Is the watering new growth on Catasetum rule an urban legend?

[Keysguy]

This is "Fdk. Midnight Lace 'SVO' X Ctsm. Frilly Doris 'SVO'".

Background- I bought it from Fred, along with a few other crosses when he visited NH 4-5 years ago. It lives in the Keys and is a late summer/early fall bloomer so I've never seen it. DUH! This has reached the point where I divided it this year because it had 2 nice new growths coming and was just getting too big. I figured it would be a good experiment to bring one of the divisions north and see if I could coax it into blooming here for me under my new basement light set-up.

Status(Pic 1)- So, it's been 6 weeks now, 14 hours/day of fairly high light, daily watering, nutricote on 3 levels of the pot, nice 24 hour fan airflow. The pseudobulb of main new growth is getting nice and fat and the foliage is clearly healthy.

Question(Pic 2)- Well, lookie, lookie what's started happening here within the past week- 10 days!!!!!! We have not 1 but 2 new growths starting on the way back bulbs. I've been watering the hell out of it from before they existed right up through today and not only have they not died, they're growing like crazy.

So, what's everyone's experience with this "if the new roots aren't x inches long before you start watering you'll kill it" rule? Anyone else seen what I'm experiencing here?

[MJG]

Can't address your question, but I am all ears! How warm has it been, days and nights???

[JScott]

I have very little experience with Catasetinae, meaning I have exactly two such plants. This year, the weather warmed up a little sooner than usual, so I put the plants outside a little earlier than usual. My FDK After Dark was growing at the time, but had just barely started forming roots from the new growth. We got a fair bit of rain this spring, and the roots on the FDK got about an inch and a half long, and then stopped growing. The plant didn't die, and I don't expect it to, but the new growth this year is much smaller than the previous growths, and I suspect it may not be big enough to bloom this year. My other one, Cycnodes Taiwan Gold 'Orange' already had good roots when I put it outside, and the new growths are maturing to the normal size on that plant.

Keep in mind, this is all anecdotal, and we can't really draw any valid conclusions from just two plants, but the fact is that in the past, I have waited until my FDK had several inches of roots before I started watering regularly, and the growths matured to a good size and bloomed well. The only thing that changed this year is that I put it outside early than usual, where it got lots of water earlier than usual, and the roots did not develop properly, and the new growth is stunted and may or may not bloom this year. So that's my experience, and that's all I know.

[SouthPark]

KG ------ it is now known that it is not 'law' that a catasetum type plant will necessarily take a bad turn in health if it is watered when coming out of 'true' dormancy.

I think it depends on the growing conditions - temperature, state of media, humidity ------ things like that.

I'm currently doing round-two of testing.

My first round of testing from last season resulted in no issue at all - in my tropical environment and my kind of setup. Pretty decent sized bulbs grew ----- it was great.

So far - it looks like round-two is going to have no problems as well.

I'm believing that if roots are too cold or plant is too cold, and wet (and media too), then things could certainly end in tears.

This isn't intruding on the PET bottle method, as that method is sort of like semi-hydro/water culture, where roots adapt to watery environment.

[Keysguy]

How warm has it been, days and nights???

low 80's during the days when lights are on to mid 70's at night, 60% RH +/-. Significantly cooler than it would have been if left behind in the Keys for the summer.

JScott--- That issue about whether or not the newer growths will have enough time to develop so they can flower this year may be the BIG question here, right?

SP---- I can't believe it but somehow I had missed your thread. I'm awake now though! Good stuff!

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by Keysguy

SP ---- I can't believe it but somehow I had missed your thread. I'm awake now though! Good stuff!

Me too! As your observations and comments are helping us all! All this information coming in really helps. The testing is only about seeing whether that 'x inches' thing is/was law. Thanks for writing about your observations here!

KG ----- I think the X-inch rule may be some rule-of-thumb to help out growers in general, which probably got lost-in-translation, and then assumed to be law, resulting in disaster if it's not followed.

I think the idea was to just allow the roots to get long enough and become well established, plus some other behaviour where the orchid may stop growing more new roots if the orchid system seems to be getting enough water already - meaning the plant won't develop the mass of roots that it would be capable of developing under optimum conditions. Or something like that.

And growers then assume that if the orchid doesn't have a massive pile of roots, and the bulbs don't turn into 'the hulk' (hulk size - bulbs on steroids), then it is probably thought to be not great - or not as good as it could be. That's fair enough I suppose.

But - on the other hand - depending on how the plant is treated during dormancy, some growers report that the roots in the media can stay alive. Or a lot of roots stay alive. So then there can be thoughts about whether or not the new growths necessarily need to sprout an incredible amount of roots.

But at the same time - if the aim is to grow plants on steroids - then that's ok ...... do what it takes hahaha (those growers that is - creating hulk size bulbs).

[JScott]

Originally Posted by Keysguy

low 80's during the days when lights are on to mid 70's at night, 60% RH +/-. Significantly cooler than it would have been if left behind in the Keys for the summer.

JScott--- That issue about whether or not the newer growths will have enough time to develop so they can flower this year may be the BIG question here, right?

SP---- I can't believe it but somehow I had missed your thread. I'm awake now though! Good stuff!

Actually the new growth on the FDK is pretty much mature already, which is way early compared to previous years. The pseudobulb still has some swelling to do, but the final leaf on the tip of the pseudobulb has emerged. The new growth is about half the size of the one from last year with about half as many leaves. It may go ahead and bloom despite being so small. I've seen orchids in much worse shape than this one go ahead and bloom anyway, but I think there is a possibility that with no decent roots and such a small growth that it may not have enough energy to bloom. Next year I'll be more careful with it, and I'm sure I can get it back on track. It's typical growth cycle is for the bulb to mature in August or so, and the leaves start to yellow in September and it blooms in early winter. I'll be interested to see if the leaves stay green until August like usual, or if they start to yellow and drop earlier than that since the growth matured earlier than usual this year.

[SouthPark]

JS - that's what I don't know ------ regarding how many roots is 'enough' roots. But I know that these orchids aren't industrial pumping machines, they're not pumps that need to haul a ton of water each day.

I'm thinking that if the plant has an adequate amount of roots, then they'll just grow normally. Out in the wild, we can doubt that every catasetum is going to have growing conditions that allows them to turn into the hulk.

While steroid size might be desirable ----- it's not essential for health and flowering.

[JScott]

Originally Posted by SouthPark

JS - that's what I don't know ------ regarding how many roots is 'enough' roots. But I know that these orchids aren't industrial pumping machines, they're not pumps that need to haul a ton of water each day.

I'm thinking that if the plant has an adequate amount of roots, then they'll just grow normally. Out in the wild, we can doubt that every catasetum is going to have growing conditions that allows them to turn into the hulk.

While steroid size might be desirable ----- it's not essential for health and flowering.

You make a really good point. Yes, the growth is smaller this year, but it is healthy and in good shape, the leaves are firm and bright green and unblemished, and the pseudobulb, tho smaller, is swelling up nicely, so it must have at least some good roots to get it this far. Conditions in nature most definitely vary from year to year, and I'm sure some years are conducive to producing steroid size growths, while others are not, so there may not actually be anything wrong with my plant; it's just having a mini-size year. It had three spikes last year, we'll see how many it has this year. This isn't my thread, and I don't want to hijack it, but as developments arise, I'll start a new thread dedicated to my FDK so you guys can see how it all turned out.

[SouthPark]

JS ----- absolutely no problem!!! Hope you have a great growing season. Anyway, I used to think that it was necessary to get these plants to grow like competition winning king-size 500 to 900 kg pumpkins. But if they're just given regular growing conditions - enough sun, nutrients, water, nice temperatures etc ------ they'll do just great.