Vanilla plant: rot?
 

I left my vanilla plant outside during a rainstorm and it started becoming mushy and brown at the ends of the vanilla plants "stems". I have been cutting off the rotting parts hoping to stop it from spreading but it has not stopped spreading :(. Is there any way i can stop this stuff in its tracks? Here is a picture of one of the leaves it is overtaking.

It does kinda look like rot..in the pest section someone posted how to help it. I am dealing with an erwinia infection on a phal with an antibiotic spray which seems to be working. But I would check this other chart first! It has pictures and all:)

I often have good results stopping the spread of these things by cutting off the leaf at the base (or the the stem/rhizome, if affected, below the rot) and covering the fresh cut with as much dry cinnamon powder as you can get to stick. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it looks like some of the stems are rotted - get them cut off immediately if they're brown and mushy. It's not unusual for me to lose the bottom sections of vanilla cuttings. I just cut them off and restart the tops. I've been thinking lately that submerging the cut end in the medium at all is probably a bad idea altogether and to just let the roots find it on their own.

I just dealt with black rot with the cattleyas and removing infected parts and swabbing the cut and the nearby parts of the plants with alcohol for a few days seems to have stopped the rot. Too bad I kept forgetting to treat the nodosa...it succumbed. I grow a few vanillas now and I learned the hard way that they don't like cool, damp, drafts (or water in the new growth) but will easily recover once the rot is halted. When I spray now, during the winter, I have to be careful to either cover the new growth or only spray below it. I have stopped all my rot problems by removing any rotted parts, treating with alcohol for a few days (cinnamon in addition won't hurt), and keeping the afflicted orchid very dry for a few days (with vanilla, the aerial roots will have to remain moist, though, or they die...although the noID vanilla grew all new roots when I first recieved it. Maybe warmth would compensate?). If it is rotting at the stem, these things don't really need much soil if you take care of the aerial roots. I have two in three inch pots, climbing up towel-covered posts of my shelf, one just wired to the shelf and my first in a pot of lava rock, sand, vermiculite, perlite and bark. All four seem happy. Good luck!
Leafmite

Thanks for all the responses and sorry for how long it took to reply. I did cut off all of the rotting peices and dabbed as much cinnoman (sp?) on the cuts as i could. It seems to have ceased up a little, i'm misting very lightly, waiting for the medium to dry just a tad since it was water logged. I hope this works!

Ben