The right soil choice and correct watering habbits will stop root rot.

The only way light would help is if the heat from the sun is drying out the soil. However, not all plants would enjoy full sun.

Also, with most plants, the more light they recieve, the more they would grow and the more water they will use.

However, that will not help if the plants roots are currently rotting.

I was just wondering like the more energy they will have to combat minor cases or rotting roots on plants like radermachera that are very picky and prone to rot. In a Greenhouse or shadecloth outside growing operation water is quite frequent, and the shadecloth is soo much light but not full sun it seems that they just do better because they have stored energy to grow new roots. You should look at my other post dave, i found a good local cheap soil amendment mix. its called like "found good soil mix for cheap" or something like that. I lost my smaller china doll to crown and stem rot from it being a small plant, being crowded, and the pot i used had a tray. I was trying to dump out the tray every time i waterd but it was not enough. I got a new plant, washed the plastic pot out with soap water and got a new one. Their only 2.50 at walmart for a 4" china doll. Funny thing is, the actual original rootaball is what started to rot, and the new roots had begun growing well into the bigger pot....i was not overwatering i think its just one of those things that they are too crowded and the new one i pulled those smaller seedlings out. (its grown like a bush) I got captan powder im gonna water it in with and i used my new mixture along with pulling the tray off i think the new one will be fine. It seems like a smaller china doll problem ( refernce this http://mrec.ifas.ufl.edu/foliage/folnotes/chinadol.htm) It sounds like the one called Rhizoctonia stem rot (Rhizoctonia solani)

Smell the root ball to confirm you have rot. Problem is...every time someone thinks they have rot, the problem turns out to be something else.

No sorry im not a noob it was crown and stem root rot. Said plant got tossed. My others are fine. Gonna water/drench with captan powder from now on every time transplanting....this seems to be the main problem with chinadolls.

China dolls are so beautiful yet so finicky.

A plant's natural defenses are a byproduct of its metabolism, so a plant getting all the light it needs should have a more robust metabolism than a plant starved for light. Additionally, high light levels mean a higher rates of respiration and photosynthesis, both of which require the use of more water. So the increased use of water would tend to diminish the length of time a fraction of the soil would remain saturated after a thorough watering. This, though, is only a potential advantage due to the fact that it would immediately be nullified if the grower or Mother Nature decides to water the plant before it actually needs it.

Most cases of root rot arise from a heavy hand on the watering can and/or a less than ideal soil choice - not enough air/ too much water in the soil.

Al

Okay like i thought i agree, but im not overwatering them. They will wilt and leafdrop within and hour or two of drying out, so the margin of error with these plants is so tiny. Have never seen anything like it. How could a "tree" have such fine porus leaves and reach leafdrop within a couple hours of drying "mostly" out. I know about as much as anyone here on radermachera sinica but have always been as mad at them as i am in love with them. Ive had them since i was a kid even grown them from seed sucessfully into 4" liners, but its amazing how a tree, any tree, could be so fragile...... Im sure in nature they just shed the bottom leaves and grow taproots and keep growing taller. Id imagine and ive read that in drier winter subtropical climates, its a quite ugly tree. Two pictures, one with a drier winter climate and one with the trees prefered climate. Two make my point, how is this SOIL NOT OVERLY COMACTED? Im sorry to go on about this i just find it interesting. Im more of a tree lover not a plant lover. Just beautiful and interesting little trees. Fast growing and many diffrent ways the compound leaves can look depending on growing conditions. Note this is not the same tree. Not even a ficus will shed its lower leaves so quickly and without hesitation as china dolls will.

I also think the overuse of fungicides in mass production contributes ALOT to the fungus ( Phytophthora sp.) developing a resistance to fungicides and being more "superbug" when it reaches our store shelves sits moist and in the dark for a few weeks, then is placed outside in the heat, even in shade. Plants bought from a nursery with only a 2-3 day haul then directly into a greenhouse seem to do much better, as do bigger plants.

If the soil is bad or not draining no amount of light is gonna help

That's not entirely true, Larry. If we know that low light contributes to the potential of over-watering, we can intuit that high light has the reverse effect. I realize that factor A (light) cannot 'make up' for the limitations imposed by factor B (root rot or suppression of root function), but when A has the potential to limit the duration that B affects the plant, it has the potential to reduce the severity of the limitation. If you're made to soak in ice cold water for an hour, that could be potentially very bad, but if you're made to sit in ice cold water for 5 minutes, it's something you can do without much difficulty; getting drunk once per month isn't as bad as being drunk 24/7, ...........

I've grown china doll & didn't find it to be difficult at all. In fact, I grew it in a kitchen, not well lit, in a very shallow tray with no drainage holes for 4 years before I tired of tending the planting and gave it away. I even chopped it way back twice, and should still have the pictures. The only reason I had the plant was because we had a visiting bonsai artist that was supposed to bring material for rock plantings and she dropped the ball and brought China doll trees and an assortment of smaller plants that were no more appropriate than the China doll.

Al

"Not sure if anyone knows this but does light help plants combat root rot?"

Yes, but the mechanism isn't what you are expecting. Enough light increases transpiration so that even some plants in pots in large saucers of water will be semi-dry by dusk. This does not give anaerobic bacteria enough time to grow. For example, here is a photo of musa 'Little Prince' (left) and musa 'Truly Tiny' (right):

http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/MusaLittlePrinceAndTrulyTiny.jpg

Every morning, I fill those saucers to the brim and, by dusk, they are empty. On very hot days, I have to fill those saucers more than once. Observe the roots growing into the water. Incidentally, musa are NOT semiaquatic.

I never liked China doll. Too many problems with leaf drop from uneven watering and drafts. A great indoor tree would be those artificial ficus trees thrown in garbage or a simple tree

I think the critical factor is soil choice and watering habits. Ideally, you'd be growing in a medium that makes over-watering something you'd actually need to work at for it to become a problem. I build my soils so they hold little to no perched water, and can't remember the last time one of the fungaluglies was a player in the death of a plant.

This is the ugly planting I referred to that was put together from what was available when a visiting bonsai 'artist' conducted a workshop. It's in the 5:1:1 mix topped with dead moss and there are no drain holes in the pot at all. I used R/O water for irrigating and fertilized with fish emulsion and STEM. I think we did the workshop in Aug and the plants were tiny things in little 1.5" pots - little larger than a cell pack cell, so the growth of the plant, such as it is, was from August to sometime in spring. You can see the closed buds on the hornbeam I'm layering the top off of next to it.

Below you can see I pruned the mess hard

I let it grow until the next spring

Then cut it back again

I summered it outdoors & did some pinching I'd neglected to do before to make it full, and pawned it off on the first garden visitor that could find promise in it. The bottom leaves are original on the plant, so about 3 years old, and they look pretty good for all the low light and other adversities they suffered. Like I say - it's never been a tough plant to keep happy. I've repotted several of them for others - did one very large one with a 2.5 - 3" trunk during a repotting demo for a garden club, and cut those back to reveal a decent structure too, and they all did just fine.

Al

I think a few factors contribute to china dolls being sucessful houseplants. 1. Buying freshly imported plants from florida. Sitting in cold damp grocery store for 2 weeks will surely set in root rot. 2. Outside in the summer, shade to start and then can gradually increase to full sun if the plant is healthy enough. 3. They like an acidic peat based mix, but will grow in regular soil in the ground 4 Starting with a 6" or 8" or 10" tree is best. 4" plants are more prone to blight and damp off/crown stem and root rot.

When i use to work at oak creek nurseries i would always take home a 6" or 8" plant from every load (about once every two weeks or once a month) At one point (yes call me crazy, i was just bored and living alone) i had like 6 or 7 china dolls in my backyard. They were in the shade of my brick house and as the summer went on and i noticed new growth i moved some of them into the sun. WOW these things grow like CRAZY in the sun with plenty of water and humidity. I would take the hose and spray and water them almost every day in mid summer. I never hardly ever lost a plant, despite not being as OCD as i am about them now. I took one 8" plant that was getting overgrown and planted it directly into the soil next to my foundation. It was an east facing exposure, i waterd and fertilized the living daylights out of it, and by the end of the summer it was a full blown tree taller than me. I gave it to my nursery. Not sure whatever happened to it, but i thinned out the smaller ones and by that fall/winter it sat in the nursery as a tree with a thick truck and a crown of leaves that were above everyones heads.

NO.... and root rot can spread to other plants. Good lighting and watering skills will protect plants from getting root rot.

Good lighting skills are what you need and plants will grow well in pine needles and sludge.

-Anthony

HAHAHA

Depends on the plant of course but bad drainage where a plant needs good drainage to thrive is not going to be corrected by better light!

Pine needles and sludge! lol i kind of agree....they use all that energy to make roots and stems strong. How else do trees and corn and crops grow in the mud and do so well.