Oncidium with problems

[Jaak]

What is hapening?...

First of we where on vacation when we returned we found that the person who took care of our plants and cats had overwatered them.
They where in 3 cm of water.

Air is dry 35 to 40% humidity
.

These symptoms are now apearing few months later...

[Paul Mc]

This most certainly appears to be a watering issue, and overwatering more than likely. I would suggest removing the plant from the current medium to inspect the roots, clean them up, put some plain listerine on the roots and wash again (to kill infections and bacteria, if the roots are terribly bad try soaking the roots area in a root hormone/water solution for one hour, and repot in fresh medium. You should probably remove the plant from the light it is accustomed to into a lower light area to allow it to focus on healing. Also, remove all the dead/dying (i.e. yellowing) leaves so it doesn't continue to try and fix them or shed them.

I had an oncidium do this in the fall last year right as it was starting to spike. I lost all but three psuedobulbs, but there are now tons of new roots and two new growths coming up as of this winter.

Best of luck!

[Jaak]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the advice.

I will repot this one too and give it a wash with Listerine on the roots.

The plant is not positioned where i took the picture,
it was on a darker place with no direct sunlight,
i have since a week moved it to stand on top of my 1.5Mtr aquarium where the humidity is higher withe the same light.
In other words no direct sunlight.

I have removed the dead leaves as one fell of when i moved it back on top of the aquarium.

[camille1585]

Definitely overwatering, and I'd say the same thing for the Miltonia. I would suggest to follow Paul's advice for both of them. I think that they're going to be tough to save, but not impossible. As long as you get new growths that put out roots, they should be fine. The old bulbs will unfortunately remain rootless, they can't regrow roots.

While I'm at it, your Cambria looks in much better shape and I wouldn't worry too much about the black spots on the leaves for now. Oncidiums and their hybrids are quite prone to spotting, especially if the leaves get wet. I would also recommend that you unpot, at least to get a look at the roots to see what's going on down there.

[Jaak]

Thanks again for the replies,

Am i understanding you correct that i should not mist the leaves on an Oncidium.