Hi Wade, could you take a picture of the plants & post it on the forum?
It may be the mix, amount of light (or lack of), heavy metal ions from the wire or a number of causes?
To me a pic will make it a little more obvious?

Is your bark (growing mix) composted?
Are the sick plants growing in the same area as your healthy plants?
When did you pot up the sick plants, into the new mix (winter)?
Have you taken the sick plants out of the pots to see how healthy the root system is?
allan

wade,
Does your shadecloth go right down the sides to the ground? It may be a air circulation problem causing fungus.
Dooley.

Hi Wade,

Another thought which just crossed my mind is, are the timbers in your shade house made from unpainted CCA treated timber. If so the copper in the timber may be leaching out and splashing/dripping on your plants whenever it gets wet.

I know all about this, as it's exactly what happened to me when I first started out in brom's with the result being I lost quite a few plants before I found out what caused it.

A good paint job of several coats of good quality oil paint did the trick.

I hope this is of some help.

All the best Nev.

Dear Wade.
Just like Allan and Dooley said.
Just quietly like Nev said. In Thailand,the copper alway found in fungicide more then timber.
Pom

no treated timber anywhere near bye have a feeling it may be the medium i am potting with its just pine bark and its seems to stay very wet when it has rained alot.I will be giving allans idea a go by using premium potting mix and maybe course river sand so the water drains alot more freely.

Thanks Wade

Why not mix your bark with your potting mix? I grow a lot of mine with that mix and it drains well.

As long as the pine bark is well aged it should be OK. New pine has to much sap still in it. I got some not long ago that was mixed in the aged bag and it caused a few problems before I realized it was mixed in with the aged pine.

Hi Wade,

Is the pine bark you're using sold as "Pine Bark" or "Pine Bark Mulch" and are you buying it in bags or in bulk?.

I know a few of the landscape companies down this way use a combination of pine bark, pine timber off-cuts (treated and untreated) when they are making mulch in fact all the rubbish and ofcuts goes into their mulch.

With these blokes everything goes into the mulcher and I have seen treated pine in some mulches as the green colouring is a dead giveaway. When I enquired about treated timber in the mix one bloke very sheepishly said, "there could have been a little bit of treated timber got mixed in with it". When I explained what copper can do to brom's he replied that he "sells mulch and it's not meant to be used for potting plants in". So if you're buying your bark in bulk be careful.

I find the bagged bark sold as Brunnings Cymbidium Orchid mix is very good and was recommended to me by a prominent bromeliad grower.

Like Pom said, copper is a common ingredient in a lot of fungicides also and not just in Thailand so read the labels carefully.

I agree with what Allan said at the start of this thread, that a picture of the plants in question would be very helpful.

All the best, Nev

Its hard to say without seeing photos and I wish people would just put photos on ,It could be the mix and I do know a number of growers who keep buying cheap mix and then complain loudly about what rubbish it is,good quality mix is cheap ,why ? because it works ,the Brunnings mix that Neville mentions is great quality ,pay a bit more and get results ,Mulching Bark can be deadly !

i left a photo of the plant in the gallery as i do not know how to put up on this page.

Wade

Hi Wade.
I have this problem to. How to post picture in this web ?

Here is the thread for photo posting

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo

And here's a link to Wade's pic.

tj

Here is a link that might be useful: