NOID Oncidium... potted in regular dirt?

[meliana]

Hi All,

I'm new here... but I've been lurking for a while :-) -- I've had phals for a couple years with decent success and decided a few days ago to foray into oncidium territory. So I picked up this lovely and quite healthy NOID from Trader Joes with a subtle floral fragrance. On first inspection at the store it seemed to be planted in fine bark, but when I got home to check things out more thoroughly.... it seems like it's just in normal potting soil, with a good deal of peat, sand, and vermiculite mixed in.

Excuse my total lack of knowledge about oncidiums and the like: is this normal?? Is it ok? Is it sustainable? Surprisingly the root system seems pretty healthy. It's tough to tell how well-draining the medium actually is, since the poor little guy is so root-bound. My gut feeling is to repot it in bark, but I also don't want to do anything immediately, since it's flowering and seems fine otherwise...

[PaphMadMan]

Sometimes commercial growers will do this if they have near blooming size plants they expect to turn around fast in bloom. Repotting in this kind of mix is quick, easy and cheap, and certain orchids can grow fast this way. Valid considerations for a business that does not grow the plants long term. But not the best choice for long term culture. Use a normal bark mix, and repot sooner rather than later.

[james mickelso]

It will be interesting to see if this is planted in this mix throughout or is this mix just around the outside. The conditions that this has been grown in find it sitting on raised benches with bright light, high humidity, excellent water, very warm, and lots and lots of air flow. Very large fans blowing air constantly around the 1000's of plants. So with this kind of airflow and warmth there is little time for root rot to set in. The conditions just aren't conducive to it. Now we get it home, water it like it is in the desert, and rot the roots. We give it very little air movement and dim light. If you want to water this , pull it out of it's pot, dunk it in distilled water, and put it back into it's pot. When the blooms wither, cut off the spike and repot it in a medium bark with sponge rock. Do not mix in sphagnum moss. These do not need to be kept "wet". Damp is fine. Wet is not. Use good clean (low TDS and salts) water. Feed it with very dilute feed once a month unless you can give it the kind of environment described in the first part of this diatribe. Nice flowers by the way. And I must express a difference of opinion with Sonya about using skewers to judge when something needs watering. The lips and fingers are notorious for lying to us. Learn to judge the weight of the pot when it is dry and then when it is wet. Fool proof.

[greenpassion]

James, do you happen to know how well an oncidium would do repotted from moss into the bark and sponge rock mix? I have an onc. that seems to be packed into moss. I pulled it out of it's pot to see what is what, and it's a fairly solid mass of roots, with what I think is spag moss. Any advise?

[james mickelso]

Oncids transfer fine into a bark mix of any kind. The secret is to let it dry out and then once dry, start pulling the moss out of the roots. Carefully. Get some tweezers and starting at the bottom inside portion of the root mass carefully pull out the moss strand by strand. It will take a little effort but if you are careful it won't hurt the roots at all. it's not imperative to get all of the moss off the roots. Just the majority. Once you have cleaned off the roots, have your pot ready and proceed to repot it. Put something in the bottom of the pot to splay the roots out with. Then put in the bark mix. Run water over the roots if you want but I prefer to let the plant sit for a day to heal the tiny cracks in the roots. Then I water it. Each to their own. Give it warmth, light, and moisture. Don't drown it. Water it thoroughly, let it get nearly dry, and then water it again. Learn to judge the weight of the plant wet, then ddry. The best time to repot is when the new growth starts to get roots. But if not then anytime.

[MrHappyRotter]

It's unlikely that the plant is in a traditional potting mix. It's probably promix or some other soilless mix, composed of peat, perlite and other additives. Many professional growers use this with good success, since in a greenhouse environment it means they have to water less. I've not had much success growing epiphytes in that kind of mix, so I usually repot as soon as the plant is ready (i.e. out of bloom).

My 2 cents. Leave it in the current mix until it's done blooming. Just be sure to adjust your watering accordingly. Soon enough, it will begin to produce new growths. Once the new growths start sprouting roots, then it's time to repot.

Ideally, you'd wait to repot as the days start to lengthen. I'm assuming you're in the Northern hemisphere. So, you might need to wait until January/February for best results. However, if you know for a fact that you tend to overwater, it's definitely better to repot sooner rather than later. Promix is very easy to overwater in home conditions, unless you're a habitual underwater.