Psychopsis Mendenhall quickly losing leaves/pseudobulbs

[pikastu]

Hi all,

I've had this Psychopsis for about 18 months and it's been growing really well - at least 5 new pseudobulbs since I got it.

But then, about a month ago, the two newest (and already mature) leaves suddenly began yellowing from the base, and within 2-3 days they dropped off. A few days later, I noticed the same two pseudobulbs had also rotted. I cut them off incase there was in infection and sprayed some peroxide to help kill off any mould that might've been there.

But then two days ago I noticed the same thing on another leaf, which was directly next to the two that had died. I took the below photo today, and the leaf was already dropping off.

The plant seems otherwise healthy, and there's a new pseudobulb and plenty of root growth. It grows in quite bright light, getting about an hour of direct sun early in the morning. It gets watered almost every morning, as it is bone dry within two days of not getting watered. Temp is usually between 23-28C during the day, never getting below 20 at night.

Any help or advice to save it would be greatly appreciated!!

[Roberta]

My experience with Psychopsis is that they like to be on the dry side. My suggestion would to be to get it out of the sphagnum and into medium bark. It looks like it is much wetter than it would like to be. This is different than most of the Oncidinae that do like to be damp. Temperatures look OK.

[pikastu]

It's on sphagnum moss because it's mounted... should I remove some of the moss or should I let it dry for a few days between watering? At the moment I water every day or second day, and by the second day the sphagnum is bordering on crispy.

[Roberta]

Oh, if mounted (wasn't clear from the photo) probably OK. If roots look good then the regimen is right. If not, drying a bit more might be useful. I have only grown Psychopsis in pots so don't know what they'd do on a mount.

[WaterWitchin]

I'm growing my first Psychopsis, and not very well I might add. But can you sort of look down somehow into the cracks and crevices of the mount?

I had a Catt that had been growing for years on a mount. Then all of a sudden started dying. Couldn't figure it out, and didn't see anything wrong. I dismounted it (it had quite a bit of sphagnum on it as well). Clear down in the base there was a large crack and it was FULL of scale. Never saw any on the parts of plant that were showing. I managed to save about half the plant.

With Psychopsis that might be a problem though, since they supposedly hate having their root system removed.