I must respectfully disagree. Vanda seedlings should carry many more leaves than this, even younger ones than yours. They retain those tiny seedling leaves for years, until they are blooming size. It is not normal for them to drop leaves in the winter. With proper culture they continue growing leaves all year.
Those seem to be two photos of the same plant taken some time apart? Even when the plant had more leaves it was struggling. Now it is in trouble. In both photos, the leaves appear to be wrinkled and dessicated. The roots look worse in the second photo.
I think your problem is too little water. In a heated winter home, relative humidity is quite low. Vanda seedlings under these circumstances need soaking for more than 10 minutes each day to get enough water.
I have winter temperatures in your range. My house is in the 30%-40% relative humidity range. I have a number of Vanda seedlings in vases, bare-root. Your seedlings are essentially bare-root.
I have learned the hard way I must soak mine for 12-24 hours at a time. Then I let them dry out for 12-24 hours. I do this year round. If I don't soak them this long, this often, the leaves wrinkle and begin to fall off.
We have members here who grow their Vandas with the bottoms of the roots standing in water all the time. They change the water frequently. I have not been able to get this to work, so I do the soak-dry cycle.
I would recommend you increase your soaking time to 12 hours every day. You don't have to cover the crown; just make sure each root touches the water. Any part of root in contact with water will wick water to the remainder of the root.
The existing leaves may have been dessicated too long to recover completely. I think the plant in the photo might not make it. But with adequate watering new leaves will emerge and look healthy.
A second point is fertilizing. What fertilizer, and at what concentration, are you using?
Commercial growers in south Florida fertilize every fifth watering year round. This means every 2-5 days, since they water 1-2 times each day. They use very high amounts of fertilizer, and they use more on seedlings than on adult plants. Your temperatures aren't as high as theirs, so your plants will never grow as fast as theirs, but Vandas hardly grow at all with insufficient fertilizer. After a couple of good soaks, when your plants start to wake up and grow again, consider fertilizing every 5 days. Most Vanda seedlings would hardly grow with fertilizing every 2 weeks.
You can read more about Vanda seedlings here on Orchid Board. There is a Search function in the top menu bar.
|