Dropping foliage is not normal. These plants can hold foliage for years and have many dozens of p-bulbs. With 200 plants you should have a fair amount of experience. But look at your latitude. The cloud forest intergenerics hail from equatorial South America but at high elevation. Chances are good that your own situation is much to hot and dry for these intergenerics to do well. Straight bark in a clay pot would not be the potting of choice either.

H

I find my oncidium needs lots of water, and some good sun. When I say lots of water, I mean it gets watered twice as often as the cattleyas.

I've grown a dozen or more oncids for several years. Yours doesn't look bad to me at all. Tho it could be your photo doesn't make clear the part of the plant that's worrying you.

I have Pupukea Sunset as well as Hawaiian Sunset. They are very fragrant, but not the most vigorous oncids I have. Could be the plants I started with, tho.

Since you have new growths, that indicates a strong plant to me, not an in-trouble one. Keep an eye on the new growths, they will tell you how the plant is doing. I can't see the new growths in your picture (or much detail about the pseudobulbs, either)

The new growths should grow with straight leaves (accordianed leaves = lack of enough moisture) and end up as big or bigger pseudobulbs than the ones you had previously. Along the way, before maturing the new growths put out new roots, which are important if the roots are compromised in any way.

In terms of culture, your bark looks kind of big to me. I haven't grown oncids in bark. I've had good luck (roots completely filling the pot) with expanded clay pellets and with Aussie Gold. The pot may or may not be too big, can't tell.

I don't know where you got your plant, but it looks like a piece of a bigger plant. If so are you sure it has good roots, and that the pot is the right size? Every stressed orchid I've seen had trouble at the roots.

The one caution I couldn't stress enough is to check that there are no pseudobulbs *buried* in the potting. The bulbs of oncids should ride just on top of the mix. Sometimes people bury the old pbs to keep the new growths at the right level. However, this starts rot in the old buried pb, which will spread and affect the whole plant.

I can't really tell from your picture if any pbs are buried. If so, pull them up, and lay the plant flat on top of the medium. The leaves are often horizontal when this is done (as yours seem to be), but you can correct the new growths upward by gently tying them up.

With so much experience, you'll figure out whether there's a problem or not. And you could consult the person/vendor you got it from about conditions.

As Howard indicated, heat can stress these plants. We have hot summers here, tho not as hot as the desert southwest. Some oncids don't take the heat here very well. Others do thrive, tho. If you think it's the heat, maybe you could take it inside the house for a while til the weather cools.

Give your plant less sun than a cattleya, and do not let dry out completely before watering.

Good luck.

i looked at the pict, and to me it looks like it is underwatered or it is over heated. the leaves don't look burned though.
but i thought they were pretty ok with heat

are the roots healthy at this point?

Looks like some kind of Milt? They tend to droop. Little tricky to make them happy. I find that in my conditions, species oncids seem do better in winter (cooler), especially milts. All the winter growth on my milts are upright. That was not the case last summer. It was a hot summer.

I recently put intergenerics and species oncids outdoors during our only hot spell. One would think they would handle the change about the same. Not so. The species oncids have not handled the outdoor change nearly as well as the Intergens. You may want to try intergenerics if your conditions are warm

Clara Maria

The plant came potted in bark (Home Depot New Braunfels TX)and I have been thinking of moving it to pumice or other lava rock. Thats the medium available to me down here. I am changing the few catts I have over after seeing a friends results down here.

Nice to hear from the light guru. I've paid attention.

I have mostly phals and dens with a few species. Oh, And 6 cyms and some epis.
I just bought and brought down here 8 different Yamamoto Nobile orchids. The weather here is perfect for nobiles.
The cooling period is natural here and I keep the plants outside year round. We are at approx 5500' and next to (about 600 yards) Mexicos largest lake. I believe this helps keep the humidity up. Its 82F right now. 45% humidity. Good breeze. It will probably rain tonight as we are in that season for the next 4-5 months.

I brought a Yamamoto nobile down here in 2003 (Christina Princess). It bloomed from late Feb til May this year and had more than 100 blooms at one time. That convinced me.

I just got shifted to photobucket from yahoo and still trying to figure it out. Could only send the one pic with the first email.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Your weather sounds perfect to me. I'd trade you in a minute. It's about 90 here with 75% humidity and it feels very hot in the sun. No wind either. Thank heavens for air conditioning.

Looks to me in your new picture as if the old pbs have shriveled up quite a bit, and one new growth has died, but the new growths look promising. The old growths may not re-plump much, but leave them on unless they start to rot. Take good care of the new roots that form on the new growths.

Very possible underwatering was the culprit, as clarita says, or maybe just old age. Can't tell. But it is definitely trying pretty hard to live and thrive.

I think it will be fine with a repot.

The repot into lava rock sounds okay if you sift thru it for smaller pieces, maybe 1-1/2" diameter max. In lava rock, you can water an oncid every day. If you have to use bigger pieces, maybe water a bit more.

?? Are we talking "dropping" here or did you mean "drooping"?

I don't see any leaves that have dropped off, I do see drooping leaves. My few Occidiums have leaves that droop once mature and the plants are healthy healthy.

I read the OP's meesage incorrectly, drooping. But I also looked at the pic. I see drooping, not dropping. Sorry. English is not my 1st language.

Clara

The orchid looks like it is planted in bark and coconut chunks which is a good medium for here where a bit of moisture retention is needed, but perhaps not for there.

That hybrid has a reputation for being easy to grow and flower and is rewarding. The plant has had a name change and is now known as an Oncidium.

As for the so called Yamamoto Dendrobiums that name just causes confusion because there were many other hybridisers along the way. If i was to call your Oncidium an H & R Oncidium it would be just as confusing. Cannot find Christina Princess or anything like it in the RHS Database.

Some of us just like orchids for the flowers......

Marketing is great....

Perhaps I should have just said nobile dendrobiums.

Yamamoto orchids offers the best I've been able to locate.
One of the plants sent had 12 canes. Thats a healthy plant.

I brought the pictured plant to Mexico from Florida in 2003

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:183009}}