Despite what I think of as good humidity and watering, I still
sometimes get impacted leaves (i.e., curled up, not fully "deployed")
at the end of some Dendrobium canes. This does not seem to bother
flowering much, but it makes the plant less attractice overall.

Any thoughts as to how this might be minimized?

Thanks.

Jim

Two thoughts come to mind. I'll put the second one first because I thought
of it just as I was about to hit 'send'

Admittedly I don't know much about dendrobiums and their growth patterns but
I do know that some of them are sensitive to Nitrogen applied at the 'wrong'
time in their growth cycle. What you are describing could be soft growth
due to high N at a 'wrong' season where dendrobiums are concerned. The N
concentration wouldn't affect the rest of your collection. There are many
articles in teh AOS Bulletins that talk about Hi N contributing to soft new
p/bulbs that fail to harden. I wonder if that might not be what's happening
to that leaf occasionally. I'm not a big believer in altering between Bloom
and Grow fertilizers, I usually try to use a balanced fert with
micronutrients and let the plant take what it wants. But since you say your
watering habits are OK and we must believe you, then maybe its N.

OK on to my 1st thought, which was the usual crap -

Are you growing indoors or in a greenhouse? The problems with leaves not
properly unfurling is usually humidity related, and humidity is very hard
(IMHO) to control and/or accurately gauge indoors. Transient temperature
fluctuations at the wrong time in terms of leaf developement could be part
of the problem too. Again that's hard to control for in your home. If you
are growing in a controlled GH I'd wonder about adequate shading that would
allow light (and its associated heat) to hit that area of the GH and was
just in the right place at the wrong time in terms of that dendrobium's leaf
developement.

And, as just a personal rant, the gauges we get are only as accuarate as
their stated tolerances. The Radioshack temp/humidity gauge that I use, for
example, has a +/- 4 % accuracy, IIRC. It could theorectically be 'off' 8%.
(Yeah, yeah, I know. The probablility it would be off that much is quite
small, as small as say, one grandparent in a cross not contributing an iota
of genetic material to an individual grandchild, *G* But that's another
story.) Since plants can't read gauges we are stuck reading plants. Yours
are telling you that occasionally timed to critical leaf developement,
either temp or humidity is out of whack for that plant's needs.

K Barrett

"James Aldridge" wrote in message
...
Despite what I think of as good humidity and watering, I still
sometimes get impacted leaves (i.e., curled up, not fully "deployed")
at the end of some Dendrobium canes. This does not seem to bother
flowering much, but it makes the plant less attractice overall.

Any thoughts as to how this might be minimized?

Thanks.

Jim