dendrobium keiki problems

[amulchandra]

Hi all,


My husband got me a Phal type dendrobium 3 months back from Trader Joe's. Since then I am struggling to keep it alive. First of all, all its roots rotted. I trimmed all the dead roots and repotted it in fresh fine bark. I stopped watering to see if it grows any new roots. It grew some new roots and a new shoot. I started watering the new shoot rotted away. Again I stopped watering completely and ignored it for five weeks. Now I have a very healthy keiki with tons of roots at the base of the plant. All the roots are more than one inch long. So I thought OK it is good time to water as it has tons of new roots and the weather in San Diego is very hot. Just yesterday I watered it and today it looks like the root tips got shriveled and the keiki is rotting off. I watered carefully without the water getting on to the leaves.

I have an antelope type dendrobium. It is thriving and actually bloomed this year. I am treating this the same way.

Please help me. I am desperate. It is a very ordinary kind of dendrobium. But why am I killing all its attempts to survive?

Thank you

Amul

[11Orchid126]

We need a bit more information please. Fine bark may hold too much water for the den. What kind of light is the plant getting? What type of fertilizer do you use, in what strength, and how often? What type of pot is it planted in and does it have good drainage?

[amulchandra]

Hi 11Orchid126,

Thank you very much for replying,

It is planted in fine bark in a very small plastic pot meant for orchids with slits on all sides. I use Shultz orchid fertilizer weekly once. I watered it only 2 times during the last couple of weeks. Right now I sprayed fungicide on it.I have to wait and see what happens now. It gets direct sunlight in the morning for 3 hours in an east facing window.


Thank you

Amul

[orchids4me]

How often are you fertilizing at what strength ?
I ask because some orchids just can't handle full strength fertilizing. So a lot of us do a weakly weekly fert regimine some don't fert at all. And a question about your water you don't have a water softener system on your tap water do you? .
What kind of pesticide or fungicide did you use? Was it for orchids?
The more we know the better we can figure out what's going on to help you
What kind of light is this plant receiving and air flow also...
Our manage attachment button feature is still not letting anyone post but one pic at a time on this end. But after 5 posts you will be able to at leat load one at a time unless you have photo bucket or flicker then it works much better at this time.

[amulchandra]

Hi orchids4me,

Thank you very much for replying. I am using Daconil fungicide. The plant is in an east facing window and gets sunlight for 3 hrs in the morning.I fertilize all my orchids weekly weakly basis. I use Schultz orchid fertilizer as per the instructions(quarter spoon/gallon). All my other orchids( 10 phals, one antelope dendrobium and one oncidium )just love this regime. They all bloom with no problems.

I recently changed the medium from coarse to bark to fine bark. I think that is the problem. It is looking like the medium now is holding too much water.
I checked the medium and it looks too wet for a dendrobium. I will move it to fresh coarse bark today which has big chunks of bark and perlite in it.

But do you think I can salvage the keiki or it is gone?

Thank you

Amul