Two issues here, though:

1) Even 0.02 ppm could be problematic, although I strongly doubt it.  It’s not like tons of plants were keeling over after receiving this chloraminated water for a couple of years, after all.

2) Just because I measured 0.47 ppm chloramines in my water the other day doesn’t mean that it’s always at that level.  The city’s water company website said that the chloramine level had been sampled at over 1 ppm.  So it could be the case that just one plain vanilla carbon filter may not be enough to handle higher chloramine concentrations.

Good thing my filtration unit has room for yet another carbon filter!

Having said all that, it’s still not clear at all whether chloramine reduction will improve growth or not.  That remains to be seen.  But if I may take off my science hat for a moment, I will say that I do feel better…

The test works by the addition of a packet of a chemical called DPD to the water sample.  The presence of chlorine in the water will cause the DPD to change color.  The tester device is a simple colorimenter that measures the amount of absorbance of the color, which corresponds to a concentration of chloramine.

In my greenhouse, the number is 0.47 ppm.  Not even one part in a million… But is it enough to damage growing orchids?  Well, that’s what I hope to find out.

1. Water suppliers add chloramines specifically to kill microorganisms, making the water safe to drink.
2. Microorganisms live in orchid potting mix, and some of these “bugs” (as microbiologists affectionately refer to them) actually have symbiotic relationships with orchids.  Just in case you skipped bio class the day symbiosis was taught, a symbiotic relationship is one in which two organisms living with each other provide something needed/useful to the other.  In fact, a class of fungi called mycorrhizae are known to provide a significant benefit to plants (including orchids) by enhancing the uptake of certain nutrients.
3. Chloramines in water flowing through orchid media or absorbed into the roots of orchids that host microorganisms will kill these beneficial bugs.
4. Without the bugs in the media to help its growth, the orchid plant suffers.

If this turns out to be true, then the “authorities” claiming no harmful effect by chloramines on plants would be correct in the sense that chloramines do not directly harm the plants, but they would indirectly retard plant growth by reducing the microorganisms available for symbiosis.

Sounds like another potential experiment to add to the to-do list…

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, reverse osmosis water will solve many of your growing problems, since the water from a good RO system is almost as pure as the tropical rain that orchids get in the wild.  I’ve seen firsthand the rapid boost in my plants’ health after switching to RO from San Jose, CA tap water loaded with dissolved minerals.  Many people I’ve informed about the benefits of RO have started off successfully with orchids, or revitalized struggling plants.  So with all of my positive RO experience, why am I having problems now?

Well, when I moved into my current greenhouse space and tremendously expanded my collection of plants, using RO was not as necessary, since the water had low levels of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS).  RO, of course, filters out the dissolved solids in water.  But if your water’s TDS level is low to begin with, RO is less of a requirement.  After having grown paphs for two years in my greenhouse, they seem to do OK.  (I still think they’d get a boost from RO now and then, though).

What set me off on this aquatic chase was a decline in a collection of masdevallias that I acquired.  Masdies definitely prefer high quality water, maybe more so than slippers.  My previous water testing had suggested to me that the water purity at my greenhouse should work for masdies, but after six months, a number of these plants struggled and died.  Maybe it was the summer heat (masdies being cool growers) or something else.  During the summer heat, I tried to water heavily to keep the plants cool, but the plants still suffered.  I had re-potted many of the masdevallias, and in fact, had divided a bunch of the bigger ones, with one division going into one kind of media, and the other division into a different type to determine which media would work best.  Turns out neither of them did, as many plants grown in both kinds of media died at the same rate!

Watching these exquisite orchids struggle and then die was just too much for me.  All of the masdevallias got the same temperature, and the same water…  I can’t do as much about the temperature, but I can definitely control my water quality, so I decided to examine that first.  If it turns out that removing chloramines helps the masdevallias out, then I’m pretty sure the slippers will get some benefit, too.

After scouring the web with a multiple search engine query strategy, I have discovered the following:

1) Little reliable information exists about chloramines and orchids.  (No surprise here.)

2) One published study describes the detrimental effects chloramines have on lettuce roots.  (Food crops always get the limelight.)

3) Chloramines are bad for aquarium fish.  (Save the fishes!)

4) Some home beer brewers and wine makers prefer to get rid of chloramines, claiming that using cleaner water improves the taste of the product.  (I’ll drink to that.)

4) You can get rid of chloramines in multiple ways, either by adding chemicals that break the chloramines down, or by using carbon filtration, which is a feature of almost any reverse osmosis unit.  So if you’ve followed my previous suggestion about getting an RO system, you can rest easy.  (Just make sure you replace your carbon filter periodically).

5) Numerous pot growers address the issue as well, with some saying it will stunt their marijuana plants resulting in less yield (and maybe lower highs?), and others saying that it has no effect whatsoever.  This complete divergence of response is quite typical of the pot-growing community online.  While I have many found pot growers on the web to be extremely clever and, in some cases, deeply knowledgeable, about growing stuff, no one has done a serious controlled study with marijuana and chloramine exposure.  (And I’m not sure whether I’m going to sign up to do one with orchids, either, so don’t get your hopes up!)

OK, so here’s the chemical problem:

Chloramine is a blanket term that describes certain derivatives of ammonia bonded with the chlorine ion rather than the usual hydrogen.  Municipal water providers often use chloramine to disinfect water, having switched from using chlorine gas in the past.  Back in the day, you could rid your water of chlorine (and its putatively bad effects on your plants) by leaving your water to stand overnight: the gas would simply dissipate from the water.

Not so with chloramine, which will linger much longer, maybe inhibit root growth.

On the web, numerous “authorities” claim that chloramines have no negative effect on plant growth.  But no one refers to any controlled experiments to demonstrate this.  Since I have paid-in-full tickets to ride on the RO bandwagon, I think many houseplants — heck, even grass! — would grow better with RO as compared to chloraminated tap water.

So here’s what I’m going to do:

1) Measure the total chlorine content of my greenhouse water to establish a baseline.

2) Run my water through a carbon filter(s) and then measure the total chlorine content again.

3) Water my masdevallias (and all the rest of my orchids!) with the water that passed through the carbon filter.

4) Set aside a control group of plants that will receive water NOT passed through the carbon filter.

5) Record and post results.

OK, this is still not a definitive test, but it should give useful information, especially for those of us concerned about chloramines and orchids.  Stay tuned…

Some Resources and Notes:

1) This is an excellent summary of the chemistry behind chloramines, although geared towards fish keepers:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/index.php

2) http://www.aoc.gov/aoc/magazine/upload/AoC_magazine_Spring_2011_final_508-compliant_rev.pdf

Orchid growers at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. found that after the city started using chloramines, orchid root growth began to suffer.  A few people on the web reported similar anecdotal observations.

3) I also spoke with a company (who shall remain unnamed) that sells carbon filters in two grades, “normal” and the more expensive “specially designed for removing chloramines”.  Well, the friendly rep that I talked to said that the water in their area contains chloramines, and they use the “normal” carbon filters, not the “special” ones!  I pestered and pressed the rep for more details, and apparently, it’s kind of a marketing thing (surprise, surprise).  While the “special” filter WILL remove chloramines more effectively than the “normal” filter, the company itself is fine with using the cheaper “normal” ones, and offer the higher-end filter for those folks who demand the peace of mind of having the best quality equipment to clean up their water.  (Actually, I’d probably want that peace of mind if I needed to clean up my water for, say, an aquarium of extremely rare and fragile sea creatures.)

In the case of P. King Charles, the answer could very well be YES.

Paphiopedlium King Charles, a cross created by Terry Root of the Orchid Zone, is genetically 75% charlesworthii.  The cross itself is P. Wawona Maiden x charlesworthii, with charlesworthii ‘Hooded’ seeming to produce outstanding specimens of this hybrid.

The great thing about this hybrid is that it exceeds the parent in almost every way.   It is bigger, stronger, faster growing, and sometimes better colored than its species progenitor.  Certain cultivars are very difficult to distinguish from a straight charlesworthii.  Beware of counterfeits!

The breeding logic in crossing P. Wawona Maiden by charlesworthii would seem quite obvious: to create a hybrid that looks like a charlesworthii, walks like a charlesworthii, and quacks like a charlesworthii.

P. Wawona Maiden (another Orchid Zone creation) is P. Hellas x charlesworthii.  The best-known cultivar of P. Hellas is ‘Westonbirt’, which you can see here:

Definitely a very nice autumn-toned complex, but it’s an older one that may not draw as much attention if placed in a field of the more modern stuff.  Still, the modern complexes couldn’t exist without the classic complexes (e.g., ‘Westonbirt’) supplying the genes.

Let’s take a generational step back and ask another question: what was the breeding logic behind Wawona Maiden?  What was the goal in going with an autumn-toned complex and breeding with a straight species?

The Wawona Maiden chosen for making King Charles was ‘Big Sky’.  If I should ever come across it at the Orchid Zone, I will definitely post a picture.  But without having seen it, I would guess that Terry selected something that got as close to charlesworthii as possible, and then bred with an outstanding charlesworthii specimen, in this case, ‘Hooded’.  (FYI — another charlesworthii used extensively in breeding at OZ is ‘Royalty’, which makes King Charles that much more suitable of a name.)

So if the goal was to produce a hybrid that looks like charlesworthii on steroids, I think it’s safe to say “Mission Accomplished”.

Can you tell which is the real species and which is the counterfeit?

The top picture is the species, and the bottom picture is P. King Charles.  I apologize for the photography, as a better picture would have made it much more difficult to tell the difference, I think.  (I love my iPhone 4, but it does seem to have trouble with accurate color representation of orchids, unfortunately.)

What you don’t get is a sense of the size difference between P. King Charles and charlesworthii.  I’ve seen many King Charles, and it is typical for the flower to be around 30% bigger than the average charlesworthii.  Here’s a picture of the two side-by-side:

What would be seriously cool is to breed an alba version of P. King Charles!

Dividing plants is NOT always a good thing!  I understand that there are some species that you should never divide (although a plant that has divided itself is fine).  So, the following is going to be an ongoing list of stuff you shouldn’t divide:

1) P. stonei

I hear that it is sure death to divide a stonei (death for the plant, not death for you.  Although who knows what they will stick into the twisted CITES regulations next…).  Fortunately or unfortunately, few people ever get to a large enough stonei to even consider this issue.  I would guess that this non-division dictum would hold true for primary hybrids of this species, too.

2) P. fairrieanum

According to Terry Root, the orchid master of the Orchid Zone, this most distinctive of paph species should never be divided.  Although, I suppose I’d make an exception if the requestor of a division is paying you A LOT of money and you’ve got other self-made divisions as backup.

Anyone else have deadly division experiences?  Leave a comment or email orchids@paphinessorchids.com, and I’ll add it to the list.

I am shocked to see how fast time has flown since my last post here!  (Actually, I’m not shocked.  The pain of living with an internal nagging about posting new stuff to fellow slipperheads is excruciating, but somehow I managed to survive.)

The truth is I’ve been quite busy on a different facet of orchid growing, namely, getting involved in local (San Francisco area) orchid shows.  Not to mention all the demands of my non-orchid work, travel, and most importantly, family.

But I am back in the saddle again, and will be cranking out new thoughts, opinions, lurid stories of orchid fever, controversial advice, and of course, Orchid Zone Reports and price lists (email orchids@paphinessorchids.com to subscribe!).

Thank you all for reading this!

OZ took the best of this grex and did what they do best: bred onwards and upwards.  I once asked Terry Root if I could see ‘Mont Millais’ FCC/AOS.  He said he had sold the whole plant, and no longer had it.  I was astounded, and asked him why he had let go of such an historic plant.  His response: “Why do I need it?” (meaning he believed he’d gotten all he could from its genes which resided now in MM’s progeny).  There is some deep breeder wisdom here, for those interested in pondering…

These seedlings derive from the best of the best of the progeny from the’Rex’ x ‘Mont Millais’ group, ‘Rex’ x ‘Nan Chou’, as well as other highly select plants Terry keeps for breeding. Many people think that the ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’ plants that got the FCC’s are the best of that crop. WRONG! (and that’s a good thing for all of us).  Great breeders keep their greatest plants in reserve — submitting for judging could actually lower their value, especially if you get a bad score because of bad judges. (Ahem… I won’t enter into my usual tirade on this point.)

In any case, the very best of the roths that OZ produced have been bred, and their progeny are being released. Here’s a rundown:

NOTE: Pricing was valid when I originally put this list out on my price list.  As these seedlings have now gotten significantly bigger, and will be re-potted into larger pots soon, prices will go up.  I’m thinking it’s 50/50 that Terry will let me get some more at these lower prices, so if you’re interested, please email me ASAP.

a) Z7071 ‘Mighty’ x ‘Red Baron’
‘Mighty’ is from the ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’ cross. I believe it bloomed later than its sibs that received the Award of Quality. ‘Red Baron’ is from the ‘MM’ x ‘Nan Chou’ cross, the latter parent being a particularly dark plant in Taiwan. The owner sent pollen to Terry, who put it on ‘Rex’ and grew up the resulting seedlings. As I recall, some of the recent roth FCC’s came from this cross. In any case, ‘Mighty’ x ‘Red Baron’ is probably the “favored” cross here, although there are many dark horses, and sometimes you get surprised (which is why you should cover all your bets by buying more roths of different crosses!)

Price: $100

b) Z7110 ‘Wide Horizon’ x ‘Chester Hill/OZ’
‘Wide Horizon’ was from the ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’ cross, and its name says it all — a very wide-reaching flower.

‘Chester Hill/OZ’ has an interesting story: Terry Root obtained pollen from Carter & Holmes of ‘Chester Hill’ AM/AOS. While it’s an older cross, I believe Terry liked it because of its petal stance and color. He put this pollen on ‘Rex’ FCC/AOS, and bloomed out the progeny, one of which had particularly large flowers. This is the plant I refer to as ‘Chester Hill/OZ’. He then took this plant, and crossed it with ‘Red Baron’, which was produced from a cross of ‘Nan Chou’ x ‘Mont Millais’. ‘Nan Chou’ is among the deepest colored roths Terry has ever seen.

Price: $75

c) Z7134 ‘Chester Hill/OZ’ x ‘Colossus’
‘Colossus’ is from ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’. I think the name tells us a lot — must be pretty big. Actually, it is well-known that ‘Rex’ produces large flowers, so those genes must be shining through.

Price: $75

d) Z7135 ‘Chester Hill/OZ’ x ‘Red Baron’
(Both parents already described above) Price: $75

e) Z7136 ‘Red Baron’ x ‘Mighty’
This is the reciprocal cross of Z7110. It seems to me that if TR did the reciprocal cross, both of these parents must be superb. There are some who say that the capsule (pod) parent has an added influence on color. I suppose this is possible since the maternal parent contributes extra genes in the mitochondrial DNA found in the egg, but everything I’ve heard is anecdotal. But if this theory holds true, then these progeny will produce darker colored flowers than ‘Mighty’ x’ RB’ cross. So don’t miss out!

Price: $100

f) Z7137 ‘Red Baron’ x ‘Wide Horizon’
Both of these plants (previously described) appear to be good parents, since they’ve been used in multiple crosses.

Price: $75

g) Z7172 ‘Dazzler’ x ‘Buff’
I saw ‘Dazzler’ in bloom last year, and it looked fantastic. Then TR told me this was a crappy blooming. Wow. If what I thought was a really great blooming didn’t hit TR’s standards, then I wonder what it’s select progeny will do! ‘Buff’ is Rex x MM, so I would expect these progeny to bloom out very robustly.

Price: $75 or $100 (sorry, will need to confirm)

h) Z7174 ‘Red Rider’ x ‘Buff’
‘Red Rider’ is from ‘Rex’ x ‘Nan Chou’ and ‘Buff’ is a ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’. This is a parallel cross to ‘Mighty’ x’ Red Baron’. If you’re looking to get some excellent 2nd generation plants, it is definitely a good idea to spread your bets — it’s well-known that the “best” parents don’t always produce the best progeny. This is true in all kinds of breeding: orchids, dogs, cats, horses, and let’s not forget humans. A few examples come to mind…

Price: $100

Some of you may not know this, but there were many, many ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’ progeny grown up from flask, and while they’ve become hard to find these days, I saw a number of them here and there the last few years. These were primarily the runty ones, slow and difficult to grow, that had finally reached maturity — years after their more vigorous sibs had already bloomed (maybe several times). I fully expect the same situation to happen with this generation of OZ roths. So if you’d like to get the strong, vigorous growers from this new crop of roths, now would be a good time…

Certainly makes you wonder how abundantly they must grow there if they can serve as pig feed.

On many occasions I’ve acquired plants or somehow ended up with plants that have a central leaf that just won’t stand at full attention.  I had one particularly large P. rothschildianum ‘Green Valley’ x ‘Fly Eagle’ with lovely thick, wide leaves.  The plant grew well, but at one point the big central leaf just flopped over.  Watering more frequently just didn’t seem to help, despite a pot full of healthy roots (1).

Having grown under lights like the pot growers, I had already experimented with every possible humidifying system you might come across:

Ultrasonic humidifiers:  These are usually cheaply built, with an ultrasonic element that breaks quickly.

Ultrasonic misters:  These are the ultrasonic piezos from the above humidifiers, and they have identical shortcomings.  You can get them in arrays or six elements that can pump put a copious amount of fine fog, but they require a lot of power, and the power supplies are very low quality.  One of them almost started an electrical fire in my home as I was testing it.

Warm steam humidifier:  these have the advantage of warming your plant area, but by the same token, they have the problem of warming your plants when you want it to be cool.  Good for use in the winter if you want to keep plants warm and provide humidity.

Gravel trays:  Heh…  I’m somewhat unconvinced that these work.  Here’s why: When molecules of water evaporate from the surface area of the gravel, they will disperse into the overwhelmingly greater volume of air that is not already humidified.  Hence, the amount of actual humidified air around your plants is quite low especially if your room is large compared to the size of your gravel tray.  How much actually reaches your plants and has an effect is questionable.  If your plants are sitting in water in a gravel tray and thriving, I wouldn’t exactly assign the success of said growth to the gravel trays, but to semihydroponic growth (and a plant that has adjusted well to it).  Nevertheless, if gravel trays work for you, keep it up.

Cooling misters:  These are the plastic tubes with fine nozzles that you get at Home Depot and hook up to a garden hose spigot.  They claim to produce a mist that can reduce the ambient temp by something like twenty degrees (which only works if you’re in the hot desert and dropping 20 degrees gets you down to a balmy 90 deg F).  The problem is that the mist produced is not as fine as you might think, and actually ends up splattering droplets all over your leaves coalesce into big drops that then run into the crown of your plants, forming a lovely cesspool for erwinia and other pathogens to grow and infect your plant.

So, what is going to get those limp leaves up?

I use, and love, The Hydrofogger (2).  This thing pumps out a super fine, atomized mist like nothing I have ever seen.  It works on a different principle than any of the above.  A centrifugal mechanism inside throws water out onto some other thingamajig that results in the finest, loveliest, most ethereal angel mist you can imagine.

If you can use one of these babies in an enclosed space like a small 15′ x 15′ greenhouse and jack it up to full capacity, you will have an area completely packed with fog.  I’ve gotten the fog so thick that I literally could not see more than a few inches in front of my face.

So how did my limp roth do?  Well, I subjected it to a few days of 90%+ relative humidity, and that limp leaf just rose and became erect as if I had fed the plant a bottle of Viagra (not that I have any personal experience or need of such pharmaceuticals).

Other plants that didn’t have limp leaf problems also seemed much happier, too.

Please keep in mind that the other part of this equation is having an enclosed space that can hold the humidity at the required level.  (So if you’re growing on a patio, you may want to try hang some plastic sheeting around your plants to keep the humidity high)  Venting the humidity from time to time, and keeping strong air movement flowing over your plants will help to prevent other opportunistic pathogens from getting a foothold.

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(1) So why doesn’t simply watering the plant more work better?  There is probably a limit to the amount of water that can be pumped through a plant’s vasculature system from the roots.  Increasing the availability of water in the air allows the molecules of water to be absorbed through the leaves and possibly reach areas not reached as efficiently by the plant’s vasculature.

(2) Call the Hydrofogger phone number at 1-866-77-HUMID, and ask to speak with Mr. Thomas.  He will take good care of you.  Full Disclosure: I was so pleased with the results, I told Mr. Thomas I’d mention Hydrofogger on this blog, and he kindly agreed to give me a commission on any sales originating from my referral.  I’d like to pass on the generosity — if you get a Hydrofogger, you can receive $25 off of your next order with us at Paphiness Orchids.