Waiting patiently for bud to open

[CR7cristiano]

Possibly....although wet blooms can be from watering and water settling between opening buds. And anyone that knows about catts knows that when blooms eventually fade they get really moist and even when you are clipping off old blooms the amount of liquid coming from the stems are kinda gross at times. lol Unless you wait till it dries up and falls off on its own. I don't, because they smell terrible when they are fading; especially fragrant ones.
So any fading or rotting blooms will be wet.

[silken]

Originally Posted by SJF

another shot

It's a lovely bloom!

[SJF]

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

The flower is so pretty! I like the color.
You don't really need loops to look at most bugs. Even thrips, they are quite small, but if you can see small aphids, then you can see them too and actually easier to spot since thrips move around.
Also, as I mentioned in my earlier post, thrips leaves very distinct damage, tissue scar, not this brown/wet bud drop.

I'm with James that something environmental factor like air (but then again, unless you have crazy draft or other plants in buds are affected in the similar fashion, this probably isn't the cause either).
Physiological maybe.
Watch for this plant and see what happens next time it set buds.
Plants can do crazy things sometimes.

I am trying to think what I could have done wrong. I guess I could test it for viral issues too. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I watered it with fish emulsion on accident when watering my non blooming orchids. Could that do it?

---------- Post added at 11:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 AM ----------

Originally Posted by CR7cristiano

Possibly....although wet blooms can be from watering and water settling between opening buds. And anyone that knows about catts knows that when blooms eventually fade they get really moist and even when you are clipping off old blooms the amount of liquid coming from the stems are kinda gross at times. lol Unless you wait till it dries up and falls off on its own. I don't, because they smell terrible when they are fading; especially fragrant ones.
So any fading or rotting blooms will be wet.

Thank you. I wish I could have seen the blooms

[CR7cristiano]

lol...that could do it too. Isn't that fertilizer made from fish oils etc? Isn't that something you use to fertilize lawns & leafy vegetables? Very high in Nitrogen; i'm not sure if applying that alot and directly getting on blooms would cause burning etc.
Prob not a good idea for orchids in any instance.

[SJF]

Originally Posted by CR7cristiano

lol...that could do it too. Isn't that fertilizer made from fish oils etc? Isn't that something you use to fertilize lawns & leafy vegetables? Very high in Nitrogen; i'm not sure if applying that alot and directly getting on blooms would cause burning etc.
Prob not a good idea for orchids in any instance.

I only water the media when I water my plants since I grow in my home

[NYCorchidman]

Most of my cattleyas drop brown and wet when flowers are done with their life. Some of them do dry out some on the edge, but mostly wet and drop.

Fertilizer burn on cattleya flowers that I've seen looked very subtle. hard to describe, but small area that appear look dry and darker, appearing toward the edge of the petals.
As in leaf burn due to too much salts seen in some oncidium types where leaf tips are dry and very dark.

Premature death of buds could also be due to virus as you suspect.

[CR7cristiano]

So just to recap:
Significant fish emulsion could settle on buds and cause rot but water is applied directly to medium.
Plant's location is not lacking as similar plants rest in same area and closely set orchids provide an environment for themselves with fairly gd humidity.
Pests are undetermined as unnoticed insects can be disguised as bud drop.
If the orchid has a virus, only testing will determine and orchid won't always show physical sign of virus.

If I was to narrow it down to two things it would be insects/fungus or a virus.
That's just me anyway. NYorchid reminded me that viruses exist in orchids; sometimes w/o cure.

[james mickelso]

I have some noid LC's and blc's that did the same thing. Flower buds grew and just as they matured they turned color and rotted. I found the cause and it was in the media. Down in the pot it was staying too wet. I went to a LARGER MEDIA AND IT HASN'T HAPPENED SINCE. I'd bet on it. This isn't thrips as they poke small holes in the flower petals and they in turn become brown or black flecks. This can also happen in sheath. Too much moisture within the sheath which condenses as water droplets and rots the flower buds. from the inside. Betcha. I also cut off the ends of my sheaths so this doesn't happen. I just lost Marie's song and when I repotted, the center under the roots was still wet even after 7 days with no water. Black plastic pot. 4 inch. I've started burning slits in all my plastic pots along with the coarsers mix. In my experience this was caused by being too wet when the flowers were in bud. Try and remember that flowering in catts in their natural envirnment usually occurs during the dry season when their flying pollinators are about. During the rainy season their pollinators are all worms and caterpillars. I slow my watering down quite a bit when the flowers buds start coming along. Just enough to keep the leaves turgid.The pbulbs if grown correctly have more than enough stored energy to push flowers to maturity.

[CR7cristiano]

I forgot to mention that actually, to check in the media after several days to see how wet it remained after a watering. Cattleyas HATE wet feet, they do not tolerate it at all really. I thought about it while dividing & repotting in 3 separate pots a Lc. Mildred Rives 'Orchidglade' yesterday evening. new root growth on all 3 divisions thankfully. I usually start with really coarse charcoal and a little coarse gravel (stones) and then i cover the roots & rizome with a bark, coal, peat, and lava rock; this way i get great drainage. My Catts seem to love it; roots take up the pot in no time. Of course remember to pot in the right size pot that isnt too big where the Catt has to spend alot of time establishing a root system. I pot in a pot just big enough for a year worth of growth so i can transfer to a larger pot without much disturbance to the roots and just pack the extra space with medium. P.s. this is if the catt has not been repotted for some time and roots need to be cut back.
Check your ROOTS!

[james mickelso]

You don't want to go too long without repotting no matter how good the media remains. To allow the orchid to overgrow it's pot is tantamount to losing at least a years worth of flowers. The media here is in very good condition. The plant is just a very vigorous grower and filled this in two seasons. Here's a case in point.....