Phalaenopsis bud drop

[rcorchid]

I have a problem perplexing me. I've grown orchids for over 20 years and Phals have always been a problem for me. In this case, I am growing some phals in my bathroom under grow lights. I have one NOID phal I bought a year ago while it was in bloom and bud, had no issues with it. It had one flower spike. This year it grew two spikes, and every bud blasted as they grew. I have another orchid I just received by mail order about two months ago and it had two spikes on it. All of those buds dropped except for one, which bloomed. To confuse things, I have a third phal I bought at the grocery store about a month ago, in bloom and bud, and it has been totally fine, all the buds are blooming, none have dropped. The bathroom is small and stays a pretty constant temperature, but the heat vent is across from them, maybe 6 ft. away. I don't physically feel the air coming out of the vent and blowing on me when I'm in there. I can't figure this one out.

[Ray]

The most common reasons for "bud blast" include:

• insufficient humidity
• a blast of warm dry air
• a sudden chill
• mites
• direct sunlight
• ethylene gas in the air, whether it be from a gas flame or ripening fruit.

[Dimples]

Ray gave you solid info. However, excluding the mail ordered plant that dropped its buds (not an uncommon result of shipping), the fact that the recently acquired phal hasn’t dropped buds/blooms but the one that has been under your care for a year +/- did, that could suggest the bud blast has something to do with your care routine. Do you fertilize? If so, with what and how often? What’s the watering routine? What are they planted in? Etc.

[rcorchid]

Thanks for both of your replies as it has made me give it more thought. I don't think it has anything to do with the media as the phal. I've had for a year was planted in a "phal bark media", eg., small to med fir bark mix with perlite and charcoal, while the mail order plant is planted in spag. moss. One possibility is I let them get a little too dry, the other is that I was fertilizing them with a bloom-booster formulation that I made primarily for my African Violets, so that may have been too strong. I've since switched to my regular watering routine of not letting them get so dry and I water most all of my orchids with a standard orchid fertilizer at 1/4 strength each watering. I also shut off the heating vent in the bathroom, as the room is pretty small and doesn't need it. I'll see if all of this helps as I have a new phal in the bathroom also, with 3 flower spikes (!) and I'll see what happens there. But at the first sign of bud blast there I'm moving it out to the greenhouse! I've had no problem in there!

[estación seca]

Given that information, I would suspect getting too dry or too cold, or the sudden change in temperature.