New growth on Dendrobium... what do I do?

[RosieC]

While showing my father-in-law my dendrobium I noticed a new growth on it.

(I was demonstrating to him that when he saw "lots of different types of orchids" in a shop what he had really seen was lots of different types of Phal and "look this plant is an orchid as well". Well actually I was hoping my hunch was wrong and he had found a shop arround here which sold more than the standard Phals... but no he agreed all of them had leaves like my Phals. )

Anyway I'm wondering what the new growth is (is it a new cane as I hope). And should I change the way I treat it? I think I saw something on other threads about starting to water it again once growths started but I don't know which types of Dendrobium that applies to.

This is my first dendrobium and it's a NOID, I don't even know which category of Dendrobium it falls in to. I don't believe it is a deciduous, it has not lost it's leaves this winter. It's flower stalk came out of the top of the cane. The second picture below shows how it looked in August.

Since I bought it it has not grown at all (until now), the only thing it has done is open all it's flowers then several months later loose all its flowers (I was really pleased how long they lasted ).

I reduced watering since October to about once a month (from once a week) and it naturally had reduced light because our days are getting darker and shorter (it's on the brightest windowledge in the house).

Should I start watering it more now it has a new growth? I can't increase the light as I have no way of doing that but is there anything else I can do?



This dendrobium in August