Oncidium noid: dead

Dead oncidium

      I threw my "rescue" oncidium noid into the trash today.  I bought this orchid 1.5 years ago, back when I didn't know how to distinguish a healthy plant from a dying one.  The plant had no roots, and its bulbs were so dehydrated that they were as thin as the leaves themselves.  And yet, the orchid had a multitude of thick green leaves, which deceived me as to its health.

     Over the past 1.5 years, the orchid failed to produce healthy roots.  And little by little the leaves began to die back.  Whatever fungal problems were killing off its attempts at new roots, my fungicide treatments failed to thwart it.  Most recently, the pseudobulbs and new growths on this orchid turned to rotten mush (and there were no new roots in sight).  At this point, while there might have been a minute chance of saving a tiny part of this orchid, it really didn't seem worth it to keep trying.  

Rescue oncidium makes two new growths, still no roots

A sad looking oncidium

     At this point, I am continuing with this plant more out of morbid curiosity to see if it will pull through, rather than any great interest in the plant itself.  I can't bring myself to throw away a living orchid, so it sits near the corner of my collection, helping barricade my more precious orchids from the cat's whims.

     While the fungicide treatment in late September, helped spur a sharp recovery of my Oncostele Pacific Perspective, this rootless oncidium noid has continued to languish.

New growth

     It lost a few more leaves, and today I cut of a backbulb which had rotted.  The orchid has started two new growths, but has no signs of roots.  In addition, there are two mysterious white growths in the dead stem of the orchid.

What is this?: a new growth

     It looks like the start of a new pseudobulb, but completely devoid of any pigment.  I thought new growths only appeared from the growing end of the orchid, not from the middle of the rhizome where the oldest pseudobulbs are located.  

     I gave the poor oncidium a 30 minute soak in systemic fungicide, then potted it into fresh sphagnum moss, and soaked the whole pot in physan.  That should hopefully nuke any kind of leftover rots.  

A cat called trouble

Wilsonara Pacific Perspective (left) and oncidium noid (right)

     Last night I awoke to a loud crash sometime around 5am.  The cat, in the midst of his usual daybreak energy rush, had jumped up on the bathroom windowsill and knocked both flower pots onto the floor.  My beautiful ceramic orchid pot was shattered, but the orchids themselves suffered no harm.

     The accidental uprooting gave me an opportunity to see the root progress on these two recovering plants.  My Wilsonara Pacific Perspective had a nice cluster of new roots, as well as a few longer older roots that were still healthy.  

     The noid oncidium, on the other hand, it still rootless.  How does an orchid that has been rootless for almost a year still manage to be alive and so leafy?

     I potted the two orchids back in their original plastic pots, and put them back on the same windowsill.  I know I am pretty much asking to get them knocked off again by not changing their location... but I don't really have any other place to put them at the moment.  The cat tipped the noid oncidium out of 

Edit (7/31): It took less than a day.  The cat tipped the noid out of it's pot again.  I've moved that pot to a less sunny, but hopefully more cat-safe window.  The wilsonara seems to be more secure in its original location, since it's in a heavier clay pot. I've moved it to the corner of the bathroom window, so that the cat can have room to jump on the windowsill without disturbing the orchid.

Repotting my oncidiums into proper media

Removing a rotten backbulb

    I said at the end of last month, that I would wait until my Wilsonara (Oncostele) Pacific Perspective was out of bloom, before repotting and removing the rotting backbulb.  Well, last week my new oncidium media arrived from repotme.com, and the oldest two blooms on the flower spike wilted.  So I decided it was about time to do some plant surgery.

     

     I used some big scissors to cut off the rotten bulb, and sprinkled cinnamon over the cut (to help prevent rot or infection spreading through the cut site).  The remaining bulbs are firm and healthy.

Short roots bristling with growth indicate a problem with the potting condition fungal infection

     The state of the roots showed that this orchid was not happy in its old potting media.  Although many of the roots from my december update are still alive, all remain very short, as if they did not want to grow any further into the pot.  The blackened tips on roots that are less than 5 months old (see above) likewise indicate unwelcome conditions.

Wilsonara in oncidium orchid mix and clear 4" pot

     I repotted my wilsonara into a clear 4" pot, which is slightly narrower and deeper than the previous pot.  Now that I have one bulb fewer, I can fit the orchid into a smaller container.  Since the plant is still extremely  top-heavy (and fell out of the new pot as I was moving it around), I also placed the plastic pot inside a slightly larger ceramic pot for extra stability.

Oncidium root deterioration after 4 months in unfit media of untreated fungal infection

     

     Since my wilsonara wasn't doing too well, I decided to also repot my oncidium noid into the new media. I am glad I did, because the oncidium noid's condition was much worse than the wilsonara's.  The few roots that had grown in January, were now almost completely rotten.

oncidium root buds that failed to grow

After trimming dead roots: a nearly rootless oncidium remains

     I'll admit I was pretty brutal in trimming off the dead root material.  In part, I did it because I didn't want any rotting dead plant matter to corrupt the newest growing root tips. 

     But a greater part of my aggressiveness in the trimming came from the fact that I really don't care about the fate of this orchid.  It's a noid that I bought on the cheap, and have never seen in bloom.  I don't know if I will like its colors, or even how long it will take to recover enough to bloom for me.  It's a large, sick orchid, with pretty green foliage... but that large green foliage is also a pain when it's taking up valuable space under the grow light.  (And after the repotting, I moved the orchid to a windowsill for that reason).

New root tips budding from new growth on oncidium

     Still, even this sad rescue is putting forth a vigorous effort at growing new roots, with both of the newest growths bristling with little root tips.

     My conclusion from this experience is that 'paph&phrag' media does not make a good substitue for other fine-rooted orchid types.  Just as my dendrobium victoria-reginae suffered until I moved it out of the paph&phrag media and onto a mount with moss, so did my two oncidiums struggle to grow healthy roots while potted into that media.  

     As my paphs are growing happily in it, I don't think the media mix itself is bad, but I do think it's clearly not compatible with other orchid genera.  The new oncidium mix is much more solid, and provides a greater stability to the potted plant. If I'm right, and the mix was the problem, then I can hope to see healthy long roots on both my oncidiums by the end of summer.

EDIT (11/4): I'm now convinced that the root problems on my oncidiums were the result of fungal issues, rather than improper media.  I've since treated my orchids with systemic fungicide, and am finally seeing good progress in root health.

Oncidium NOID: the rescue orchid recovers

new growths on the left and right sides of the plant

     My oncidium rescue has been slowly growing for the past few months, with two new growths on opposite sides of the plant.  The one on the left picture is clearly visible, while the one on the right is mostly hidden within the folds of a larger leaf.  Since I was in a repotting frame of mind after dealing with my den victoria-reginae's troubles, I decided to pop the incidium out of its pot to take a look at the root situation.

picture on right shows the very first pseudobulb: small and withered now

     As you can see in the picture above, this orchid does not have much roots.  Most of the rootlike stubble that you see is actually where I had trimmed back the dead roots months ago soon when I first bought the orchid.  The only living roots are the 5 longish roots on the very left of the picture.  These have been growing out from the newest big growth.  I noticed that with oncidiums, roots seem to only grow from new parts of the plant.  The old pseudobulbs seem to be entirely inactive.

     Bringing the new roots into closeup, you can see 3 new root tips sprouting out.  Although none of these roots are green, it is not atypical for roots growing without light.  The new root tips make irrefutable proof that these roots are alive.

     Meanwhile, further up on the same growth, 3 new roots are showing through.  Since these roots sprouted above the level of the potting media, they are green colored.

oncidium in new pot, now closer to the lights

     I had last repotted this oncidium in the fall.  Although such frequent repotting is not ideal for orchids, I had several reasons to repot at this time anyway.  

     First, the media I had used last time was not the best for oncidium roots.  I had used the typical coarse orchid mix that phals are often potted in.  However, the rule of thumb is: the thinner the roots, the finer the media.  Oncidium roots are much thinner than those of phalaenopsis.  This time I used some "paph and phrag orchid mix" from repotme.com, which is better suited for thin orchid roots.  Perhaps for future repottings I will purchase media specifically formulated for incidiums, but for now I saved money by using what I had at hand.

     

an ideal orchid pot would have lots of drainage holes

     Second, I wanted to switch the orchid to a better pot.  The previous container had only one drainage hole in the bottom, while the new one has 8.  Better drainage will help the media dry out faster and prevent root rot.


     Also, last time I had managed to pot the orchid at a crooked angle.  Repotting allowed me to correct that. And finally, checking on the state of the roots lets me know if I am properly caring for the orchid and catch potential problems early.  Meanwhile, since the orchid has so few roots, repotting is less likely to disrupt the orchids health.  Unlike with overgrown orchids, this oncidium comes out of its pot easily, without breaking off delicate root tips.

Oncidium NOID: the rescue

Luscious foliage

     I picked up this orchid along with a masdevallia from the local botanical garden in August.  The plants were marked down due to being sold out of bloom, and while they both had beautiful leaves, their root systems were in critical condition.  The masdevallia died within a few weeks of purchase, but this oncidium NOID has become a study in how far an orchid can go into neglect and still survive.

pseudobulbs should never be this flattened

     What I hadn't realized at the time of purchase, was that this plant did not have a single living root, and its pseudobulbs were dehydrated to the point of being as flat as the leaves.  This damage was likely caused by poor watering technique.  In the last few months, the newest growth on the plant rotted off because the orchid could not support it.  Meanwhile, it has put out several new roots, and is now setting out a small new growth as well.

a new growth poking through

     Hopefully between this oncidium and my other onc noid I will eventually own a healthy plant to enjoy the genus' canonical round pseudobulbs and easy regular blooms.