Is this Bad Media for Oncidium Intergeneric

[cluelessmidwesterner]

Checking my new Oncidium Intergeneric today I discovered one of the new lead pbulbs was rotting ( I have not watered it since acquiring it). I cut the root off down to good tissue and have place cinnamon on the cut. I took it out of the pot to check the media (see photos). Since I'm new to orchids and this is my first Oncidium I am not sure if this media is broken down or alright for the present. It looks like peat like material with sand/perlite from what little I have seen since I don't want to disturb the root if it isn't necessary. Almost soil like. The vendor said he'd potted it up
a few months back. I know it's in bloom but I will move it if necessary. Is this media alright or broken down? If I do have to repot I was thinking of moving it to s/h would this be a bad time to do so since the orchid is under stress from trasnport/a rotted pbulb/new environment?

[fishmom]

No pictures are visible. Can you fix that?


But as a guess, if the medium is only a few months old, it is not badly broken down. It sounds like a moisture-retentive mix, which would be appropriate for oncidiums, which like plenty of moisture.


The best time to start semi-hydro with a plant is when you see new roots starting to grow. If your recent surgery removed the new roots along with the damaged pseudobulb, you might want to wait until you see some new growth somewhere on the plant. Was the p-bulb soft and mushy, or just dark colored?

[cluelessmidwesterner]

Originally Posted by fishmom

No pictures are visible. Can you fix that?


But as a guess, if the medium is only a few months old, it is not badly broken down. It sounds like a moisture-retentive mix, which would be appropriate for oncidiums, which like plenty of moisture.


The best time to start semi-hydro with a plant is when you see new roots starting to grow. If your recent surgery removed the new roots along with the damaged pseudobulb, you might want to wait until you see some new growth somewhere on the plant. Was the p-bulb soft and mushy, or just dark colored?

I've included the photos now in the edited post. The bulb was mushy and darkly discolored. I am assuming that it was rotted because water was trapped in the leaves along the side. I had to cut quite a bit of the bulb to get to healthy tissue. The brown you see in the photo is from the cinnamon. Here is a photo of the trimmed bulb.

[Fairorchids]

Mix looks like ProMix. While a few growers have figured out how to use it for orchids, I consider it 100% unsuitable (it does not allow enough air movement through the mix).

For Oncidiums I normally suggest:

• Bark/charcoal/perlite mix, either all seedling size or 1/3 of bark Cattleya size.
• Spaghnum/Bark mix (3:1)

[Orchid Whisperer]

I agree it looks more like Promix ("potting soil") than an orchid mix.

I will also say the roots look decent enough for the moment. While I wouldn't grow an Oncidium with that "soil" you could probably get away with putting the whole root ball into a bigger pot and . . . Here's the tricky part . . . NOT ADDING MORE MEDIUM around the outside of the root mass. Just leave it loose, mist to keep slightly moist. This is just until it is done blooming and you are ready to re-pot. When you re-pot, do as Fairorchid suggested.

[aliceinwl]

I haven’t tried the removal from the pot thing, but I did try lightly misting one in ProMix while it was still in the pot. The blooms did great, but the roots still died and the pseudobulbs wrinkled. The last one I got in ProMix, I just did an immediate re-pot on. It blasted a couple buds, but it still had live roots, the pseudobulbs stayed nice and plump, and it ended up keeping most of its flowers.

Yours looks like it still has a healthy root system. If you bought it mostly for the flowers, I’d give just unpotting and misting it a try. If potential loss of its present flowers isn’t a big deal, I’d repot as soon as possible.

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