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Orchid problems

gill_za

Never Knows Best
Dear Orchid experts, could you help me figure out a couple of problems plaguing my orchids?

Problem #1
Last summer I had an infestation on a couple of my plants. The pests looked like very tiny brown-red-ish specs, needle tip size. They crowded the leaves and the places around which they were most numerous developed brown spots. I got rid of them by wiping leaves with paper towel soaked in neem solution (from azamax) several times and rotating the treatment by spraying the plants with Spinosad in a span of a few weeks. Some orchids recovered, dropped the leaves and grew new ones. Others din't.

One orchid that still bears the signs of the infection also developed some dark callus-like growths in places:

This particular Orchid suffers the most.
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This orchid still shows spots where the plant was "bitten" but has no calluses:

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Problem #2

This orchids pseudobulbos are brown, and have been like this for a few months. Most of the leaves are still ok and it is developing some growth. What is happening here?:

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Thank you in advance.
 
Problem one looks like spider mites
 
It might have been mites of some sort but currently the leaves are "clean". Hmm, also when I had an active infestation there were no other signs typical for spider mites presence.
 
Hmm actually now that I went back and looked again, it may not be mites, sorry
 
The first ones look like some sort of edema to me.

They are kind of a bump over the leaf?

I'm paranoid when it comes to diagnostic.
But, maybe some research on bacterial brown spots for the first and black rot or fungal rot for the second?
There's a cure for it, but meanwhile just general prevention, keeping everything clean, good ventilation and so.

Maybe just try to avoid mixing water or tools from one plant to another until it heals, just to be safe.

I was super sad with one of my orchids and apparently it was just that I exposed it to very bright light, it was that or lack of minerals, I added some home made orchid food, move it far from light, about 10" and it fixed.

I wish you luck and please let me know how it goes.
 
I know that this is slightly off topic, but wasn't sure if it merited its own thread.

This is a picture of an orchid supposedly trapping a bee. It's listed in a carnivorous plant article, but I think that the orchid is not actually trying to eat the bee. What do those with orchids think?

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Here is the gallery that claimed it was trapping the bee:Killer plants: the Venus Flytrap and other carnivorous plants - Telegraph

Here is a regular spider orchid flower:

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Paph orchids are pollinated when an insect goes inside, but at first it can't go out and starts panicking, pollinating the flower. The insect the tires and can get out. It might be a similar system here.
 
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