Fredclarkeara After Dark 'sunset valley'
 

I split my Fdk into 3 earlier this year. 2 bulbs survived and as you can see from the photo are doing well. Yep - all those leaves at the end of October ! They are in the bathtub for a size comparison. The leaf damage is from slugs while they were outdoors.
I was fortunate to take part in a AOS webinar given by Fred and asked the question - do I force these into dormancy ? He basically said yes - all cats require a dormant period regardless of any leaf growth at the time. So for all the Northern Hemisphere growers - stop watering and fertilising by/on Xmas Day. Usually the plants naturally go dormant by Thanksgiving anyway....
BTW - plants can bloom while dormant. If that happens, do not water !
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Very well grown and thanks for letting us know about Fred's dormancy advice!

Thanks for the info.

Very nice looking plants! I hope you'll get some blooms soon.
Thanks for the growing tip. I want to start growing some Catasetinae (though never got around to buying any), so I'll note this down with the other tips I got.

Watch the aos webinar if you can. I did and now I am hooked. There is an incredible variety of cats and the webinar has lots of pictures too. Needless to say I placed an order for more!

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Catasetum Dormancy
 

I mildly disagree with the notion that you should force your Catasetums into dormancy. Especially the FDK's. Most Fdk's. bloom in the late fall and winter where I live in Houston. Continue to water as long as the leaves remain green and do not start to turn yellow. The bloom spike will be more robust if it has plenty of water and nutrients, as long as the leaves are solid green. After the blooms open up, at this point, greatly reduce the watering or stop all together. My Fdk's. often bloom in January. I have quite a few Fdk's. that have already lost their leaves and will probably spike soon. Of course I do not water these. One rule does not fit all. Let your plants tell you when to stop watering. I have two clones of Ctsm. incurvum that loses their leaves in the summer and blooms in December on new growth that starts in the summer. I water them all winter long. I have several clones of Ctsm. discolor that does not loose their leaves until early spring. I water them all winter as well.

As day length shortens, the natural process of dormancy should trigger and leaves should yellow. Mine are still not showing any signs of dormancy - but he did say, yes in a general statement, that Xmas Day is the sort of d-day. This applies to window-sill and growers under lights as the latter should be reducing the time that the lights are on as we head into Winter.
The presentation had numerous photos of cats in Nature that were in a dormant state, regardless of the media.
Experts can give guidelines and offer up personal experience. If you have different, better, results in your growing environment, then obviously you stick to what you know best. I am going to follow his advice this year and weigh up the results.

Interesting info, thanks for sharing

the one pot is in double spike and leaves still looking good. The other - losing leaves, no sign of spike. They are right next to each other on the plant stand and treated the same, so the differences are noticeable.
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in bloom, sweetly scented. I stopped watering it at the end Dec and flowers are perfect.
The other plant, much larger, is fully dormant and didn't spike. Weird.
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