Small yellow & black spots on oncidium leaves
 

Hi everyone!

I was watering all of my orchids today and I noticed some tiny yellow and black spots on my onc. twinkle 'pink profusion.' I have tried to research it, but I can't decide whether it's a fungal thing or maybe a virus? The spots are on some, but not all of the leaves, which leaves me extra stumped. =\ I'm not sure how to tell the difference between a virus or a fungal issue. This just came up out of nowhere, and I don't know why. I have attached pictures (sorry if they are not so great, took them with my phone). Also, pardon the condition of the plant's many cut leaves, my cat decided to chew on it over Christmas break and I had to cut a lot of the chewed pieces. >.<

I also noticed on my Onc. 'Sharry Baby' that there was a brown spot, almost like a blister, on one of the leaves. The area around the "blister" is yellow, where the rest of the leaf is green. I recently got this orchid off eBay and it came to me clean and just fine. After a few days I noticed that there were brown spots on the ends of the leaves, which I trimmed and dabbed with cinnamon (I thought that they were perhaps because the orchid had been boxed up for a while - it got sent to an old address of mine and I had to track it down at the post office so it took an extra few days to receive). This, though, is a blister looking spot where the ones I trimmed were sunken. It looks to have some small black spots on one of the leaves as well as the brown blistery type thing. I wiped its leaves down with alcohol and the paper towel turned red? Not sure what that was about.

I have isolated them from not only each other but all my other plants until I figure this out. Can someone please help me identify what these issues are and how to remedy them? The pictures attached are the twinkle first, and then the sharry baby. Thanks!

Hard to accurately ID from photos, but I'd bet it's an infection resulting from water droplets sitting on leaves.


Ray Barkalow
firstrays.com

Small yellow & black spots on oncidium leaves
 

Agree with Ray. Try to remember what this looks like for future plants. While I did not intentionally do this to my Oncidium....I had beautiful unblemished leaves. But I was in a hurry and let water remain on the leaves. The sun came out and caused the water drops become light prisms and it burned the leaves.

Another water related problem I've encountered is cold water drops remaining on the leaves and caused blisters.

The preventative behavior is when you water, water should be luke warm, dry off any moisture on leaves and run an oscillating fan to dry the plant quickly.

Also recommend you do not cut the leaves, just let them remain, as the more leaf surface you keep green the stronger the plant.