Sphag 'n Bag

[Therion9116]

Hi all.

This is my DTPS. that lost all it's roots; it was in bad shape when I bought it and then continued to rot from the pot up. Following a friend's advice I decided that I might as well try and bag it up with some moist sphagnum moss, and see if it could rejuvenate. It seems to be working and I thought it would be interesting to document the progress. This is how the plant is doing right now, about 3 weeks after going in the bag.

I keep the sphagnum damp (like squeezed sponge damp), and take it out of the bag for a little while every day just to keep the air fresh, and to make sure there isn't anything bad forming on it. I noticed a few bumps around the leaf base, where there was a dried piece of a former leaf. I peeled it away and these were hiding underneath. Pretty neat.



~Brian

[OrchidSue]

Congratulations . Looks like you are doing a great job . Now send some postive, root growing energy this way. I just adopted a very sad, rootless Paph. fairrieanum and need all the help I can get .

Susan

[trdyl]

Congratulations your getting roots!

[Doc G]

Congratulations! An excellent idea to document the progress. Be sure to keep accurate time records with the photos. And the next time someone asks a question about sphag and bag, you can add to the answers, with pictures.

[nutgirl]

I am finding that keeping the temperature on the warm side really helps things along. I started using a heat pad for some rootless chids and they are responding very well. (thanks to Ray for his suggestion)

Maureen

[RenéeS]

Thanks for posting this!
I've never heard of this technique to try to get roots to grow. Do you place the entire plant in the bag or just the base of it where the roots should grow? I'm interested to know because I have a doriteanopsis who could possibly use the same treatment

[Therion9116]

As a sort of disclaimer; I'm very new to orchids and I don't know very much yet, so don't take anything I say as gospel.

My method:

A hand-full of sphagnum that was soaked and then squeezed until just damp place in the corner of a big zip-lock bag.

Put the entire plant inside, if you just do the bottom of the plant it kind of defeats the purpose. As I understand it, (and feel free to correct me), the high humidity helps the leaves absorb moisture. If you didn't put the whole plant in there, it probably wouldn't work as well (if at all).

~Brian

[Undergrounder]

hope it works out! With just two leaves it might be a bit of a battle, and the lower one is already looking a little off-colour, but it's worth a shot.

What the high humidity does is limit transpiration (the evaporation of water out of the leaves into the atmosphere). 98% of water used by plants is lost through transpiration, and just 1% is used for growth, less than that for photosynthesis.

If the plant can't get any water through its roots to account for all the water lost through transpiration, it starts to cannibalise its own limited stores of water and becomes dehydrated and over time, dies.

In a low humidity environment, transpiration rate is very high. That's the same reason why your clothes dry out quickly on a dry, sunny, windy day. By increasing the humidity to near 100%, you drastically limit the amount of water lost through transpiration, just like clothes take forever to dry when it's overcast and humid. That's the basic idea of sphag n bag - limit transpiration through high humidity so that the plant can survive long enough to grow new roots.

While a little water is gained through the leaves, in Phals it only occurs at night and only in very tiny amounts. A little H20 is pulled through the stomata along with the CO2, but it's not enough to sustain the plant without water from the roots.