Death of unopened flowers in cattleyas

[Merita]

Originally Posted by rbarata

And how is the color pattern of the blooms? Does it looks like "damaged", with color breaks and streaks?
Something like the example bellow:

The color of the flower is red, she has not yet opened to see how it came to be, it is the first time that it blooms, it is called Potinara Walnita char ‘Big red’ I bought it from Better Gro very tiny almost two years ago.

[rbarata]

Even if they won't open, you can open them yourself and see how they look.

[Merita]

The most worrying thing is that there are already several plants that have done this to me in these months. The last one was RLC. Sharon King, which I bought a few months ago in Akatsuka, took out two sheats with four flowers and achieved only one, the others died like that, and an almost premature achievement opened, I put photos.

[Roberta]

The first photo, with two flowers, I can't see that clearly but from what I CAN see the flowers look OK. I would be very concerned about the other one. I do suggest that you either send to a lab or buy some Agdia test strips. Isolate until you can test it. If it is a recent purchase and tests positive for virus, the vendor should give a refund. If you have had it for awhile, recourse would not be reasonable because it could have come that way or gotten contaminated in your possession. If it tests negative, then it is probably insect or other environmental damage and the next bloom very likely OK.

[Merita]

I do not understand, I do not know what you mean, there are no open flowers of the first of the first case.

[Roberta]

I am looking at the two photos in your post just above my last post. The photo on the left has two different plants. It's small so hard to see the flowers in detail. The one on the right (beautiful lip!) with hand behind it, has markings on the petals and sepals that might be color break

[Merita]

No, the first photo contains two flowers of the same pod, one opened normally and the other deformed; The second photo is the flower that opened normally after the first day and filled with water because it had just rained when I took the photo.

[Roberta]

In the second photo, then, the markings may have been due to the rain. I hope that the next blooming shows that this was only physical damage.

[Merita]

Yes, all you see is the water on the flower, I don't know why the picture is so small in the forum. Greetings and thanks for your help

[AnonYMouse]

I'm confused. You're telling us that the two flowers are from the same plant? Are you sure it's not two plants in the same pot? Because each flower looks normal if we were discussing different plants. If they are from a single plant, surely not from the same pseudobulb. Label the pseudobulbs and see if it happens again next blooming season. Keep a record, take close-up photos of flower details and the plant.

And what do you mean by "pod"? Pot? Pseudobulb? Sheath? "Pod" usually refers to a seed capsule.

I think we are discussing two different problems. The first being flowers aborting and the second is different looking blooms on what seems to be one plant (the normal flower looks different between the two pics, too.) Are the pictures on the first page of the same flowers as on the second page?

Back to the original problem. After the buds drop, have you looked for pests?