humidity tray? to be or not to be?

[johanna orchid fever]

i have about 7 dendrobiums and i'm having a problem with them they seem to be spotting yellowish leaves and i've read that it could be too much direct light or water but niether have i done for them there dry as sand and lighting is very filtered i have them on a humidity tray and i dnt seem to have such good roots...help i dnt wanna loose them....i give them so much attention as far as keeping there light filtered and i use fertilizers on them once a month i dnt know wat i'm doing wrong....could my house be too dry for them? i live in louisiana and it's cold outside so there in doors. how can i find this out without having to pay so much money....shud i use a humidifier?
any answers are more than welcomed...thanks

[Ray]

Are the pots sitting on the moist gravel of the humidity tray? If so, it is possible that you're keeping the medium to soggy.

Orchid roots need to breathe, and a soppy, overly-compact potting medium can suffocate them, and that can lead to yellowing.

[beanluc]

I agree, it's important to keep the water in the tray away from the bottom of the pot. A couple of ways to do this are:

Turn over a saucer in the tray, and put the pot on that.

Put a metal grate (refrigerator shelf, grill grate, etc) over the tray, and put a pot on that.

And, if you're heating your house, it's likely that it's dry. So keep those trays! Make them bigger or use two!

[johanna orchid fever]

thank you so much i have a huge tray i made out of some things i had in my garage ....just one question is it ok if i use tap water i had been using rain water but there hasn't been any rain here for quite a while so i had only but one kind of water and dat was tap water..

[10010100102]

Constantly soggy medium spells doom for most any orchid, but a simple change in environement could also be causing your problem. I've heard that dendros can be quite picky, so if you just got them recently that could be why they're dropping their leaves.

As far as using tap water goes, I use tap water on all my orchids (if only because I don't have any way of collecting rainwater yet, and rigging up a system in the middle of a Canadian winter would be pretty impractical) and they don't seem to be suffering too much, mind you our tap water here is very low in dissolved solids.

Hope this helps... Best of luck with your Dendros.

[johanna orchid fever]

thank you all so much...yes i got them recently at lowes they were very cheap only 7 bucks and there were like 4 stakes in each bunch i got.. but i use the specail orchid mix that contains bark and etc. i bought them the double and single pot hangers there great i can hang them were ever.... as for the pots there in they are terracotta and i drilled so many large wholes all over the potts ... i would like to see the roots grow around the pot one day like i've seen on the internet......i love my orchids and i'll die if anything happens to them...

[texdave]

Well, every denddrobium I've gotten seems to develop a couple of yellow leaves that drop off during the winter months. I don't know if that's humidity or over watering but I water every seven days in the winter and we keep the household temp to 68 degrees F. I've read a couple of references ( can't remember the source now) that dendrobiums go thru a dormant phase in the winter and can frequently lose a few leaves. So far, mine have generally recovered in the spring and summer.

I've seen frequent references to humidity trays from alot of expereinced growers, but there have been other on this board who's opinion I trust (Welcome to First Rays Orchids) that say humidity trays are ineffective in an open room.