Mounted equitant oncidium leaves becoming yellow and shedding

[sjain]

Hi,
I have an equitant oncidium. It was planted in a 2'' pot earlier and I put it on a mount about 1.5 months back. Since then, the leaves are becoming yellow and shedding. They are not shrivelled. I used to water about once a week which I increased to twice a week after mounting it. For the past one week I have been misting daily with no effect. Any ideas on what I might be doing wrong? Should I just put it back in the pot?

Thanks,
S

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[WhiteRabbit]

Don't know what your growing conditions are ...
is this mounted with sphag on it? or bare root?
While these don't like soggy roots, they also do like high humidity, and it may be too dry mounted with only twice weekly watering - especially indoors in dry forced air heated buildings ...
Are you able to post pix?

[sjain]

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. I had mounted it in sphagnum moss. I have 3 CFLs, 18W each (2 white, 1 yellow) which are switched on for about 14 hours/day and a fan running for 24hrs.

The 1st pic is of the general setup and the rest are closeups of the equitant.

For the past 3 days or so I have made a temporary greenhouse by putting a plastic bag around it.

-S

[billc]

How much light do 3 18W bulbs give you? These plants will take as much light as you can give them. I would also take the moss off the mount. Where they live, they get soaked almost every day and then completly dry out from the sun and wind. If the moss is staying moist, that could be your problem.
You'll have to get the roots growing again to get the plant healthy.

Bill

[kavanaru]

as bill said, take the moss out of the mount! what you see is the result of too much water!! Tolumnias like to dry out very quick after watering... You can mount them on a piece of wood with nothing else but the wire to hold it, and they will be happy! Water them on a daily basis, but in such a way that they are dry with 1 hours after watering... give them also a lot of light and good ventilation!

[lycaonpictus]

What everyone else said. It looks to me like the roots / base are rotting. Remove all the moss and see if there are any viable roots left. If not -- but you still have green leaves -- there are things you can do to salvage it. Good luck!

[pedidiva]

The tolumnias that we have at the local botanical gardens are mounted on spag & get watered once a week. they bloom--greenhouse conditions.

The ones I have at home are in small clay pots on a charcoal & watered daily. My sister has hers sitting on a windowsill in her shower (clay pot), lots of sunlight & it has gone crazy