Purple leaves: Cold damage, Insect stress, too much light, magnesium or phosphorous

[Dusty Ol' Man]

Originally Posted by isurus79

Damn, you just shipped an order of kelpmax to me this week. Now I'll have to make another order!!

Don't feel bad Steve. I missed the black Friday sale by 2 hrs!

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by Dusty Ol' Man

Don't feel bad Steve. I missed the black Friday sale by 2 hrs!

There's always the Christmas sale!! lol

[Shadeflower]

I'm really anxious to see if the changes I have made will result in improvements or not.
In a few days time I should know more, basically a leaf that developed a couple of months ago ended up turning red and even falling off (too much light maybe) but this time round I've left it in the same high light spot and changed the feed slightly, the new bulb is about to open it's new leaf any day so that's the highlight of my December

In the meantime the only fast growing orchid I can observe is the Vanda I've shown in this thread. I'm still a bit undecided what has resulted in what but overall I am happy that I think the newest leaf looks better than the leaf it grew below it. I hope it stays that way.

[Leafmite]

What is the temperature at which you are growing the orchids that are having pigment issues?

Here is an interesting article, most likely the first of many if I had more time to look....

https://www.hunker.com/13406045/why-...-during-summer

[Shadeflower]

so just a heads up I am going to post a few periodic pictures from time to time. But I am still forming conclusions.
Like for this one I doubled the micronutrients I was feeding along with other changes and I was shocked to look at a picture I took just 3 months ago before I started experimenting. I will never know for sure what has made the biggest changes but I am suspecting increasing the micronutrients must have helped.

So just to confirm I have "balanced" my feed a bit and doubled the micronutrients I was feeding. I've also recently been feeding fulvic acid.

So before the leaf had some black spots. The black spots have disappeared down to tiny specs that are hardly visible anymore. I didn't think it would be possible but just looking over the pictures I was like wait a minute...

3 months ago(you can zoom in, have a look at the spots properly):


now (the top left leaf is the same as the top left on last picture, it's now growing the next leaf compared to last, lost the two lowest leaves):

[Shadeflower]

A seedling of Dendrobium Falcorostrum has been part of my test subjects.

On Rainmix alone the newest leaves grew stunted and distorted. For a few months now it initially received more trace elements, more phosphorous and eventually added potassium too.
I am happy that nothing seems to be suffering. This seedling has grown the latest bulb over the past few months while on the new recipe and although I think it can get better so far the new bulb is bigger than the last, no distorted leaves. Granted one test subject is far too little and it could have been repot stress setting the last bulb back! but most importantly for me nothing seems to be declining at the moment and I have far more test subjects to observe in the near future.

you can see the latest bulb the the top with the previous bulb just below it and the older bulbs with darker leaves behind.


I know seedling bulbs are meant to get bigger in time but the last one actually grew smaller as one can see on the picture.

[Shadeflower]

So as many may have noticed I have fallen out of love with this forum again recently.
I'm sure I will be back in the new year but for the winter months I am taking a break from OB.
Who knows I might turn into a dreaded youtuber, wish me strength but joking aside I was watching a few video's and it just reminded me I have seen the problems I was not happy with on plenty of other orchids and you know how it is if everyone else's orchids all look the same then everything is fine?

I just want to thank anyone who has read this post and gotten this far, I know I have posted more than a weekend's worth of thoughts and observations and initially I didn't know if I was on to something or not.

By now at least I am convinced that I am which is good news. But I didn't just post all of this for my benefit. I am hoping that it helps someone if they have been in a similar situation.

Take this video for example, the orchids have purple leaves, purple pseudobulbs in some cases and the new growth is red.

The roots are dead so that is obviously a factor in why they are so weak looking but I doubt they will have survived long term:

A loaded #unboxing | Horror Story | Rant | I have questions #Florália #Brazil - YouTube

Like I mentioned previously ninja orchids as I just noticed recently uses the exact same feed and strength to water her orchids as I have been for the past 6 months. Her orchids have far more advanced symptoms in some cases. So receiving an orchid that is already showing severe signs and has no roots, chances in my experience, especially with mini orchids is slim to make them turn around. Usually the next growth will grow smaller and the orchid just grows backwards and eventually withers away.

I am still patiently waiting for the new leaf to grow I have been mentioning previously and so far it is looking great so 2 more weeks and I'll be able to conclude this post.

In the meantime, I know my orchids have managed to convince me by now looking much healthier already I know lots will for ever be dubious so one more picture of my vanda. You can really see the new growth since I made the change. If you look at the last leaf before the very latest you will see color is flooding into the new part being grown since. Before the leaf was spotty, purple, didn't grow as long as it was supposed to and as you can see from the picture was clearly lacking color overall. In a lot of my orchids the older leaves actually turned a really dark green thus actually hiding problems in cases and initially changing the fertilizer would cause the darkening to go away but in patches which looked quite scary at times but then the patches started filling up once I started using PK.

So here is my vanda now, I hope you can see the greenness literally flooding back, same high light as always but looking so much better now:



and the product I believe has made the difference highlighted in the picture:



Alright well thanks for getting this far, I hope it helps someone. Have a nice holiday and stay safe everyone.

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

Take this video for example, the orchids have purple leaves, purple pseudobulbs in some cases and the new growth is red.

These plants are grown in very high light and are imported directly from Brazil, hence the red leaves. That's how they look naturally.

[estación seca]

All the imported plants unboxed in the video have old but living roots able to absorb water. Older orchid roots turn light brown.

[Shadeflower]

I just realized I never showed the vanda at it's worst to properly compare it.

You might argue "These plants are grown in very high light and are imported directly from Brazil, hence the red leaves. That's how they look naturally."

but I prefer the leaves looking more green how they are now, including on my laelia pumila which has improved nicely too. It was only on Rainmix this started happening.