spots on zygopetalum leaves
 

I would like to hear what others do to prevent brown spots on zygopetalum leaves. I know they don't like to have their leaves wet and I am very careful about that. I just got this plant several months ago from Paramount and it had the spots then. My sister picked it up for me and the vendor said they are harmless but to keep them at bay, they must be treated regularly. They didn't tell her with what, and I have e-mailed them and hope to hear back from them.

I know many of the oncidium type orchids get a few brown spots and its no big deal. This is the same type of small brown spots, but quite a few and they are slowly spreading. In Canada as far as I can tell, we can't buy Physan or any of the anti fungal solutions I see mentioned here. I have been putting regular Listerine on the leaves and am going to try some sulfur powder next which stinks and is unsightly.

Does anyone have other suggestions and if you know of somewhere in Canada that I can get something to treat it with I would appreciate knowing where.

A picture would also be nice...
do you have an Ebay account? I get my physan 20 from Ebay. Anything that you need from the USA you can get from Ebay. The Canadian post delivers them.
dilute one capful to a gallon. save the rest for deinfecting and for future bacterial, fungal or viral prevention. Soak a cottonball with diluted physan and wipe the affected leaf(repeat it again after a week). Do not spray the whole plant since physan can damage new leaf and buds...you can also soak the roots in a basin of physan for a minute to kill whatever is in the media and in the roots(the next day flush the whole pot with water so theres no residue left on the roots and media)...if it is in the leaf ; chances are its also hiding in the roots. you have a fungal infestation caused by a mite bite by the way you described it.
look also if you have spider mites(under the leaves)...
my zygo is also having the same problem
Do not try any antifungal stuff in supermarkets: it might contain Neem Oil and it creates more fungus...

also try if you can get in your garden supplies in Canada: Orthenex(this is also good for eradicating bugs...it also have fungicide)
you can find this also in Amazon.com and Ebay

Thanks for the tips Bud. I will look into both products. I don't have an E bay account but my hubby does. I'm pretty sure there are no mites or anything. It seems very clean. Supposedly all of their zygos had the spots and I'm sure it spreads. I would like to get it under control.

I know this is common and yet I see photos of other folks who's zygos look totally spotless??

Well, I placed an order last night to Orchid Web for Physan 20 and Phyton 27 and got a reply this morning saying they can't ship chemicals to Canada, so my order has been cancelled :(

Any Canadians out there who have ordered it and got it from somewhere recently?

That is sad. I am sure you have Canadian orchid supplies. If you have a Walmart or a Kmart or a Home Depot; they have that in the garden section...or your local pharmacy might have a plant fungicide spray

No, not in Canada. Paramount , one of Canada's largest orchid suppliers just told me he can't sell me fungicides. I checked locally and seen posts from other Canadians on other forums. These are not sold in Canada. We have Walmart and Home Depot and they do not have it in the garden section. Trust me, I have checked. It is against the law to sell in Canada, so those stores have slightly different (less) products on our shelves than across the border.

I am checking a few other sites in the U.S. but Orchid Web is pretty big and sells lots of orchids here if you care to do the paperwork and pay for it, so I figured if anyone could ship, they would.

Silken, Try repot me.com. This is where I got mine from last year. BTW -- it pretty much did nothing my 2 zygo's I had. Sulpher does work much better in my opinion, it also kills mites :biggrin:
Also Physan is over rated - just sayin ;)

In my case, the spots seem to be more related to changes in cultural practices.

Mine came with no spots - after a couple of seasons of lots of spots, they are finally gone.
I wonder if stress in the form of repotting and different watering practices was the cause of mine.

For what it's worth,

Maureen

Thanks Lagoon, I just dusted the leaves with sulfur powder yesterday. I started shopping at repotme.com but when it calculated the shipping it more than doubled the price so I cancelled and went with Orchid Web. But I will go ahead and try repotme.com instead. Maybe its a waste, but at least I should have some on hand for other emergencies. I resort to Listerine, sulfur and cinnamon as it is now.

nutgirl, mine came from Paramount spotted and he says they have to be treated regularly but couldn't sell me anything and didn't offer a recipe to make my own copper sulphate. He also said some of the recipes found on the web are worse for the plant than the spots! I know they water overhead as I have been there and seen them. I never do that and avoid misting this plant. Maybe in time it will quit spotting but they seem to be slowly spreading at this point. Some articles I read actually said it was from too dry conditions and others from too wet! I guess I will figure that out on my own! Thanks all for the input :)