections.

Merita · #9 03-08-2019, 10:16 PM

Something similar happened to me last year when I transplanted several cattleyas in the middle of August. A single plant got sick in that way, although I managed to save it, I spent a lot of work because of the speed with which this bacterium was dispersed, I had to take out the plant and cut several pseudobulbs and leaves, the only thing I used was alcohol to clean it and cinnamon to seal, I did not have anything else. At this time, the plant is healthy and I have been afraid of transplants. The seedlings if I grow well outside, I have about forty of different sizes and I water them with a sprey every day, and some have flowered. I know it hurts to lose one but for that one that died, buy two more and you will feel better. Greetings.

emmajs243 · #10 03-09-2019, 11:11 PM

First of all, thank you to everyone for your help. Although I haven't responded I have been reading! The past few days have just been tough...

Ok, so i am just so perplexed....I just kept feeling like I often heard seedlings need to stay warm and how they do better without a night temp drop so that's why I cut that back. I also heard seedlings shouldn't be allowed to dry and when they start producing new roots you should spray the root tips daily to keep them moist...so that's all I was trying to do. It's just in a 2&1/2" pot, one or two quick sprays to the media/root tips basically wets the entire top layer of media. Which I figured was ok because the top layer was always dry. But I never sprayed the actual plant, just roots/top media....is this wrong?? Is the nightly temp drop ok? Because I started with a 5-10 degree temp drop then swapped after hearing seedlings did better without a night drop.

The week this showed up though I hadn't been spraying. I mean maybe it was already present who knows....oh and also waterwitchin. When I actually water my plants, if a drop or two splashed in a leaf should I not dry it with a paper towel piece? It's less work for me, I just had read that you should dab it up. Also, the pot temp, with the heat mat, stayed in the low 80s. I have these little clip on thermometers that clip to the pots edge and the sensor sits right on top of the media so that's how I got that temp.

Next, after this seedling was lost, I decided to check the seedling that was sitting on the heat mat with this one about 6" apart. This one was transplanted to s/h and I've been so worried she was a goner because I broke a new root tip, her other root tip died and she stopped putting out new roots. Last week however she started putting out a new growth and I was so hopeful maybe she wasn't doing as bad as I thought....I unpot her to take a look and sure enough find this brown mush barely moving up a PB. So I go to cut it away before it destroys her and find that although it didn't present outwardly yet, all of Rhizomes and Pbs are also brown and mushy past every single eye. This one was especially heartbreaking because I had been so worried with the swap to s/h. AND she just seemed to be coming back from the swap...AND when I unpotted her, I found that many of her old roots had actually adapted just fine to s/h and were doing fine. I could see however where the roots attached to the especially mushy rhizomes were becoming brown and mushy from the base of the plant down....Her pots temp only stayed at the low 70s up to 75 due to the water too..which I wouldn't think would be too warm for a seedling? But sure enough she also had this stuff....

Ugh just one gut punch after another so please, will someone set the record straight? Sorry I'm just feeling like I need help knowing where the line is...Temp for seedlings? Night drop or no? Don't dry water on leaves? Don't spray new root tips? Don't keep seedlings slightly damp versus letting them fully dry? Oh and yes, airflow is good...fans are constantly circulating and an air purifier is running.

I know....lots of questions I just have lost both of My seedlings right when they seemed to be improving and it kills me. I just want to learn from this so it doesn't happen again.

Last thing....maybe this was the fatal flaw maybe not....I just didn't think twice about it until the night I lost my second seedling. Ok so what I didn't realize/think about...my humidifier. I bought it prior to the seedlings and it was set about 2.5-3 ft above the seedlings. Always running RO water and I do clean it regularly BUT when the seedlings came in I just had a nice isolated table space right there below the humidifier close to the plug ins for the heat mat so went with it. My thought/question, because humidifiers do kinda put out that super fine "mist" and it was being blown out 3 ft above them, do you think this could have been a problem I should fix? I know a cloud of mist is blown out but I figured because I could only see it fall like a foot, that it just dissipates very quickly...maybe not?

just thinking out loud while racking my brain on this....please, any advice would be greatly appreciated..oh and .also, any thoughts on adding physan to water like once a month and watering with it as a preventative measure? I know it can only do so much and culture obviously needs to change but do you think this might help ?