paph ooii?

paphioboy · Mar 16, 2015

I think Xavier (roth or sanderianum here, but he hasn't posted in a while) and also Alex (Valenzino) have mentioned before that ooii needs to be grown wet, shady and acidic, similar to anitum. The best medium is reportedly tree fern or pure sphagnum, sitting in water. I think this is pretty different from stonei, which likes to dry out in between waterings (due to its lithophytic habit) and likes strong light and aeration.

paphioboy · Mar 16, 2015

Some photos of wild-collected ooii for your reference (photos not mine, originally taken by and uploaded by the orchid collectors):

paphioboy · Mar 16, 2015

As you can see there is some variability in plant shape and size. The smaller ones blooming on a single growth look like praestans in terms of plant shape. The ones in pic 4 and 5 are huge, 3 foot long leafspan, looking like kolo. According to the hunters, ooii grows in highland areas which are much less accessible compared to roth habitats. Wild-collected roths are advertised for sale almost on a monthly basis, or when they manage to get large quantities of plants, even weekly. In comparison, very few ooii plants get collected.. Doesn't this make you think about how Michael Ooi could manage to obtain so many plants (no doubt wild-collected, who else in the world has artificially raised ooii to this size) for his 'conservation garden' in Northern Peninsular Malaysia?

Michael Ooi's beds of ooii (pics are from his Facebook page, I post them here for anyone who does not have FB):

paphioboy · Mar 16, 2015

orchideya said:
OOI orchid nursery is visiting Montreal this month. They have seedlings of paph ooii listed for sale.

I would be interested to know what size those seedlings for sale reportedly are... I doubt Michael has managed to flask ooii successfully when little success is reported by other larger paph nurseries in Taiwan and elsewhere...

polyantha · Mar 18, 2015

I have 4 ooiis, they established in a very short time. Light: a little bit more than anitum. Water: Use big pots and water from the bottom (tray), if no water is in the tray anymore, wait 2-3 days and fill it again. I use alot of CHC in the mix and must say that ooiis are among the easiest species in my collection. I noticed that they like the big pots alot. Look at the root masses they can produce in nature!

paphioboy · Mar 19, 2015

polyantha said:
I have 4 ooiis, they established in a very short time. Light: a little bit more than anitum. Water: Use big pots and water from the bottom (tray), if no water is in the tray anymore, wait 2-3 days and fill it again. I use alot of CHC in the mix and must say that ooiis are among the easiest species in my collection. I noticed that they like the big pots alot. Look at the root masses they can produce in nature!

I hope they turn out to be true ooii.. You purchased from Michael?