Cattleya trianae 'Waldemar Silva'

[cb977]

Mauro, as always, your orchids have me drooling!

I love them even more when you add the background information...thanks for the education

[Rosim_in_BR]

Originally Posted by smweaver

Mauro, that's simply beyond beautiful. So what is the outcome after this plant goes to a show? Is it actually allowed in as trianae, or does it get forced over to the hybrid area for judging? I've heard the same argument you mentioned applied to Euanthe sanderiana. It's hard to tell the difference between some of its hybrids and some of the line-bred species plants.

By the way, would you mind providing some indication of your growing conditions, especially in regards to the light levels that your cattleyas and laelias receive. Do they get direct light during the day, and if so, how many hours?

Steve

Steve, sometimes it is allowed in as trianae, some other times it is forced into the hybrid category, depending a little on who is judging, and at least one time I saw judges simply and deliberately ignore it under the argument that they were not able to say whether it was a species or a hybrid (can you believe this ????!!!!). I know that there's a bunch of plants in the same situation, unfortunately.

As for my growing conditions, especially the light condition, it is a little difficult for me to precisely describe or give you an accurate idea because I don't have any instruments to correctly measure the levels (I mean, I never thought I needed one ).
To give you an idea of my grh, it is entirely protected by shade cloth that cuts 50% of the natural light and I also have a cover made of transparent plastic film. I'd say that the plastic and the shade cloth together cut around 55%. This works well from May to September (mid fall to mid spring more or less). During this time the sun deeply inclines reducing significantly the light level and the duration of the day, so cutting 50-55% is enough. During these months the sides are also covered with transparent plastic film to protect against the cold waves. But, during summer -actually October-April - the light level is huge, really intense. So intense that I need to put extra protection to something around 65-70%.
I do not allow my plants to get any direct light. The light is always coated by the shade cloth - direct sunlight here can severely burn leaves and pseudo bulbs.

Sorry if I can’t be of much help, but if you need any further info, just let me know.

[Don Perusse]

Steve - I see you live in INd. I live in SW Georgia and my conditions are just about like Mauro. Poly opaque plastic covering w/shade cloth year around and a second shade cloth during the summer months. Except his winter is our summer and vice versa. High light but never direct sun. I have about 75-80 Cats or Cat crosses which I am sure is a lesser amount than Mauro. How do you grow yours? I don't have the years experience as Mauro but my orchids do very well.

[Peter NL]

Mauro,
Looks SURE a C. trianae to me! And indeed a beautiful one!Some trianae can be of beautiful shape. Have some of those too.
Beautiful specimen this is!
and ...i am an Orchid judge too! :-)

Regards!
Peter

[smweaver]

Thank you, Mauro. That was actually a lot of help. It's always helpful to find out how other growers raise their plants.

Don, while I don't have a greenhouse, I do have a large south-facing sunroom where the orchids spend the winter. It's completely unshaded and gets lots of light--so much so that I have to limit what I grow to plants that tend to like a lot of light (no phalaenopsis or paphiopedilum species, unfortunately). Between late spring and early fall, all of the orchids go outside and spend those months on my southeast-facing porch, where, over the course of a few weeks, they get acclimated to handling direct sun between around 7:00 A.M. and noon--or at least that's what they were getting before one of my neighbor's tall trees was damaged late last fall and he had to have it removed from his yard. That tree had provided a nice degree of shading between noon and 4:00 P.M. during the warmest part of the day. Now that it's gone I'm finding that the sun remains on my plants until around 2:30 P.M., which I'm pretty sure is approaching the danger zone as far as how much light the plants should be subjected to. So I might end up having to move many of the orchids back under the eaves of the porch in order to give them some protection after noon. I'm sure that our summer light levels are nowhere near what they are in Mauro's area, but between the high humidity, warm temperatures and sunshine, it usually feels like Singapore here during the main growing season. So right now I'm trying to figure out just how much sunshine my cattleyas can handle (again, assuming that they're slowly acclimated to the higher light levels). The only catt' species that I've personally found to be less happy in the direct sunshine--even the early-morning light--are dowiana and mossiae. C. leuddemanniana and L. purpurata seem to like all of the bright light just fine. The real oddball is C. labiata. I have a labiata alba that does very nicely in higher light levels. But I don't think that the labiata rubra enjoys that much light (its leaves tend to start getting pink-purple color if I put it in the same light as the alba plant gets). So apparently I now need to experiment a bit to see which plant will react favorably to the higher levels of summer light and which will need to be better protected (which was why, Mauro, I had asked you about your light levels in Brazil).

Steve

[Rosim_in_BR]

Originally Posted by smweaver

Thank you, Mauro. That was actually a lot of help. It's always helpful to find out how other growers raise their plants.

....The real oddball is C. labiata. I have a labiata alba that does very nicely in higher light levels. But I don't think that the labiata rubra enjoys that much light (its leaves tend to start getting pink-purple color if I put it in the same light as the alba plant gets)......

Steve

Steve, don't worry about the pink-purple color on the leaves of C. labiata rubra. This coloration is characteristic of this variety; the flowers are much darker than the type, the plant also has a lot of purple and it is not really a problem leaving it in the sun together with the alba. Cattleya labiata, although mainly an epiphyte, also grows as rupicolous in the State of Ceara, many of them in full sun (almost under the line of the Equator!). In such situation the plants are shorter, the leaves erect and showing a higher amount of purple.

[Roly0217]

Make this one lavander istead of light pink and it's the exact replica of the one that I'm looking for. It gorgeous anyways. That lip is amazing. Beautiful pictures

[Orchidflowerchild]

Originally Posted by smweaver

The real oddball is C. labiata. I have a labiata alba that does very nicely in higher light levels. But I don't think that the labiata rubra enjoys that much light (its leaves tend to start getting pink-purple color if I put it in the same light as the alba plant gets). So apparently I now need to experiment a bit to see which plant will react favorably to the higher levels of summer light and which will need to be better protected

Well, rubra means that you have a very dark lavendar/purple labiata. In optimal light, a plant with that much anthocyanin pigmentation *should* have a little purple to it. The red pigmentation in the leaves is nto a bad thing, just an adaptation to relatively high light levels. As long as your leaves aren't burning, it's no big deal.

-Cj

[Tindomul]

Very beautiful. I wonder if anyone has done any back crossing to try and settle the matter once and for all.