Phrag i just got has bad soil fungus

[swords]

About two weeks ago I purchased a Phrag. Eric Young 4N which is just starting it's inflorescence (made it's first flower bud) but after this time I see it has a very bad soil fungus attack. Today when I looked in my highland tank it looked as though the soil in the Phrag pot was wearing a thick white wig. Needless to say I pulled the sucker out of there before it spreads.

I would dearly love to repot in new media but I don't wanna forfeit the bloom so I was wondering if an application or two of Captan at the rate of 1 or 2 tsp per gallon of R/O would be enough to wipe it out?

I've never used this fungicide for anything other than to dust Sarracenia & Darlingtonia rhizomes for winter storage. Can someone tell me if this fungicide soil flush will work and how many times I will need to do it and how often? Should the flushes be seperated by pure R/O flushes and allowing a slight drying? then fungicde again then R/O then dry or...?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Merlin]

Hi Josh -
Sorry I don't have a real answer for you but the first thing I'd check is whether or not Captan has been approved for orchids.  I did a search for it on the  Orchid Web and didn't get any hits.  You might want to search the Orchid Web Forum for alternatives...

Good Luck.

 

[Khai]

What stage is the spike in?
If its still pretty early you should be able to repot it with out much worry. By early I mean the spike should still be reletivley low and the first bud incomplete. Phragmipediums are a pretty tough bunch, Id be willing to go out on a limb and say as long as their water needs are met they tend to be hardier than alot of Paphiopedulum. By the way what is it planted in?
You could also opt to do nothing but remove the mold and put the plant on a semi sunny window sill. The lack of humidity would probably curb any further growth. Personally if your using a Fungicide Id recommend Physan20 I use it and it works great, theyve even put dosage recommendations for several applications with Orchid genera.

FWIW

 

[swords]

Thanks guys,
The Captan fungicide doesn't mention Orchids on the can, mostly vegetables and garden bulbs.

It's potted in what looks like a bark and carcoal mixture. There might be something under that if I took it out of the pot but it drains very fast so I'm thinking it's only these two. The spike isn't too young anymore, there is 3 bracts/nodes on it now and it looks like a second flower bud is starting to develop at the 3rd bract.

I think I will try scraping off the top layer and putting on new bark maybe that will be all I gotta do?

 

[Khai]

If you can decrease the humidity or increase air movement around the plant it would be helpfull as well.