Small black pitted spots on Phalaenopsis leaves
 

Hey guys.

This poor guy is having a rough time. Recently I was dealing with an illness and all of my plants were pretty severely neglected for 2-3 months.

Unfortunately, many of them have succumb to illness or pests themselves.

I had upwards of 20 phals, and due to their crowded habitat, I have been pretty much instantly culling any orchids l see with signs of illness.

However this is a favorite of mine due to its beautifully spotted leaves that I haven’t seen frequently on my hardware store variety of phals. I would really prefer to treat it vs. culling it if it has some sort of infection.

I’m hoping maybe these tiny, wet black spots might be edema or something similar? My understanding is edema presents on the leaves more like “bumps” than “holes”

I tried googling every description I could think of to see if I could identify the disease, but nothing really matches.

I recently repotted him from straight long fiber sphagnum to a mix of long fiber sphag and some small/medium orchid bark.

I appreciate any advice!

For some reason the website is not letting me upload photos, so I'm posting a link, I hope this is ok Phalaenopsis Orchid - Google Photos

Wet, black pits are a sign of an infection. If you mist your plants and moisture droplets sit on the leaves, they can become incubators for pathogens.

A topical treatment like Physan might help, but the use of a copper compound might be more effective overall.

Don’t mist plants. Wetting the leaves does little to raise the humidity - misting around the plants would be more effective.

What are your temperatures like? I agree that it sounds like an infection. I’ve had similar issues, but pretty much restricted to cold stressed plants.

The 4 photos I saw show a healthy plant. The crack at the leaf center was caused by underwatering in the past.

My thoughts also. I would watch the plant to see if the pits spread.

That makes me feel much better! Do you see the small black spots I'm referring to? They're pretty inconspicuous, which is why I'm hoping maybe its just mechanical damage or something.

I am in Zone 8b I believe, but the house is never below 69 (right now with the cold, it's higher.)

I will definitely keep an eye on the leaves and make sure the spots do not grow/spread.

Thank you guys for taking the time to help me! I'm so glad I may not have to toss this Phal <3

I couldn't see any spots I would worry about.

True. As long as those little indentations remain in low numbers, and they don't keep growing in number ------ then it's all ok. Even our body/skin gets blemishes and damage every once in a while - from something. Eg - pimples, scratches, mosquitoes etc.

Also - consider our own selves and loved ones (family, friends etc). If one of our family gets sick or we get sick, we don't just cull them or ourselves off.

So for orchids ----- what we can try to do is to nurse them back to health when we can.

For your orchid there ------ it looks just fine. Just maintain good growing temperatures ------ avoid abrupt temperature changes if possible (such as cold leaves suddenly getting warm water on them, or vice versa; or cold orchid suddenly moved to warm room, or vice versa).

And have gentle air-circulation if possible if your growing area is humid ------- ie. avoid still air in humid regions, an avoid fairly still, non-moving, stagnating water inside pots.