What's this super-small pot growing method?

[JanS]

Greetings:
My wife works at a hospital where once a year an orchid vendor gets a room for a few days to sell their orchids. They have all sorts of varieties and sell them for a very reasonable price - $12 or so each. Needless to say, the sell A LOT. All of their orchids, however, are growing in (in my opinion) ridiculously small pots - blooming, mature plants in 2-3 inch pots max, completely filled with roots that often overflow from the top as well.

Their explanation is that "orchids like to be crowded". OK, I've heard that before, but here's the problem: if left in the tiny root-filled pot and watered normally, they soon die because they have no potting medium to speak of to hold any water. If repotted, as I have done, their roots are almost impossible to spread out without severe damage so you end up with a rock-hard clump of roots surrounded by some new bark...and the plants also do not thrive because (I think) only the outside roots can supply any moisture and nutrition to the plant.

All my wife's friends that bought these orchids (and are not genuine orchid people) had them die within a few weeks to months. My success has been about 50% for the 6 plants or so I bought in the past 2 years. I have not seen this crowding growing before and none of the vendors present at the recent San Diego show had plants like that. Is this a hydroponic-type way to grow massive quantities for sale in a small space? Anyone have any ideas how to improve the life chances of these rootbound unfortunates?

[peeweelovesbooks]

Well, all I can suggest is that you try and coax the roots out of the clump. I've done so many, many times. Just dunk continously in warm water until the roots soften enough for you to be able to unwind them.

[PleuroPal]

Most orchid species do like to be somewhat root-bound. That is true. But yes, at some point it becomes ridiculous. The basic rule of thumb is that when you're potting up to a larger size the root system should "just fit" with a little extra room for new growth. That term "a little extra" may seem a little vague, but there are some good video tutorials on repotting orchids on the web that might demystify this whole thing for you.

[Louis_W]

The solution to two of your problems is soaking. Soak the plant for 20min to several hours.

This will help you in two ways.
1. It will enable water to penetrate the hard brick of roots and saturate what media is inside.
2. It will make the roots more pliable if you "undo" the huge knot of roots.

No matter how you do it getting a brick of roots all separated is difficult and can take a long time if you do it carefully and even so you will probably do a little damage.

One other thing you can do (works best on sympodial orchids) is simply put the old pot into a new pot full of medium. The growths of the plant will overflow from the old pot and begin growing into the new media.

[RobS]

Probably the grower can maintain the plants like that because they are very close to each other. This will lead to high humidity so less request for water. A general remark about repotting many orchids only repot when new roots are appearing (there will be many exceptions but at least it's true for Cattleya alliance).


I have similar issues with all the propagators in the tropics using sphagnum. Hard to establisch the plant after they move up north.