Broken Psuedobulbs

[Breezy79]

So a few of my orchids were involved in terrible collision tonight. My oncidium hangs in a wooden orchid basket in my window, and on the ledge I have some Catts and below that on the top of a cabinet I have some others. Well somehow the oncidium in the wooden basket managed to fall from where it was hanging and landed directly on my Iwangara Apple Blossom that was in sheath and on there way to the floor they managed to knock down a dendrobium. The Onc had no broken spikes or buds fall off no damage other than some media falling out, and while putting it back together i noticed that i had not one new growth but three...the Den lost one fat bud on its spike, and the worse that makes me want to cry...my Iwangara had 2 big fat tall new growths (one in sheath) and 2 smaller new growths. Well the Psuedobulb in sheath was broken completely in half. The other larger one I think is at least half broken and the two smaller ones seem to be okay, maybe bent but since it was darn near knocked completely out of its pot they are now in a different position than before. So I sprinkled cinnamon on top of the now half psuedobulb....my question is how bad did my Iwangara get damaged and what is going to happen to the broken psuedobulbs (will they be useless for the plant in the future or will they die off, etc)?

[kmarch]

I suspect in the short term nothing much will happen. The cinnamon is helpful and I expect the "wound" will dry up. In the long term these bulbs will eventually get "used up" and once the plant has no more use for them they'll dry up and die. This may happen sooner for these broken bulbs than with the others, but they may yet last and provide nutrients for the plant for some time.

In short, although it was a frustrating experience, I expect your plants will be ok and continue to grow on to eventually reflower.

[Breezy79]

thank you for the info! i was hoping that it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

[tansyflower]

The snapped psuedobulb may force the plant to pop out another psuedobulb to compensate.

I had to snap off two new leads on a new Laelia anceps a few months ago (they started to rot), and the plant put out two new leads within a month or so.

[rcb]

This type of thing occurs more often with me than I care to admit. While it is heartbreaking at the time, the plants do recover.

Just yesterday, a Stanhopea in spike came down from a tree landing on it's side.

[Breezy79]

Phew....now I don't feel so guilty about it.