Why are the very tips of my Colmanara Wildcat turning brown?

[Ducky87]

Hello OrchidBoard!

The spike on my Colmanara Wildcat had some great new growth after I re-poted it, there were new buds coming out of two tips on the spike. those tips are now turning brown. The brown is not spreading it's just the tips where the new growth was showing. is this normal? the spike is fairly long as it is? I water it weekly after the potting medium get's pretty dry.

Normally I would post pics, but the tips are so small i could not get a good picture of them. is the spike done flowering? I will try to keep getting pics of it though!

Thanks Ahead of time all!

[Angurek]

If it's just the buds at the very tip of the spike, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Sometimes, the buds at the end don't form normally, and abort. The rest of the spike looks perfectly fine to me. I'd only be concerned if I noticed that the entire spike was aborting.

I'm no expert on the oncidiinae, but I think they need to be kept moist. Another reason why the buds could be blasting may be because you're keeping the plant too dry. I'll let someone who's good with this group chime in.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

It's nothing serious. That happens with a lot of different genera of orchids. Like Carl had said, unless the entire spike is blasting, there's nothing to worry about. Or if the signs are very obvious that there's something wrong, I wouldn't bother with something like this.

If there are other problems such as being kept too dry, a photo of the entire plant is necessary to see if that's actually the case.

Have you checked the roots?

Oncs tend to be a bit more difficult to mind the root health to, because most have fine roots.

Links to pics of healthy, living orchid roots, with growing green root tips:

http://www.aos.org/AM/Images/pest+di...snaildmage.jpg

[Ducky87]

I attatched some pics of the rest of the plant. I noticed the smaller leave has a few of these tiny black spots on it. I didn't notice this till just now.

[sailortom2]

just looks like bud blast

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Black spots are nothing serious either.

Watch how wet the potting media is staying. Let it dry out completely before watering again.

Always be aware of what's happening with the roots. Root damage/death/rot can happen very quickly.

[quiltergal]

I haven't seen an Onc. yet that didn't have those black spots. I wouldn't worry about them. The plant does look like it's potted a little to low in the pot. If the base of the Pbulb stays below the media you run the risk of it eventually rotting.

[Ducky87]

thanks for the information all, keep it coming if there is anymore!

So I won't worry about the black spots, or the buds turning brown at the tips. However, in terms of watering, I may have watered too quickly to begin with after re-potting, the old medium was still a little wet, so it may have not needed to be watered so soon.