What causes hollow roots in orchids?

When growers repot their orchids, they sometimes discover hollow roots, and there are many possible causes of hollow orchid roots. If you want to find the specific cause, you need to investigate based on your own actual situation, since the growing environment of every orchid is different.

Generally speaking, the causes of hollow orchid roots include the following.

1. Stuffiness inside the pot, mainly due to climate, light intensity, organic matter fermenting again, and excessive sun exposure of the pot during high temperatures;

2. Root damage from heavy fertiliser, mostly because the fertiliser dose was too heavy and the salts were not flushed out in time;

3. Wrong watering time, mainly because water stagnating in the pot after watering produces a steaming, stewing effect under high temperatures;

4. Impure water, insufficient oxygen content in the water, or hard water damaging the roots;

5. Pest infestation, caused by nothing other than erosive damage to the root epidermis;

6. Natural root dieback in old pseudobulbs, which mainly requires lean cultivation of the old pseudobulbs. Never fertilise at will; the priority is to keep them alive and preserve the offsets.

7. When planting, if there are too many or overly vigorous roots forced into the original pot, the space is cramped and the potting medium cannot easily trickle in, which easily leaves the roots suspended in air; after a few months they often rot into hollow roots.

Growing orchids is a process, and every grower's process is different, so we need to keep exploring based on our own situation. For orchid roots that have become hollow, we can simply cut them off, but to avoid hollow roots happening again, we should look for the cause and improve our care methods.