Fruits and Orchids

Hello,
someone at the orchid exposotion said to me not to eat apples and other types of fruits around flowering orchids, for they may drop the buds and flowers. I tried to asked my bio-chemistry teacher, but she wouldn't understand why orchids would react to fruits this way.
Is there a real threat to the orchids? If so, may someone provide the link to the study about it.
I know that ripe apples produce ethylene which may harm probably some orchids' flowers. Please, if you come up with some explanation on this subject, let me know.
Thank you

 

Plants use ethylene (C2H4) as a hormone. It can be used by a plant in various ways: one of these is stimulation of leaf and fruit abscission, which may be what happens with orchids.

Try this:
http://www.plant-hormones.info/ethylene.htm

I dunno...I eat apples just about every day right next to 8-10 of my orchids, and most of 'em are getting ready to bloom! Maybe if you put a bushel basket of semi-rotting apples in a small unventilated room with your orchids, that would have an effect. Seems like there are big questions here of quantity: how many apples, how much gas, how big an effect?

Hope any of this helps, Lara!---and Merry Christmas to you.

 

Togata 57, thanks for answering!
Merry Christmas to you too!

 

I think that the threat of buds blasting or flowers dropping prematurely is a possiblity if a sufficient amounts of ripening fruit was stored close to orchid blooms. I can't see eating fruit in the general vicinity having any effect.


Shaun

 

Thanks, Shaun for replying! That is what I thought. I don't think fruits can hurt orchids. Thanks for confirming it!

 

Sounds like a great science fair project for a middle-school student.

 

Daniel Mosquin, if you have nothing useful to say you should just ignore my post. If you that smart what are you doing here, obviously not helping. I always thought this forum has an educational purpose and your sarcasm is very rude.

 

Huh? I was being honest and straightforward -- and sarcasm from me with people I don't know is exceptionally rare.

It _would_ be a great science fair project to test the effects of ethylene on flowering orchids (as togata57 noted: "Seems like there are big questions here of quantity: how many apples, how much gas, how big an effect?") -- something that I wish I had thought of when I was going to school.

 

I think that would be an excellent project, with the possibility of many variations (ie bananas or tomatoes as the fruit). I have experienced bud blast on a Phalaenopsis spike that I blamed on ripening bananas at the time (looking back my culture was a more likely suspect).

Shaun