this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
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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?

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[–] IMALlama 2 points 2 days ago

It's interesting that it's a middle leaf. Our orchids tend to grow new leaves on the top and drop leaves on the bottom as they put out new roots going up their stem. Every few years I have to unpot them and cut the bottom few inches, otherwise they will climb out of their pot.

When our orchids drop leaves they look very similar to the leaf on your plant.

In my experience, this variety of orchid thrives on benign neglect. Ours very rarely get fertilized. They also only get watered every two weeks or so and when they get watered the bark they're in is pretty well saturated.