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Orchid Bud Blast:What to do When Orchid Buds Shrivel and Fall?
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Oct 3, 2024
New orchid buds are a sign of congratulatory reward. You’ve taken care of your orchid for almost a year and a flower spike emerged. As a newly “expectant” orchid hobbyist, you anticipate with great joy the new orchid blossom with all its bright and exotic colors. It’s finally time to sit back and enjoy your hard work. orchid buds "Orchid 20/10/04" by Peter is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 New buds appear, and you’re even more overcome with joy. Not that orchids are a lot of work or high maintenance, but all the investment you’ve done in proper care is now going to pay off. From the blue, the first orchid bud turns yellow, shrivels up, dies, and falls off. Not only does it stop growing, but it just gives up on life—without any signals. No warning signs, no hints demanding changes, nothing… Then the second orchid bud wilts, dying without reason. In panic, you don’t know what to do. This is called bud blast. What causes bud blast in orchids? Bud blast in orchids occurs when abrupt changes in the environment are too harsh for the orchid to adjust to, so the orchid withdrawals the blossom growth to preserve energy. These changes can be in temperature, lighting, humidity, watering, surroundings, or even insects. To salvage the rest of the buds from blasting, you need to identify what the cause is and treat it soon. At this stage you can prevent the other orchid buds not blooming and just dying if you are quick to diagnose what the orchid is reacting to and fix it. Before you identify the problem, think back to how you were caring for your orchid. In those conditions, the orchid had enough nutrients to produce a flower spike. The lighting was sufficient to grow this spike enough to produce the first buds. The watering was adequate for other buds to develop.
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0:00
One of the best things about orchid is not really when you bring home that first orchid
0:06
It's actually when you get that orchid to re-bloom under your care
0:11
One of the worst things that can happen at this state is what we call a bud blast
0:17
Because you've kept this orchid alive and healthy all year long. You've provided it with great care
0:23
It's doing wonderful under your care. And then all of a sudden, right before it opens, these little buds
0:30
will shrivel up, they'll turn a darker color, no matter some are green, some are purple
0:34
If they're green, they'll turn darker green more towards a brown. If they're pink, they'll turn
0:40
a purply color and then they'll just wilt and drop off. This is what we call bud blast. And in
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this video, I'm going to give you reasons why that happens. And unfortunately, there's nothing
0:53
to do after it happens to recuperate it back to health. You've lost that. But, but
0:59
but there are things you can do in the future to prevent this from happening again
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Hi, I'm Amanda Matthews and thank you for watching this video here with me at Orchidaria
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Now, I'll tell you the why this happens first before I go into the reasons
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because when you understand the cause, the reactions are easily identified. So the cause of Bud Blast is
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I have to hold an orchid, because if not, all these kinds of hand movements and I get very distracted so I have to hold an orchid
1:37
What causes bud blast is an extreme change in the environment at a quick rate. Something happened
1:45
drastically. It didn't occur over time because after all your orchid was fine and healthy enough
1:53
to produce that flower spike. It had enough energy and water and nutrients and sunlight to
1:59
produce that entire spike and it was healthy, but all of a sudden the orchid like changed its mind
2:06
I know these aren't terms that orchid actually does, but the orchid decided that it would be
2:12
too costly for the entire plant to maintain this butt. Now the blossom on the orchid is what
2:20
really uses up all that energy to produce this flower spike, to keep this bud open, to produce those
2:26
seeds to attract this pollinator, to produce this scent, all of these things are extremely high
2:33
energy demanding. The orchid will sense to keep this bud alive. I'm going to have to invest so much
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energy. And under these circumstances that just changed drastically all of a sudden, I can't keep
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this butt open. I'm going to sacrifice the bud to keep the plant alive. That's how that's the reasoning
2:52
behind the blood blast. Now, what happened drastically in your care that caused this bud to blast
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That's where we go digging for the answers. The first reason is a chemical imbalance in the
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environment. Now, by a chemical imbalance, I mean things like if we just painted a room and we got all
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excited and put our furniture up in there and then we put our orchids in there and the room is just
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beautiful ready go maybe the paint is a little still a little bit wet to the touch well that paint smell is actually the chemicals and to the plant they can be extremely toxic Paint isn the only reason this occurs
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This also can occur like in a bathroom. If you use a lot of hair spray, if you use acetone to clean your fingernail polish off
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if you have perfume that is very strong or even light perfumes, they can have chemicals that
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are toxic to the plant. The second and most common reason for Bud Blast is a temperature change
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When I mean temperature change, I'm not talking about the morning to night change
4:03
where it should drop about 10 degrees, either Celsius or Fahrenheit, but I'm talking about a drastic temperature change
4:10
Like you move this orchid to a place where you thought was beautiful in your living room
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but right next to it there is a heat vent or an air conditioner vent
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and that dry air with extremely high temperatures, which is just unnatural for the orchid will shock that orchid into thinking
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I can't live here. I need to work on some other method. I'm going to give up on the process of
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the blossoms and work this out until I can sustain myself in this place. Another reason for
4:41
a temperature drop is if you ordered your orchids online in winter and in bud. Now
4:50
that is very, very risky. I know we all get the winter. or blue sometimes, but try to restrain from ordering orchids online during winter because that
4:59
transport process first is probably going to be a round a week, depending on where you live
5:06
inside a closed box with no sun whatsoever, no light, and that takes a hit already. The humidity
5:15
some growers, please growers, don't do this. They will soak the orchid. They will over
5:23
Oversoked this media so it doesn't dry out over time inside the transport, but what you get out on the other side when you unpack that is just horrible roots because they've been in this container where they can't have air flow or they can't get rid of that extra water and that water just sits around the roots for the entire week. And the orchid is not an active growth during this time because there's no sun so it's not doing anything with the energy. It's just sitting there. If you are
5:53
have had luck opening orchids when you got them in bud online. And then all of a sudden
6:00
you get this orchid, poor little orchid, it needs some light, and you put it right on the shelf
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under the light directly. So the orchid has now gone from total blackness to tons of light
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Now I have to produce a sunscreen to protect myself from all this light. So I can't keep the
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bud production and produce these what we call purple spots, which is the natural sunscreen
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And I think it's called anthocyanin. I have to check that. But it's written down here
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We'll always choose the leaves and roots over the buds always. Because buds are temporary
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They come and they go. Leaves are less temporary, but they are life sustaining and roots
6:47
I mean, they need those roots. So if the orchids senses any of these changes around it and it a threat it will give up on this bud project entirely And wait till next year The third reason that orchids will blast their buds and this can also happen with blossoms The blossom can actually be open and then all
7:11
the sudden fall off, but that's not what this video is about. This video is about bud blast
7:16
But the reasons are mainly the same, so they all apply. So the third reason is either
7:21
overwatering or underwatering. If you're overwatering, all this water will pool up inside the
7:28
orchid pot in the orchid media and your orchids not being able to breathe. So it's really
7:34
really hurting. Can't give off this excess water. So the orchid is going to try to stabilize that
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situation first before it continues to keep these buds open or continue to develop these buds
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so they're fully open. Another reason that orchids will blast is because all of a sudden they're not
7:58
getting enough light or they're getting too much light and this can go with light and heat also
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For example, in Katelya's case, like these up here on the top shelf, not this one, like these from here
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over, they need more light than a phalanopsis orchids do. And if they don't get that light
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sometimes they can produce that suitable and then the leaf will open and then the flowers
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the sheath will start but then all of a sudden it gives up and it could be that it's getting enough
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light but it's too much heat so if your light system is producing heat along with light
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maybe it might be a good idea to change out that light system to one that doesn't produce heat now
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if you want a video on it's a little longer but it i explained the differences between the types of light
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because just because I have one, I'm not going to recommend it
9:00
I want you to find one that fits your environment. So you can go to this video up here to check out light requirements
9:07
And some of these bulbs do produce quite a lot of heat
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And you're paying for that too. Let's say you have a phalanosis and put it in a window that gets afternoon sun
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But it's not the sun directly. You've put it in a place where it's not getting direct sun raised
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So you're thinking, okay, I'm fine. But what about that? heat, you know, keep a thermometer by it in the afternoon to see how high that heat actually
9:31
goes up to make sure that you're not baking your orchid. When I started this video, I said there
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were only three reasons. Obviously, I can't count. The next reason. I don't know what reason
9:46
this is, but number something is the lack of humidity. Let's say your, let's say your orchid was doing
9:55
wonderful and fine and perfect and then all of a sudden your humidifier broke or you stopped misting
10:01
but the humidity levels dropped now humidity is not the same thing as watering you can maintain your
10:08
watering cycle perfect but if that humidity changes the orchid will react in a negative way
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and this happens because the orchid bud uses a lot of water it is almost like pure
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pure moisture inside each little bud and it really needs all that moisture to keep it intact Now if the environment outside the bud is less than inside the bud um naturally the environment will pull out that humidity from the bud Don stop what you
10:45
doing. Remember the buds blast because something drastic stopped. And if you stopped missing
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or if you stopped your humidifier, or if you're, you moved it to a place where the relative
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humidity is less than where it was before, that bud cannot make
11:00
it because it's fighting first it's using a lot of energy to produce that bud, but then it's
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also fighting the relative humidity in the air that's just like, ooh, this is a nice place to get
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humidity from. So the environment just pulls that out of it. The next reason way more than
11:19
three is that your orchid could have bugs and insects and the bud is the number one preference
11:30
for insects because it's so tender. It's so delicious full of nutrients, full of water, full of
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moisture. It's just a buffet for these little insects. I do say pest and insects, but be careful also
11:46
with if your orchid is outside with squirrels. Now there are other pests too and I don't want to
11:54
call my cat a pest but if you're inside, be careful with household pets because
12:00
This is a perfect little circle that is nice to bat on and it just bubbles up and down perfect for cats to play with
12:09
Remember when I said that the orchid will blast because the conditions have changed
12:14
Well, think about this when you're repotting. The orchids need stability. In nature, it's going to be hanging on that tree for life
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It doesn't want to be repotted. It doesn't want to change the light. It doesn't want to change the humidity
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It's there. it's there to stay. It's determined. But when we repot it, we disturb this whole process
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the stability that it always had. So when you're repotting this orchid, that is also a big change in
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its environment. And some orchids that are more sensitive to repotting like symbidiums
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that will really set them back a little bit and it will take a few months to actually get used to
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this new potting media. That's why I don't recommend repotting when in bloom. Does it kill the orchid
13:07
No, it won't kill the orchid. Some I have repotted and they did absolutely fine. It's just the
13:13
orchid had extra energy and was determined to make it through this, this bump in its life. But other
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orchids don't. Other orchids are just struggling to survive the way it is. And if you repot it during
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this fragile time in its life, it will blast. If this video has provided any kind of useful information
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please give it a thumbs up. That just tells me what I can do more of or what I need to stay away from
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so I can make better videos for you in the future. I suggest two videos so you can identify better
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about your orchid care, and one is light requirements, which I mentioned in the middle of the video
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This other video is about humidity and if humidity trays work or not
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And the button in the middle is if you haven't subscribed and you want
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And I hope to see you in the comments below. Happy cultivating
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