Sharry baby root rot?
 

Hi everyone, I recently bought a sharry baby that came bare rooted and it had very plump pseudobulbs.I potted it in a clay pot with a mix of spha. moss and bark and watered it when the pot felt light and the top was dry. It's been a few weeks now and the pseudobulbs are shrivelling up (even after a 15 minute soak) So i've unpotted it to inspect the roots. Do they look ok? The roots are white but if you pinch and pull them, the velamin comes off just exposing the actual root so I'm not quite sure if it's dead.

The roots look healthy, although if the picture was taken immediately after unpotting I think you are keeping it too dry. With thin roots they don't like to dry completely, so I would water when they are verging on dry but still slightly moist. I keep my oncidiums in small bark and plastic pots to prevent rapid evaporation because I'm a lazy waterer.

Root color doesn't mean much. If they feel soft and the velamen is peeling off, that's not good.

Personally I water mine quite heavily, watering when it's no longer wet but just evenly moist. It's potted in medium bark with some sphag mixed in and I do what many people would say is a big no-no. When watering I leave it standing in a saucer full of water. The water is usually gone in 2-4 days depending on the season, and then I wait a couple more days before watering again. In the particularily hot periods of summer I may even water it every other day this way.

Most Oncidiums don't do well if they dry out on a regular basis. The pseudobulbs stay turgid if they get enough water. Some people even stand the pots in dishes of water. Root loss in Oncidiums is usually due to not enough water or too high temperatures.

The orchids that seem to do better in cultivation with drying out are Cattleyas and Phalaenopsis.