Transferring C. aclandiae Seedling to Basket

[galguibra]

Turns out y'all weren't kidding about that whole "well I'll just order ONE more..." problem LMAO. I ordered two new seedlings that just came in over the weekend!! One is a Z. Debbie De Mello 'Honolulu Baby' that I'm itching to try out in LECA, and the other is the star of the post: a C. aclandiae v. coerulea ('Haiku' x 'Boa Vista') that I'm hoping to grow in a shallow teak slat basket. I've already been growing a C. intermedia v. aquinii f. coerulea bare root on a cork mount for the past few months, so I'm now the very excited owner of three whole orchids






Unfortunately, the little guy doesn't seem to have any new roots on the way at the moment that I can see, and I've heard a lot about how finicky bifoliates can be about dumping roots if you repot without new roots coming in. From what I could find online, though, it sounds like C. aclandiae grows roots kinda whenever it wants as opposed to uniformly before/after putting out a new growth/bloom, so I'm not sure how long I'd be waiting on new roots or if there's anything I can do to reliably/safely induce them.

I have some seaweed spray, a root booster with lots of beneficial microbes and natural biostimulants and stuff, and a few other goodies that might help a little, but obviously that kind of thing won't make something out of nothing, and I don't wanna overuse the seaweed especially since too many hormones can throw off normal growth signalling. Would I be okay to just gently remove the seedling from the nursery net pot, plop it in a 4" basket and secure with floral wire as needed? I also have a seedling heat mat I could bring out if it would help at all.

There isn't a ton of medium in the pot to begin with and it seems pretty loose, so my intuition is that so long as the overall conditions aren't too different, it should probably be okay, since I wouldn't really be sticking those roots into anything new and there isn't a ton of bark in there with them as it is anyway. Probably I'd just remove any bark that isn't literally attached to any roots, and then any stragglers can just go in the basket too to give the existing roots a break.

That being said, I definitely wouldn't wanna gamble and lose on this one cause I know it's somewhat rare (thank goodness for flash sales, or I NEVER would've bought it lmao) and has a reputation for being fussy, but I'd be interested to hear what other people think!