I edited this message after I posted it to add the first part.
Hi Winston - I just went to your profile page and read some of your previous posts. The posts said you live here in Arizona where it is hot. You grow orchids on a cart in a small room under lights, and you have problems with too much heat in the room.
In your circumstances it's going to be hard to bloom the Apple Blossom and the Why Not unless you change lights to CFL or LED. Getting enough light from T8 or T5HO will make your small room extremely hot. CFL is not too hot.
But if I were changing fixtures I would not get a CFL fixture. I would get an LED fixture.
Do you have a south, east or west window where you can put plants?
Most failure to bloom Cattleyas is due to inadequate lighting. Apple Blossom likes more light than many other Cattleyas. I can grow cactus seedlings under T8 but it's not enough for high-light orchids.
Why Not is a very-high-light plant crossed with a moderately high to high light plant. I would guess insufficient light is again a problem.
T8 fluorescent bulbs are not very bright, even when brand new. In the old days they weren't considered adequate for Cattleyas by most orchid growers, who moved on to brighter technology when it became available. I wouldn't expect to bloom most Cattleyas under T8s. You were lucky to bloom any Cattleyas under them. Some have ancestors that bloom with less light, so there will be a few that bloom under T8s, but not most.
What Watt tubes are you using? Do you change your bulbs regularly? The light output drops quite a bit by the time they are a year old if they're on 12 hours a day.
Most Apple Blossom clones become large plants. How big is yours? Maybe it isn't big enough to bloom. If the Apple Blossom is big enough to bloom, I would find a way to give your plants more light. This will probably need different fixtures with different technology. You can read a lot about lighting technology here on Orchid Board.
Names are funny things.
People write that Iwanagara Apple Blossom is the cross of Dialaelia Snowflake x Blc. Orange Nugget.
Dialaelia = Diacrium x Laelia. Diacrium is now Caularthron so Dialaelia is supposed to be called Caulaelia.
Blc Orange Nugget is what used to be called Bc. Daffodil x what used to be called Blc. Manu Akaka.
Daffodil is what used to be called Brassavola glauca x what used to be Cattleya aurantiaca. But Brassavola glauca is now Rhyncholaelia g. and Cattleya aurantiaca is now Guarianthe aurantiaca, so Daffodil is now Rhyncanthe Daffodil.
Manu Akaka has some plants in its ancestry whose generic names have been changed. At one time one ancestor was called Brassavola digbyana, but it is now Rhyncholaelia digbyana. And there are plants back there formerly called Laelia that are now called Cattleya. So its new name is Rhyncholaeliocattleya.
So what used to be Blc. Orange Nugget has in its ancestry plants now called Cattleya, Caularthron, Guarianthe and Rhyncholaelia. This group of ancestors gives a hybrid genus name (also called nothogenus) of Friedaara, according to a reference I have, which is something I have never seen before.
When you throw Laelia into that mixture you get Cattleya x Caularthron x Guarianthe x Laelia x Rhyncholaelia. This gives Jackfowlieara.
So Apple Blossom should now be Jackfowlileara Apple Blossom.
What used to be called Cattleytonia Why Not is Broughtonia sanguinea, a high-light plant, crossed with what used to be called Cattleya aurantiaca, which is now Guarianthe aurantiaca. So the name is now Guariotonia Why Not.
Last edited by estación seca; 01-31-2018 at 10:59 PM..
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