Forcing blooms...
 

I have read about forcing blooms on phals. I was wondering if it were possible to force catts. to bloom as well. I have heard of commercial cut flowers produced this way, but can't find any info on it anywhere. Has anyone tried this or acheived this without stressing the plant?

I'd like to know some tricks too, I just want the blooms to open in time for show and tell. Seems my blooms open a day late and a bud short. LOL

they force blooms on phals by dropping the temps to 55 degrees day and night for 2+ weeks on mature plants. Catts shut down and become dormant in low temps. Catts blooms take much longer to develop than a phal spike and bloom. I dont see anyhow to short circuit a Catt bec what ever you do with it besides grow, they either become dormant or die.

show and tell heh mine do the same..we have our summer workshop this week and I been babysitting 6 catt sheaths on 3 plants for months and months.They aint doing nothing but looking back at me ;)..I have only had 1 catt bloom all year so far. They are just getting to be FATT CATTS

Ar - forcing without stressing? How that?
With Cattleya it depends on the species; shorter days can induce flowering in some of them, providing you have mature and healthy plants. Some need a decided dry rest before blooming, so this time you will have to give them.
By slowly changing all growing factors you can change the flowering time - but there will be still a flowering period, a resting period and a growing period.

Fer

Commercial "forcing" of Cattleyas has been done not to force them to bloom out of season, but to time blooming to have maximum flowers available for the two big spring holidays, Easter and Mother's Day. To do that requires a photoperiod-sensitive ("short-day") plant to begin with. Then, by shading the plants to shorten day length, a crop can be available at a particular time.

there ya go you guys said it..you still have to wait for the process and you aren't going to short circuit that waiting period.:) You can change the dates but you cant change the amount of time it take to actually produce the bloom.

Great information. Thank you all for clearing that up for me.

Yamamoto does the same type of thing with his nobile type Dens, with him it's just a matter of a cooling period. he can space out blooming every six weeks.