can you over-fertilize a catasetum

[estación seca]

The Mormodes I've seen in habitat in Mexico (dormant) grew in the crowns of Brahea fan palms that grew in cracks of an enormous, almost bare, smooth and shiny rock face. Braheas don't have tight crowns, so the plants got some overhead sun. They also received a large amount of reflected light up from the rock. Some of the plants had old inflorescences, and a few had seed capsules. The plants had hundreds of pseudobulbs. I remember being surprised such large plants produced very few inflorescences.

[Jmoney]

specifically two large Ctmds. Darkoniums. light is definitely not an issue. tons of it, and they really enjoyed it without burning. I am told that these tend to bloom on leafed growths, and not from bare bulbs like clowesia or pure mormodes.

first pic shows a very large bulb in the middle, and instead of putting out a spike (or two) it produced another growth in mid-summer that is smaller, but still quite large.

second pic shows a very large plant with 7 new growths, all larger than previous growths. thing looked like a bush in the summer, all leafed out.


I guess the other possibility is "LED" confusion. I find things are out of order sometimes. my two cattleya lueddemanniana just finished blooming, I have Gravesiana opening up months early, and most of my catasetinae are starting to put out new growths now. maybe I just need to wait one more season for them to get fully acclimated...but I think I will start a bit lower with the fertilizer (which is still at least many weeks away)

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by Jmoney

I guess the other possibility is "LED" confusion. I find things are out of order sometimes. my two cattleya lueddemanniana just finished blooming, I have Gravesiana opening up months early, and most of my catasetinae are starting to put out new growths now. maybe I just need to wait one more season for them to get fully acclimated...but I think I will start a bit lower with the fertilizer (which is still at least many weeks away)

Many Cattleya species lose their seasonality for blooming under lights!

Are you growing the Catasetums all year round under LEDs or do you put them outside for the summer? Are you changing daylength?

[Jmoney]

I did not do a good job changing day length last year (but I am consciously varying that now). But my issue is that these generally bloom in mid-summer at the height of leaf growth, and they definitely hit the mark on that. Not pictured are a couple other plants that were large enough to bloom but spit out new growths when I was expecting spikes. Hence my suspicion that I was missing some bloom trigger. (But again, this is during a time of rapid growth, high light, high fert, high temps) so it seems unlikely it's a trigger of cool temps or day shortening.

[isurus79]

Ya, sounds like a bunch of variables that could be affecting the plants. Hopefully this next year will be a good flowering year.