Masdevallias with brown crispy leaf tips...

[billc]

Originally Posted by Zoi2

I have a couple of masdevallias I grow in S/H; infracta and infracta hybrids. I keep them around 75-80 degrees in the summer and 60-70 in the winter. My humidity is less than optimal at 40-60 percent throught the year. They seem to do fine, and bloom well.
Joann

I was wondering if Masdies would take to S/H. I have to repot mine soon, I may throw a couple in S/H and see what happens. I'm glad to hear yours do well Joann.

Bill

I too just recently got my first masdie - Masdevallia amplexa and it came with brown tips on the old leaves, however there is a small new growth that is fresh and green. I am collecting rain water for her, dracula, new phrag and angraecum.
My masdie seems to have root problem, actually lack of those. Does anybody know if the old growth will produce new roots on masdie or my only hope is that little new growth?
Thanks

[Discus]

Originally Posted by billc

I was wondering if Masdies would take to S/H.

I seem to recall that the orchidkarma blog had an experiment on this.
Take a look at The Masdevallia experiment: day 160 « Orchid Karma :: An orchid blog

I suspect given their fine roots, they'd probably enjoy S/H more if you had a finder medium than normal LECA; I've seen something called Seramis(?) which is quite similar looking in composition, but much finer grained (and not round). Of course on the other hand, the fine grain-ness may nullify the whole S/H principle of getting both air and moisture to the roots - too small and random a grain size == tight packing and poor gas exchange, and possibly root death.

I can only imagine the next big thing in orchids would be aeroponics!

[billc]

Thanks for the link Discus. I'm still going to give it a shot as long as I can set the plant firmly in the Leca.

Bill

[Daethen]

Aeroponics would basically be mounting them, wouldn't it???

[Zoi2]

Bill, I have my masdies in the course grade prime agra. I did try the smaller prime agra but the masdies didn't seem to do well in it. I have a diodonopsis erinacea in the small stuff that is doing wonderfully.
Joann