Psychopsis mendenhall leaf issues

[Aki_James]

I have had my one and only Psychopsis for almost 2 years now. I purchased it from the orchid show as a tiny little runt of only 2 small pseudo bulbs. It tried to spike after a couple months of having it but did not have a very strong root system so I removed the spike shortly after I seen it growing.

Since then it has been one of my easiest and fastest growing orchids and even though it has not tried to spike since the mottled leaves are great to look at.

This is where my problem lies...no matter what I do the leaves seem to form damage on them. The damage is always on the left half of the leaf forms over a long time.

Does anyone know what could cause this?

I do grow under 4 54watt HO T5 tubes. Average temps of 22c day and 18 night, I have to water this guy every couple days as it dries pretty fast and is almost outgrown its pot but it has a plethora of healthy active roots , and is currently working on 3 leads. It otherwise seems perfectly happy and doesn't seem to be skipping a beat. Has anyone seen this before? Perhaps a nutrient deficiency?

[silken]

These aren't high light plants, so I suspect that could be sun burn. Maybe one side of the leaf gets a bit more light. Mine doesn't get any direct sun from close overhead lights and blooms non-stop. Right now it has 4 spikes. They also seem to like more water than some orchids. Several of my very old leaves look similar and I blame it on old age and maybe too much sun. But the rest of my leaves are not like that. Just my

Calvin Wong (C.O.C. president and judge) was speaking at our last meeting and he said quite often people tend to give these too much light.

[Aki_James]

That could be a possibility. I do grow it fairly far from my lights next to my phals (about 2 1/2 feet).come to think of it though at one point it was a bit higher up, I'm not sure when I moved it lower perhaps the newest leaves will not have this issue. If that's the case I guess that makes sense.
Thank you never even thought of that.

[Leafmite]

I am glad someone was able to offer a suggestion. I have never seen that with mine. I do give mine relatively high light (it is under the lights with the Cattleyas). Good luck with it!

Just a thought....since yours grows so fast, have you thought of adding a little Ironite? Some of my plants will show signs of Iron deficiency with yellow on their leaves. You should also take a look at Calcium and Magnesium deficiencies. I mix eggshells in with my Psychopsis's medium and also give it a little Ironite during active growth. Now and then it might get a dose of Epsom salts (when I notice magnesium deficiency with some of my other plants).

[Aki_James]

I am thinking its a nutrient issue. I was having issues with several plants as I think I was going a little light on my fertilizer, I've doubled the concentration the last 6 months and many plants have shown improvement.

I am going to try some Ironite and increasing fertilization by a bit to see if that helps. It does grow extremely fast and always has multiple leads at the same time, so it could be that it is not getting the required nutrients to support such rapid growth.

I should add as well that plants grown under lights seem to require a lot more fertilizer than those grown naturally, it took me along time to learn this as I was scared to burn them but I fertilize pretty heavy these days and I have no issues of burning.

[Leafmite]

Like you, I discovered that, with fertilizer, you sort of need to 'listen' to the plants instead of following general instructions.