Steve,
Thank you! I followed your advice and gently slipped the orchid out of the
pot. It has a lot of healthy roots and no sign of root rot. I hope I did
not disturb it too much by removing it from the pot and putting it back in.
However, the bark medium felt very dry to me and the pseudobulbs are still
wrinkled, even though I had watered it yesterday morning. It's in a 5 inch
plastic pot filled with a bark mix. It's under artificial lights, so that it
gets about 1000-1500 foot candles from that and then during the day time the
blinds are up but it's a shaded northern window, so not much more light from
that. However, I have been fighting a loosing battle with humidity these
past few weeks, the humidifier I have is not strong enough, now that it's
the middle of winter and we are heating the apartment with central heat.
When I glanced at the humidifier this evening to my horror I discovered that
it was 24 percent humidity only. I will strive to buy a second humidifier
this weekend, however, since the Burr Nelly Isler feels so dry, should I
water it again, even though it was watered yesterday? How often would you
expect an Onc hybrid to be watered in these conditions? And yes, I know that
the humidity will need to be corrected, so these conditions won't stay the
same much longer. My Phals and Paphs don't seem to mind a bit though! It's
just the cochleanthes and the Burr that do. Is the Burr Nelly Isler one of
those orchids that need to be watered fairly frequently? My Phals an Paphs
generally are watered either once a week or less often than that, my small
SLC seems to require water about every 5 days, and I water the cochleanthes
every 3 days (since I really don't understand it well, I just go by calendar
in its case), where would the Burrgerea fit into the watering requirement
scheme?
Thanks for your advice.
Joanna

"Steve" wrote in message
...
Hi Joanna,
Oncidiums, Odontoglossums, and their friends and relatives produce a new
flush of roots when the new growth is part way to maturity. The best
time to repot is when you see the first new roots start showing, or when
the new growth is 3 or 4 inches tall (because you know the new roots
will be arriving soon).
In this case, you're worried (with good cause) about root rot. If that
was my plant, I would slip it out of the pot as gently as possible. If
there were live roots down to the bottom of the pot, I would slip the
pot back on and wait for new growth before repotting. On the other hand,
if you find a rotted mess, you should clean up all the dead stuff and
repot in fresh medium. No use letting more and more roots die off and
making matters worse.

Steve



J Fortuna wrote:
I need advice!

I got the Burr Nelly Isler 'Swiss Beauty' in the mail, and it came with
four
spikes, two of them with big buds and two smaller ones. However, some of
the
buds have blasted in the week or so that I have had the plant. Also a
couple
of the leaves have grown yellow, and even when I got the plant I saw
some
signs of rot on a few of the pseudobulbs, not much, and it's not been
spreading in the meantime, but still. The pseudobulbs looked wrinkled
about
5 days after my initial watering, so I watered it again. However, I am
used
to the pseudobulbs on my catt plumping up nicely the next day after
watering, and yet the Burr's pseudobulbs look as wrinkled as before
watering.

So I am thinking that maybe I need to take a look at the health of it's
roots. I would like to repot it to see what's going on down there. I am
resigned to the fact that the two spikes with the larger buds may not
make
it, and if the root situation is dire I am more interested in saving the
plant than any of the spikes. However, ...

Questions:

I heard that unlike Phals, cattleyas can be only repotted at certain
times
of year (was it during most active growth?), and that if repotted during
the
wrong time of year this could kill the plant. (?) Is this true of Onc's
and
intergeneric hybrids as well? Should I refrain from repotting it now
after
all?

At this point I am not sure whether the plant is really in serious
trouble
or whether I am just overreacting to signs of stress that just show that
it
needs to adapt to it's new environment (the shift from greenhouse to
apartment). Should I repot now, or wait and see a bit longer?

If I look at the roots and there seem to be a lot of healthy roots. If I
just put it back in the medium and pot with as little disturbing of the
roots as possible, would the low spikes likely be fine and not in more
danger of blasting than they are now? If I see a lot of healthy roots,
but
some rot, should I trim the rot away, or should I do as little
disturbing of
all roots as possible if I want the spikes to not blast? (This is
assuming
that overall the root health is ok, otherwise I won't care too much
about
these spikes.)

Note: Some of you may remember my saying that I didn't repot orchids
myself,
but would take them to a plant nursery to be repotted. This has changed,
I
have repotted some of my orchids myself in the meantime, and am planning
to
do this one myself. I still might take advantage of the repotting
service at
times, since it is very convenient and quite affordable, but I no longer
do
this all the time.

Thank you,
Joanna