Dendrobium Thyrsiflorum

[Suresh Kalyanpur]

If some of you are familiar with the growing conditions of a Dendrobium Thyrsiflorum - light, temperature. watering, fertiliser dosage, humidity, rest period if any, etc. - would you please share it with me.

About six months ago along with about seven other varieties of dendrobiums I got this marture thyrsiflorum chid. I potted it in a plastic pot with slits/holes on the sides. The medium I used was charcoal, brick and tile pieces. The plant is watered every other day and given a weak weekly dose of fertiliser feed. It gets plenty of light and air circulation. Not much of direct sun - about an hour of the morning sun probably. All my other dendrobiums are showing new shoots and roots - some of them have also flowered. But this one has not; the leaves have slowly turned yellow and some have already fallen of. Twice small green shoots emerged from the midst of the medium but within a week the shoots turned yellow and perished.

So I decided to have a look at the roots. When I removed all the potting medium, except for a few roots which were white and healthy all the others were mushy and rotten. So I took the precaution of cutting all the rotten roots and am waiting to repot the plant once again.

Would love to have your valuable inputs. What am I doing wrong? Is this dendrobium species different from all my others?

thanks in advance.