Question
Hi Jim,


I was wondering, what causes seemingly healthy phalaenopsis plants to grow deformed leaves. I have a few phals and all of them seem to be doing well.  They have healthy roots and leaves, but every once in a while they grow deformed leaves.  Some of the phals have 5-6 in leaves and then they will grow a 1 in. long leaf, and then the next leaf will go back to being normal size.  Other phals will grow a normal length leaf, but it will be really skewed and very unsymmetrical compared to it's previous leaves.  Why does this happen?  

Thanks for the help,

-grace

Answer
Hi Grace,

There are many causes for phalaenopsis leafs to grow deformed but the most frequent cause is light exposure.  If the pot is moved or turned as the leaf is just beginning to grow, it will orient itself towards the sunlight.  For this reason it is always a good idea to put the pot back in the same position.  I use the plastic name tag in the pot as a reference, putting the tag side away from the window.  

As for a leaf not growing, this could be caused by some trauma such as a dry spell longer than a couple of weeks.  Since phalaenopsis use their leafs to store water and nutrients to survive dry spells, it may be that that is what happened.  Although the short leaf may not look very nice, as long as the next leaf(s) are normal sized there is not much to worry about.  

Hope this helped.

Jim Kawasaki
San Jose, Ca.