Mold growing in orchid media
I noticed fungus growing all over my psychopsis media, which is a sign that the media had been spending too much time moist and with insufficient air circulation. I needed to immediately treat the orchid roots with some fungicide and repot into better conditions.
The orchid had very poor root health when I first bought it. The month since then has not improved the conditions. When I removed the orchid from its pot, most of the roots were clearly rotten, and I aggressively trimmed off all but a very few still-firm roots. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't bring more decaying root material into the new pot.
Few roots left on Psychopsis Mariposa after trimming off rotten roots
Next I wanted to treat the plant with some sort of fungicide. I did not have any commercial chemicals on hand, so I looked online for various home recipes. One very helpful page I found was Rays' Home Remedies, which among other things, recommended using cinnamon for its antifungal properties. I took about a teaspoon's worth of cinnamon, mixed it with water and microwaved the mixture until near boiling. The result was a thick mucous orange liquid, which I diluted with some more water to cool it down. I let my orchids roots soak in that for 20-30 minutes.
Orchid soaking in cinnamon water
After the soak, I potted the orchid into the smallest pot which would fit its roots. In this case it was the 3" clay pot which until recently housed my soph cernua. I used fresh coarse bark as the media. The small pot and the coarse media mean that the roots dry out daily now, which should be a lot healthier for the orchid.
Psychopsis Mariposa 'Mountain' growing spike in 3" pot
Will the orchid be able to successfully flower despite the poor root health? I hope so. The pseudobulbs are still plump, so the plant itself is not yet dehydrated from lack of roots. I really have no experience with the psychopsis growth habit to be able to guess how much 'reserve' it has to tide it over until new roots grow.
