Dendrobium Leaf Problems

[Shawna]

Hello,

I was wondering what to do to get my leaves on my new canes to grow correctly. This is Royal Wings. This year it grew 2 new canes but the leaves are kind of twisted and floppy. This plant only grows 3 leaves on the cane. Do I need to hold back water to get the leaves to be correct?

[Roberta]

Hard to tell from the photos, but if anything the leaves seem to show signs of dehydration. So it probably needs more water, not less. How about light? These are high-light plants. (Leaves look pretty dark, indicating not enough light) I grow Den. Roy Tokunaga (one of the parents of Royal Wings) in the same area as my Cymbidiums, fairly large bark but it gets watered a lot.

I don't know what part of Colorado you live in, but mostly it's DRY and with winter heating, positively dessicating as I recall... I suggest increasing the watering. Also, this one does not have a winter dormancy, so continue watering through the winter.

[Shawna]

I may not be watering enough. Usually 1x per week. It is growing under led lights. I will try the watering more and put it in my south windowsill.

Thanks

[Dollythehun]

I second Roberta. More water, smaller bark, more light. I had to kill a couple before I got it right.

[SouthPark]

Totally agree. The leaves look very dark green. More light should do the trick.

Do you sometime use weak fertiliser and weak magnesium-calcium applications?

Definitely - in certain parts of CO ------ media can get dry real quick. But it looks like you've been taking good care of your orchid ----- in that the leaves actually look good. So your watering method is probably quite ok. Maybe just more light will sort it.

But don't abruptly provide significantly more light intensity in one shot. Sun-hardening is best done gradually over some suitable period of time ----- in stages.

Coming up toward the end of year in CO ----- so can understand why the orchid needs to grow indoors for a fair bit of time of the year.