New Oncidium Problem

[mycuppybear]

Hi, I'm new to this site and the forums, but I recently found a love for orchids and have several that I've bought over the past year that are growing indoors in my house. Recently, I purchased an oncidium orchid from the store (I wish it had a name on it) and noticed the leaves are all turning bright yellow and then dark brown with tiny dark brown spots towards the tips. They are also starting to get stiff and dry out. Almost looks like sunburn. I know that orchids eventually shed old leaves, etc., but this is happening on all the leaves. Also, one the pseudobulbs is very loose in the potting medium, is a darker green, and is very mushy to the touch. It also has nothing growing from it. And the blooms have all fallen off already. I bought it on Monday and brought it right into the house. I haven't watered it yet, but I don't think that that could be the problem. I have pictures of it as well. Please please give me any ideas of what this could be...I can only think it could be some kind of disease, and if so, I need to know how to treat it...I hope it can be fixed. : (

[thakshila smith]

It needs a bigger pot and lots of ventilation. Slowly remove it from the pot and clean it . Re pot in another one and use some fungicide as according to the instructions. But I use some thing else for this .
I think this is not good quality plant for a beginner .
You should choose a healthy plant. In our country it is very difficult to recover from this kind sickness like yellowing .
My friends will help you too. It doesn't look like sunburn.

[Paul Mc]

Yeah, it doesn't look like sunburn. And I agree with thankshila smith, it does look like it might need a bigger pot. I would pull it out and examine the roots. If the roots are dry and paperlike or mushy then something is wrong with your roots. Buy some Physan 20 to treat it. I am a newbie, so hopefully others will have some far better advice than what I can offer you at the moment.

[tucker85]

I doubt if that orchid can be saved. It looks to me like a plant with serious root problems. If you want to try and save it, cut off the dead roots and transplant into some fresh medium. Personally I think I would throw it out and buy a healthy one.

[nutgirl]

Mushy psuedobulbs and yellow/brown leaves indicates rot.

If you unpot you'll probably find very few good roots.

If you can see signs of new growth or roots you can remove the bad stuff and try to rehabilitate.

Tucker85 is right, though, might be best to start again.

When buying orchids, I always check the condition of the psuedobulbs and roots if I can.
Soft and squishy is never good. When oncidium 'bulbs get old they lose their leaves and shrivel but stay hard.

Maureen

[mycuppybear]

Hi, I repotted the orchid into the same type of bark medium. I removed the bad pseudobulb since there were no growths/leaves from it and it was extremely wet inside. I've attached pictures here of what the roots look like. There aren't many, but they don't look completely bad. Guess all I can do now is just hope that a new growth starts to form. I've been told repotting into sphag moss is a good idea in order to promote growth, but I just wasn't sure because moss really holds water and I don't want to add to the existing water problem. Plus, I don't know if it's a good idea to unpot again...Anyone have any ideas as to whether this is a better idea? Also, should I have treated with a fungicide? Thanks.

[nutgirl]

Bark should be OK.

Did you remove all the dead and rotten stuff?

I noticed the dead/dry sheath (don't know the technical name) at the base of the psuedobulb in the picture. Did you peel it off, I try to remove anything that can harbor fungus and rot.

If you want to treat with fungicide it won't hurt to repot it.

Until you see signs of new growth at the base of the plant, be very careful with water. With so few good roots the plant can't absorb much and if the bark is too wet you'll just get more rot. It won't hurt to let it dry out a bit.

Try to keep the humidity around the plant as high as you can.

If a new growth starts you'll start to see new root nubs at the base, then you can start increasing the water.

Have fun,
Maureen

[mycuppybear]

I only removed the bad pseudobulb (so the sheath was also removed, unless you're talking about the remaining pseudobulb). I did not remove any roots because I think they may still be ok...they definitely did not look dead. Plus, the plant hardly has any roots left as you can see in the pictures, so I did not want to remove any. I do not see signs of any new growth, so I am trying to be careful with water. Humidity won't add too much water? Also, do you think some roots should have been removed from the pictures that I posted? Thanks.

[RJSquirrel]

I think I'm with Mister Tucker on this one...might be interesting to try some odd method of recovery but I wouldnt spend too much good time on it

[nutgirl]

Originally Posted by RJSquirrel

I think I'm with Mister Tucker on this one...might be interesting to try some odd method of recovery but I wouldnt spend too much good time on it

I know, it's probably not worth the effort but if 'bear is willing to try it can't hurt.

I've learned alot about orchids, how they grow and what they like and don't like by tinkering around with the "almost" and "mostly" dead ones.

Maureen