My Cattleya leaves yellowing

[Kamanax]

Im new to orchids and bought this Catt at an orchid sale here in Jamaica. the newer growth seem to be having issues as the leaves are yellowing, is it sun burn or something else. the plant is kept outside where it gets light but no full sun as the side of the house is in full shad this time of year.

[jsehorn]

Are you sure that is the new growth with the yellowing leaves? Looks to me like the larger, healthy looking growths are newer. If the plant is young, the older growths will be smaller, and each new growth will be larger than the previous growth until the plant reaches maturity and the size of the growths stabilizes. The rest of the plant seems healthy, and although it is hard to diagnose a problem from a picture, it could just be that the oldest growths are shedding their leaves because of age.

[orchids4me]

Originally Posted by jsehorn

Are you sure that is the new growth with the yellowing leaves? Looks to me like the larger, healthy looking growths are newer. If the plant is young, the older growths will be smaller, and each new growth will be larger than the previous growth until the plant reaches maturity and the size of the growths stabilizes. The rest of the plant seems healthy, and although it is hard to diagnose a problem from a picture, it could just be that the oldest growths are shedding their leaves because of age.

I agree, I see the same thing going on here... Also appears those yellowing leave where to deep down in the media ther. The rest of the growths look fine, the yellowing leaves are going to drop off. Just keep eye on the other growths, right now they look fine and healthy.

[digitalgate]

I think u could have put too much fertilizer .

[Orchidchick]

Hi Kamanax, and to the forum. Have you repotted this orchid yet? I would want to take a peek at the roots if I were you just in case. Also there are some great orchid care links and threads on this forum. Here is one of them that might be helpful: Cattleya Culture notes I hope you don't find any real issues. Happy growing.

[FLBob]

Looks like the leaves on the back bulbs are dying off. Since it appears that the leaves started to die off from the tips my first guess is that the issue is salts either from fertilizing or the change in water.

[Kamanax]

I potted it myself with little to no experience. The place I bought it was having a big sale on orchids and so all except the phals and oncs were laying in boxes without pots. Maybe I did over fertilize them, difficult accepting the less is more culture for orchids. All the advice has gone a great way to calming my anxieties with my Catt tho. Really appreciate it.

[11Orchid126]

I agree with emmaye, the plant may be potted too deeply. The rhyzome should be just sitting half in and half out of the medium. If it is too deep, just scoop the medium away from the rhyzome.

Digitalgate and FLBob may have a point about fertilizer salts and water. Do you use a water softener?

[Kamanax]

I decided to look to repot it as you guys have indicated, the first small bulb was being covered. I discovered that the roots look pretty bad, or so it seems. i trimmed off what i caould tell to be the worst of them and repotted it. pictures should show this.

[syndywindy]

I agree with what has been mentioned already. Looks like the back pb's leaves dying off. Looks better with the repot and the pb's not buried under the medium. Were the roots to those pb's rotted? If so, cut off any that are and a bit of cinnamon on the ends of what you cut and you should be fine. The others from what I can see look good.