Dents on pouches

[Morja]

Anyone know what causes pouch dents? My phrag Eric Young has bloomed consistently with bilateral pouch dents for its first blooming, except for now! On its 4th flower of that same sheath it finally has a pouch that is decently smooth. Is it a first bloom thing, humidity/water, temps? Or maybe nobody knows! I just got curious because it was varying within the same sheath after 3 dented flowers.

Pic from today!
And an earlier bloom from this sheath:

 

[mrhappyrotter]

I have some Phrags whose flowers do things like this pretty consistently, so it makes me think there's a genetic component to it in some cases.

On the other hand, I sometimes notice an uptick in various random deformities whenever I mess up and don't keep conditions stable (ex: accidentally let a tub dry out), so I assume sometimes it's environmental in cause.

Are you providing stable conditions and consistent water? Even a brief lapse during a critical stage of development might be enough. Hard to say, though.

 

[Morja]

I have some Phrags whose flowers do things like this pretty consistently, so it makes me think there's a genetic component to it in some cases.

On the other hand, I sometimes notice an uptick in various random deformities whenever I mess up and don't keep conditions stable (ex: accidentally let a tub dry out), so I assume sometimes it's environmental in cause.

Are you providing stable conditions and consistent water? Even a brief lapse during a critical stage of development might be enough. Hard to say, though.

Thank you for your insights! Well, this sheath was forming as I was getting rid of thrips in my collection. It was the only phrag sheath out of the 3 I had coming that made it. So, that probably explains it! My collection's new shelf has also hit 80 degrees a few times while I figure out air circulation and heating our house with finicky baseboard heaters. I've tried to stay on top of watering frequently to counter this, but it could have dried out once due to the higher temps.

 

[big923cattleya]

I don’t think heat or light has anything to do with dents in a pouch. Funky colors, brown flower segments, premature wilting of flowers might be heat or stress related.
To me a dent in a pouch could be mechanical damage, insect damage, like an egg laying female insect of some kind, puncturing or denting the pouch. Or a sucking insect like an aphid piercing and sucking the juice out of a bud or pouch in this instance.

 

[Ray]

There are probably a number of factors, but how about hydrostatic pressure?

The plant must “pump” water into all segments to get them to inflate properly after being compressed in a bud. I imagine that there are several factors that affect that, the most important being the external supply and the plant’s ability to take it up at a sufficient rate. Then there’s the water loss side of the balance - insufficient humidity leads to high transpiration losses, lowering the pressure.