Quote:
Originally Posted by Leafmite
I just got a walkeriana from Andy's. It looks small to be blooming size but as this is currently being discussed I thought I would ask...when during the year would one start making certain it gets absolute darkness at night? How many hours would be recommended? I am growing this in the kitchen so I would need to cover it at night.
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Just my opinion but the way I see the importance of the dark period is to let the plant know what time of year it is.
A walkeriana like many other cattleya species are seasonal growers. This means they flower at certain times of the year and not at other times of the year.
So just like for most other cattleya species it's important not to interfere with their natural flowering rythm. It can stress them out doing this. So with a walkeriana in winter time the light hours will reduce as temperatures go down. In spring the light hours increase again letting the orchid know spring has arrived. So in summer time during long light hour days it doesn't matter if you accidentally provide more light than it is getting. It will not confuse or stress the orchid.
In winter time however even just having a strong enough light come on for 20 minutes in the middle of the night can cause the orchid to get confused. I think 20 minutes might not be too bad but 2 hours in the middle of the night would be detrimental. What it would do is break up the dark cycle the orchid receives at night. The orchid can tell how many light hours it gets by counting the dark hours. So in winter getting something like 10 hours of light would mean 14 hours of darkness. If a light comes on during this time the plant counts the dark period as being shorter then it should be and it might confuse the orchid to think it is spring sooner than it is. Now this will not necesarily be detrimental. It just tricks the orchid. If however the orchid thinks its spring and thus activates new growth but it is in fact still winter and thus new growth gets too cold that could be detrimental to the orchid. Otherwise I personally believe it is fine to accidentally give an orchid more light over winter, the worst that would happen is it skips flowering.
But as mentioned if it negateively affects the growth cycle then one should for example not keep it too cold over winter.
One thing I think new rochid growers don't gasp to start with is that optimal growing conditions are never detrimental to any orchid. Otimal growing conditions are between 18 c and 26 degrees C. I am fairly sure except maybe a few rare cloudfgorrest orchids any orchid will thrive in this temperature range.
Some can handle morem some can handle less.
But for these specifically it is not the end of the world to not provide the lowest temperatures they can survive in nature....
The concept to stress an orchid to get it to flower is counterintuitive and it is plain wrong. Many might believe it. Many times it has been disproven as a myth. You do not want to think how to stress an orchid as much as possible. That should never be a growers approach.
Provide optimal temperatures if you can, this will always be beneficial to trying to stress it.
So some might say they need these low temperatures. I can safely say they do not. Lower temps might help marginally but it's not like they will never flower for people in slightly warmer climates.
Anyway to get a walkeriana to flower you would need to keep it covered in winter if the light will interefere with its natural light hours too much. If you don't cover it and wait for a flower spike the spike would possibly just never appear.
But then again I feel like this has gone off far too much into theory and hypothesis again from people struggling with their walkeriana's instead of getting solid advice from a successful walkeriana grower.
Wishful thinking on an online forum sometimes.
The reason a growth would abort 6 times in a row for example would have absolutely ntohing to do with light.
One can of course speculate that it was.
The most likely reason growths would abort 6 times in a row or why one orchid from a country might seem much stronger than from another country is usually down to an unnoticed pest. Usually a tiny mite or even thrips.
To think one would spot them is wishful thinking most of the time. Took me years to realize this myself. You do not wait to see the mites or the thrips. You observe the plants and what it is trying to tell you.
If it aborts it's flowers and they dry up to brown blasted buds many times it is insects related.
Again I know how popular it is to have people speculate on forums how it might be banana gasses or ethylene gasses or cooking gasses or other gassses responsible but the truth is many times it's just pests.
Would the orchid community ever really know for sure why some buds on someones plant blasted? No...
So I am here to point it out. Many people can make a theory or create a myth, like "this particular species hates getting repotted" also a favorite, with pretty much any species inserted into that statement.
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