Before you say “Just give it some fertilizer”, please look at my post about that plant before.

It started flowering a few weeks ago, and the roots are growing back very healthy, but slowly.
I think those two factors are what contributed to the plant consuming itself, as you can see on the pictures where the lower leafes start yellowing quite significantly.

If they continue to do so, I will loose them, and that would suck.
My question is: What can I do to mitigate that, so I can prevent the leafes from dying off completely?

I already cut off the flower spike to redirect the resources, but I fear this isn’t enough.

There’s a shit load of fertilizer in the substrate now too. I grow it hydroponically, and started with an EC of just 1 mS, because that’s what’s recommended for orchids, but I quickly realised that this isn’t enough, and increased it to 1,5-2 mS. Right now it sits at about 2-2,5 mS, which is objectively on the higher side for other plants, but very high for orchids from what I know.
But on the other hand… it needs to grow a lot of plant matter.

The problem is, that there are probably not enough roots to support this growth, and the nutrient uptake is limited because of that.

Still, I don’t want to loose the leafs. Would foliar fertilizing help? Or is it too late?

Here are root pictures my other two orchids that I rescued too at the same time. They don’t show signs of a deficiency, but also regenerated a lot of roots. Maybe this helps?

  • SnowstormEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    My philosophy is to only consider fertilizer when there is active growth and it comes second to water balance: root surface vs foliage surface vs temperature-light x deficit in air humidity. Like Russian dolls i don’t look into the next lower priority step if i am not satisfied with a high priority step : medium-high indirect light and water balance. N.B. Light is also a factor in water balance: the plant open stomata on the leaves to absorb CO2 under high light and doing so can dehydrate a bit more. Keep your conditions stables and the plant will adapt, wont be the most beautiful orchid but it should adapt if the roots aren’t rotting too much. I successfully kept cattleya, oncidium and phalenopsis in such conditions of years before i moved to terrariums.

    I am surprised that the leaf showing a touch of yellow isn’t the bottom one.